Etain the Beloved and Other Poems Part 3

Then Eochaidh, lightly at light-seeming task, "And mine," he smiled, "whatever thou shalt ask!"

Matchless in skill, King Eochaidh moves elate ...

One moment ... then ... straight lip and slow-drawn breath Yield sullenly to sure on-coming fate.

Behind his eyes vast shapes of Life and Death Move hand to hand.... Soon ends the struggle--"Mate!"

The stranger calls.... King Eochaidh's boast is gone!

"The stake?" he vaguely asks.... "Thy wife, Etain."

Now like a spider wrapped in his own snare, The king turned to and fro to rend the spell Of ghastly loss. Pride stricken to despair Tugged at life's roof-tree. Round him ruining fell Puffed hopes and brittle joys that broke in air; And high desires, reined short in sight of goal, Stumbled to earth and snapped life's chariot-pole.

Then in that other's eye some glance revealed Faint pity.... "Nay, not this!" King Eochaidh cried.

"Take thou the treasures won on hard-fought field, Spoils of the furrow, tribute of the tide: These for thy forfeit here I freely yield; Not her whose smile makes festive life's poor crust, But lost would turn its glories into dust!"

The stranger calmly answered, "King, the bird Poised on a little trick within the brain, Soars sunward. Kings on honour's lightest word Unshaken, rear a realm that shall remain.

Snaps a small string: lo! all the song that stirred With beauty and joy, sinks like storm-swallowed s.h.i.+ps, And bards unborn harp a high-king's eclipse.

"But fear not thou. Thy fame shall feel no wind Of cold rebuke; for when these shadows lift, Thou in life's loss the Spirit's gain shalt find: Thou to thyself shalt give thine utmost gift; And know thou only hast what is resigned.

I go--but come on one clear-omened day, And thou shalt pay thy debt." He went away.

In that same hour the hungry nestling's cheep Floods Etain's drowsing ear with gentle woe.

Sleep stirred by waking, waking soothed by sleep, Around her heart in linking eddies flow; Till at some pa.s.sing wind that shakes the deep Of dream, she wakes with eyes that strain to see A haunting face behind life's mystery.

And in lone hours of many a moonless night, Through jetting poplars and the shooting snags Of wrinkled oaks, the king doth seek a light From his heart's questionings, whose purpose flags Before her face, lest in her eye's clear sight One thought of faithlessness a moment read Should bring to birth the thing he most doth dread.

VII

Strong in the strength that finds in gentleness A way to peace, King Eochaidh on the throne Of Erin sits. Around his footstool press High cares of sovereignty, that crowd his own Like gossips out of doors, and ease the stress Of storming thought which, held from question clear, Fears its mute doubt, yet vaguely doubts its fear.

In silent step, hushed pulse, and listening gaze, He marks expectancy behind her smile, Like some faint gleam from half-remembered days Ere the high G.o.ds had blown them to this isle Among inscrutable divided ways, Some hidden destiny to mar or make In hands as strong to give as quick to take.

Now to the king the hollow moments haste Across his heart to some heart-emptied hour: And now he frets to leap with sinews braced Through lagging days and meet the threatening power.

Yet from his conflict, inner lips now taste The mingled wine of sweet and bitter fate-- Strength to withstand, Endurance to await.

These not as gifts the shadowy troublers bear, But on his table spread what is his own.

So mused the king: "Not all from spade and share The harvest comes: seed to its fruit has grown, Self-shaped, though stirred by smart of sun and air; And in life's myriad hands beaten and pressed, Man is not made, but man made manifest."

So finding gain in threatened loss, his mind Self-poised, through sorrow and joy makes even way, Content if, toiling past, his fingers find Her fingers, and in trembling silence say, "Here in unstable circ.u.mstance entwined We two have kissed, and whither we may tend, Once mixed, must find each other at the end."

And she within her heart's most secret place Has nursed a thought that grew from day to day, Like wind-borne seed that on a rocky face Finds root and strength to shatter ancient sway, A thought of Love that chafes at time and s.p.a.ce, And moves from Love that was through Love to be To some exalted end no eye can see.

Yet nought of this was uttered each to each; But when, like forest monarchs strong and proud, A silver birch beside a sinewy beech, They stood at feast to hail the gathering crowd, Swift winds of joy came full of happy speech, And through the host light raptures laughed and played, Witless of yellowing leaf or sodden shade.

Then came a day when on the bare flag-stone The slow snail crawled; the chestnut's candles turned Downward as dead; the wolf-hound with a groan Gazed in King Eochaidh's eyes through eyes that burned Great threat; the spear-gra.s.s. .h.i.ther and thither blown Bent on the sand and traced its rings awry, And sun and moon slid sideways down the sky.

Swiftly to Eochaidh the dread omens tell The day of forfeiture; yet to Etain No word he speaks. Her eyes so softly well With wondrous beauty, all his heart is drawn In love to hold her from the coming spell.

Pushed past its hour, the unspoken doom may break, And love and honour stand without a shake.

On windy gap and boggy mountain path He sets his watchers. Knee-deep where the fists Of bracken fronds are clenched in tiny wrath, Stern guards now stand, and where in sculptured cists Old kings are harvested in Death's long swathe.

Closed from alarm the s.h.i.+ngled roofs now rise Ringed through the dark with flaming searching eyes.

The word has pa.s.sed, "The king shall have his whim: No stranger looks upon the queen to-night."

Around the feasting board men great of limb Shut fast each door, and blind the hope of sight With s.h.i.+ning s.h.i.+elds that turn the torches dim.

Throned firm in strength defying power or guile, He joys, and hopes--yet fears Etain's faint smile.

Now harp and song have touched their utmost height, And fall in sudden silence at a sound Deeper than sound, and pale before a light Clearer than light. Above, beneath, around, All heaven and earth are shaken with a might Past might, swift chariots clash, and mixed with these, Far thunderings and the roar of distant seas!

And in their midst is Mider, a s.h.i.+ning G.o.d From whose majestic presence swiftly spreads Peace not of earth. Before his face, unflawed By shadow of taint, brave warriors bow their heads.

And now the king, snapping his silver rod Of power, with sudden eyes made clear, with cheeks Flamed by swift vision, through the silence speaks.

"Now have I seen the s.h.i.+ning hand of Him Who sifts the world for His divine desire; And gathers, and within His quern's wide rim Grinds all things meet for His transforming fire, And kneads them to a purpose far and dim; Who fas.h.i.+ons all things to His growing plan, And breaks ... and moulds ... and breaks the heart of man.

"Take Thou Thy will--so it be her's?..." A hope Shoots a faint arrow instantly--no more.

A blinding fire falls from night's glimmering slope.

Flame-like the twain meet on the rushy floor-- And vanish. King and clansmen blindly grope Into cool air. Across the sky two swans Fly slowly toward the day that palely dawns.

POEMS AND LYRICS

DEATH AND LIFE

_To the memory of Eveleen Nicolls_

I

The long, dark slope is topped with mist, But here the sun is on the gra.s.s: Beneath, the sea-waves break, and twist Backward like snakes of molten gla.s.s.

Across an ancient sand-heaped wall The foot thro' graves forgotten goes, And stops where old, old voices call Thro' generations of repose.

But where a sorrow of to-day Has set a freshly-fas.h.i.+oned mound, A bird slides down his airy way And makes the silence ring with sound.

II

What gloom might now our spirits balk Fades out before that high reproof; And thro' the fabric of your talk Go light and shadow, warp and woof,

With something deeper than the word,-- Some stately cert.i.tude of faith Whose eye at Life had never blurred, Nor quivered at the eye of Death,

But saw, in that swift, woman's way, Thro' changings to the changeless Whole, And Life and Death as waves that sway Across the ocean of the Soul.

III

Then when the hill was lost in mist, And in the sea the sky was gla.s.sed, We wandered home in amethyst; And you upon the morrow pa.s.sed