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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
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DRAMATIC LEGENDS 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
By 
 
 Padraic Colum 
 
 Wild Earth 
 
 Moou THE Wanderer, or the Desert 
 
 The Adventures of Odysseus 
 
 AND THE Tale of Troy 
 The Golden Fleece 
 The Kino of Ireland's Son 
 The Children of Odin 
 The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said 
 The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes 
 The Boy Apprenticed to an Enchanter 
 The Children Who Followed the Piper 
 
DRAMATIC LEGENDS 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 By 
 PADRAIC COLUM 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1922 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
Printed in the United States of America. 
 
 COPTRIOBT, 1922, 
 
 Bt the macmillan company 
 
 Set up and printed. Published October, 1922. 
 
 CONDE NAST PRESS GREENWICH, CONN. 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 To M. C. M. C. 
 
 The well — 
 
 They come to it and take 
 
 Their cup-full or their palms-full out of it. 
 
 The well — 
 
 Stones are around it, and an elder bush 
 Is there; a high rowan tree; and so 
 The well is marked. 
 
 Who knows 
 
 Whence come the waters? Through what 
 
 passages 
 Beneath? From what high tors 
 Where forests are ? Forests dripping rain ! 
 Branches pouring to the ground; trunks, 
 
 barks, roots. 
 Letting the streamlets down: Through the 
 
 dark earth 
 The water flows, and in that secret flood 
 That's called a spring, that finds this little 
 
 hollow. 
 Who knows 
 Whence come the waters that fill cup and 
 
 palm? 
 
 Sweetheart and comrade, I give you 
 The waters' marches and the forest's bound. 
 The valley-filling cloud, the trees that set 
 The rains beneath their roots, out of this well. 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924059943823 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 For permission to reprint several of the 
 poems that are in this volume acknowledg- 
 ments are made to the Editors of 
 
 Poetry, Chicago; The New Republic, 
 New York; The Nation, New York; The 
 Nation, London; The Theatre Arts Maga- 
 zine, New York; The Measure, New York; 
 The Dial, New York; The North Ameri- 
 can Review, and The Yale Review. 
 
SECTIONS IN DRAMATIC LYRICS AND 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 1. Poems: Country Songs .... i 
 
 2. Creatures and Things Seen ... 21 
 
 3. Reminiscence 31 
 
 4. Dramatic Legends 55 
 
 Swift's Pastoral 57 
 
 The Bird of Jesus 65 
 
 The Laments of Queen Gormlai . . 68 
 
 The Miracle of the Corn .... 74 
 
POEMS: COUNTRY SONGS 
 
The Star 
 
 TO A POET 
 
 Below there are white-faced throngs. 
 Their march is a tide coming nigher; 
 Below there are white-faced throngs. 
 Their faith is a banner flung higher; 
 Below there are white-faced throngs. 
 White swords they have yet, but red 
 
 songs; 
 Place and lot they have lost— hear 
 
 you not? 
 For a dream you once dreamed, and 
 
 forgot! 
 
 THE STAR 
 
 A mighty star has drawn a-near, and is 
 Now vibrant in the air: 
 The trembling, half-divested trees of his 
 Bright presence are aware. 
 
 And I behold him in the stream, and see 
 Him pass from marge to main: 
 What dust will be my flesh and bone ere he. 
 That star, is there again! 
 
Dramatic Legends 
 
 LEGEND 
 
 There is an hour, they say. 
 On which your dream has power: 
 Then all you wish for comes. 
 As comes the lost field-bird 
 Down to the island-lights; 
 There is an hour, they say. 
 That 's woven with your wish: 
 In dawn, or dayli' gone. 
 In mirk-dark, or at noon, 
 In hush, or hum of day. 
 May be that secret hour. 
 
 A herd-boy in the rain. 
 Who looked o'er stony fields; 
 A young man in a street. 
 When fife and drum went by. 
 Making the sunlight shrill; 
 A girl in a lane. 
 When the long June twilight 
 Made friendly, far-off things, 
 Had watch upon the hour: 
 The dooms they met are in 
 The song my grand-dam sings. 
 
Gilderoy 
 
 MEN ON ISLANDS 
 
 Can it be that never more 
 
 Men will grow on Islands? 
 
 Ithaka and Eriskey, 
 
 Iceland and Tahiti! 
 
 Must the engines he has forged 
 
 Raven so for spaces, 
 
 That the Islands dwindle down, 
 
 Dwindle down ! — 
 
 Pots that shelve the tap-root's 
 
 growth ? 
 Must it be that never more 
 Men will flower on Islands? 
 Crete and Corsica, Mitylene, 
 Aran and lona! 
 
 GILDEROY 
 
 The Smith who made the manacles. 
 With bar and bolt, and link and ring. 
 Sang out above his hearty blows — 
 "I can't have grief for everything." 
 
 As Roger by the rope-walk went 
 The bramble bird cheeped up to sing; 
 
Dramatic Legends 
 
 He cut the wanted coil, and said — 
 "I can't have grief for everything." 
 
 The Lad who came to Ladder Lane, 
 And saw his hemp cravat a-string — 
 "Jack's doom's Jill's dole, but then," 
 
 said he, 
 "I can't have grief for everything." 
 
 And I who carried bag and wig. 
 Looked up and saw him turn and swing; 
 The dog he gave fixed eyes on me — 
 Can I have grief for everything? 
 
 THE RUNE-MASTER 1 
 
 Arch-scholar they '11 call you, 
 
 Kuno Meyer; 
 
 One knowing the word 
 
 Behind the word; 
 
 Man of learning, 
 
 And of the world too. 
 
 The century's child. 
 
 But who will tell them 
 Of the blackbird 
 That your heart held? 
 
The Rune-Master 
 
 On an old thorn-tree 
 
 By an ancient rath 
 
 You heard him sing, 
 
 And with runes you charmed him 
 
 Till he stayed with you, 
 
 Giving clear song. 
 
 He sang o'er all 
 That Maravaun 
 Told King Guire; 
 And he told you how 
 Bran heard the singing 
 Of a lovely woman 
 And sailed for Faerie; 
 And of how slain princes 
 Kept tryst with women 
 Loved beyond 
 The pain of death. 
 In days when still 
 The boat of Mananaun 
 Bore towards Eirinn ! 
 
 Arch-scholar they'll call you — 
 
 Nay, Rune-master! 
 
 You read in texts 
 
 Not words only. 
 
 But runes of old time; 
 
8 Dramatic Legends 
 
 And when you spoke them 
 A curlew cried 
 Over grass-waste Tara, 
 And a cuckoo called 
 From the height of Cashel, 
 And an eagle flew 
 From Emain Macha! 
 
 Ochone, ochone! 
 That we '11 see no more 
 In the Eastern, or 
 The Western World 
 Your great head over 
 The lectern bending, 
 Nor hear your lore 
 By a pleasant fireside. 
 
 But the runes you 've read 
 
 Have given us more 
 
 Than the sword might win us: 
 
 May kind saints of Eirinn 
 
 Be beside you 
 
 Where birds on the Living 
 
 Tree sing the Hours. 
 
T- M. K. 
 
 T. M. K. 
 
 Thorough waters, thorough nations I have 
 
 come 
 To lay last offerings at your low abode, 
 Brother, and to appeal 
 To ashes that were you. 
 
 Since that which none can check has borne 
 
 you 
 From my regard, poor brother, take these 
 
 gifts— 
 The tokens that are due 
 To ancient pieties. 
 
 Yet they are wet, and over-wet with tears. 
 With brother's tears; and now I say Farewell: 
 Henceforth, and for all time 
 Hail, Brother, and Farewell! 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF ROGER 
 CASEMENT 
 
 They have hanged Roger Casement to the 
 
 tolling of a bell, 
 Ochone, och, ochone, ochone! 
 
lo Dramatic Legends 
 
 And their Smiths, and their Murrays, and 
 
 their Cecils say it 's well, 
 Ochone, och, ochone, ochone! 
 But there are outcast peoples to lift that 
 
 spirit high. 
 Flayed men and breastless women who 
 
 labored fearfully. 
 And they will lift him, lift him, for the eyes 
 
 of God to see. 
 And it's well, after all, Roger Casement! 
 
 They have ta'en his strangled body and 
 have flung it in a pit, 
 
 OchonCy och, ochone, ochone! 
 
 And fire of the quicklime is what they've 
 brought to it, 
 
 Ochone, och, ochone, ochone! 
 
 To waste that noble stature, that grave and 
 brightening face. 
 
 The princely favor also, and the high 
 Castilian grace — 
 
 Putting courtesy and kindliness from emi- 
 nence of place — 
 
 But they — they die to dust, 
 
 While *t was yours to die to fire, Roger 
 Casement! 
 
Wandering and Sojourning ii 
 
 WANDERING AND SOJOURNING' 
 
 Spring 
 
 Now, coming on Spring, the days will be 
 
 growing. 
 And after Saint Bride's Day my sail I will 
 
 throw; 
 Since the thought has come to me I fain would 
 
 be going, 
 Till I stand in the middle of the County 
 
 Mayo! 
 
 The first of my days will be spent in Clare- 
 morris, 
 
 And in Balk, beside it, I'll have drinking and 
 sport; 
 
 To Kiltimagh, then, I will go on a visit, 
 
 And there, I can tell you, a month will be 
 short. 
 
 I solemnly swear that the heart in me rises. 
 As the wind rises up and the mists break 
 
 below. 
 When I think upon Carra, and on Gallen 
 
 down from it. 
 The Bush of the Mile, and the Plains of 
 
 Mayo! 
 
12 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Killeadean 's my village, and every good 's in 
 it. 
 
 The rasp and blackberry to set to one's 
 tooth; 
 
 And if Raftery stood in the midst of his peo- 
 ple, 
 
 Old age would go from him, and he 'd step to 
 his youth! 
 
 Autumn 
 
 A good stay-at-home season is Autumn ; then 
 
 there's work to be done by all: 
 Speckled fawns, where the brackens make 
 
 covert, range away undeterred; 
 And stags that were seen upon hillocks, now 
 
 give heed to the call, 
 To the bellowing call of the hinds, and they 
 
 draw back to the herd. 
 
 A good stay-at-home season is Autumn; the 
 
 brown world's marked into fields; 
 The corn is up to its growth; the acorns teem 
 
 in the wood; 
 By the side of the down-fallen fort even the 
 
 thornbush yields 
 A crop, and there by the rath the hazel nuts 
 
 drop from a load. 
 
The Poor Girl's Meditation 13 
 
 THE POOR GIRL'S MEDITATION' 
 
 I am sitting here, 
 
 Since the moon rose in the night; 
 
 Kindling a fire. 
 
 And striving to keep it alight: 
 
 The folk of the house are lying 
 
 In slumber deep; 
 
 The cocks will be crowing soon: 
 
 The whole of the land is asleep. 
 
 May I never leave this world 
 
 Until my ill-luck is gone; 
 
 Till I have cows and sheep, 
 
 And the lad that I love for my own: 
 
 I would not think it long, 
 
 The night I would lie at his breast. 
 
 And the daughters of spite, after that. 
 
 Might say the thing they liked best. 
 
 Love covers up hate, 
 
 If a girl have beauty at all: 
 
 On a bed that was narrow and high, 
 
 A three-month I lie by the wall : 
 
 When I bethought on the lad 
 
 That I left on the brow of the hill. 
 
14 Dramatic Legends 
 
 1 wept from dark until dark, 
 
 And my cheeks have the tear-tracks still. 
 
 And, O, young lad that I love, 
 I am no mark for your scorn: 
 All you can say of me 
 Is undowered I was born: 
 And If I 've no fortune in hand. 
 Nor cattle nor sheep of my own. 
 This I can say, O lad, 
 I am fitted to lie my lone! 
 
 LAMENT 
 
 I walk by the shore of a lake 
 Where stones drag wet through a wood, 
 And I hear the cry of a bird — 
 Lone, lone. 
 
 It cries to the lake, and it cries 
 To the stones, and it cries to the wood, 
 And it cries to my own slow blood — 
 Lone, lone. 
 
 And once I walked by this lake. 
 And I heard a like cry from a bird. 
 Nor knew what its grief forebode — 
 Gone, gone. 
 
The Sister's Lullaby 15 
 
 Now the child who gathered the nuts. 
 And brought them to me through the 
 
 wood — 
 The child who gathered the nuts. 
 That day, from our life is gone. 
 
 THE SISTER'S LULLABY 
 
 You would not slumber 
 If laid at my breast: 
 You would not slumber. 
 
 My thoughts are strayed birds. 
 My blood is possessed: 
 You would not slumber. 
 
 The rain-drops encumber 
 The hawthorn's crest: 
 You would not slumber. 
 
 The river flood beats 
 The swan from her nest: 
 You would not slumber. 
 
 Times without number 
 Has called the woodquest: 
 Times without number. 
 
1 6 Dramatic Legends 
 
 As oft as she called 
 To me you were pressed: 
 Times without number. 
 
 Now you 'd not slumber 
 If laid at my breast 
 Times without number. 
 
 starling reed-resting, 
 
 1 '11 rock you to rest: 
 
 So you will slumber. 
 
 OLD SOLDIER 
 
 We wander now who marched before, 
 Hawking our bran from door to door, 
 While other men from the mill take their flour : 
 So it is to be an Old Soldier. 
 
 Old and sore, one 's like the hound 
 Turning upon the stiff frozen ground, 
 Nosing the mould, with the night around: 
 So it is to be an Old Soldier. 
 
 And we who once rang out like a bell. 
 Have nothing now to show or to sell; 
 Old bones to carry, old stories to tell: 
 So it is to be an Old Soldier. 
 
The Wife of Tone 17 
 
 THE WIFE OF TONE* 
 
 My son I reared as might the brooding 
 
 partridge 
 Rear up an eaglet fall'n from storm-struck- 
 
 nest: 
 My son, ah no ! one captained for high conflict, 
 My chieftain-husband's heir and his bequest. 
 
 No mother's part in him did my soul treasure. 
 And he would go, and I could stand alone; 
 Ah, so I thought, but now my heart-strings 
 
 measure 
 The love, the loss — ^my son, my little son, 
 
 thou 'rt gone ! 
 
 I see the grey road winding, winding from me, 
 And thou upon it exiled and away, 
 I turn unto the darkened house beside me — 
 Ah, dark this day as on Wolfe Tone's death's 
 day! 
 
 But no, no, no ! Up from the sod that 's by me. 
 Up, up, with glorious singing springs the 
 
 lark— 
 'Tis Wolfe Tone's spirit, his, to reconcile me. 
 And in a sword-flash, gone, the loneliness, 
 
 the dark! 
 
1 8 Dramatic Legends 
 
 THE FAIR HILLS OF EIRE 
 
 Bear the love of my heart to my land far 
 
 away. 
 And the fair hills of Eire O, 
 And to all of Eivir's race that in her valleys 
 
 stay. 
 And the fair hills of Eire O. 
 That land of mine beloved, where the brown 
 
 thrush's song 
 Fills hazel glen and ivied close the Summer 
 
 twilight long: 
 Oh, how woeful swells his music for the 
 
 downfall of the Strong, 
 On the fair hills of Eire O! 
 
 'Tis my lone soul's long sorrow that I must 
 
 still be far 
 From the fair hills of Eire O, 
 Nor watch a maiden coming as through the 
 
 mist a star. 
 On the fair hills of Eire O! 
 
The Fair Hills of Eire 19 
 
 Oh, the honey in her tree-tops where her 
 
 oak-woods darkly grow. 
 And the freshness of her cresses where her 
 
 clear well-waters flow, 
 And the lushness of her meadows where her 
 
 soft-eyed cattle low. 
 On the fair hills of Eire O! 
 
 SHALL I GO BOUND AND YOU GO 
 FREE? 
 
 "Shall I go bound and you go free. 
 And love one so removed from me ? 
 Not so; the falcon o'er my brow 
 Hath better quest, I dare avow! 
 
 "And must I run where you will ride. 
 And must I stay where you abide? 
 Not so, the feather that I wear 
 Is from an Eyrne in the air! 
 
 "And must I climb a broken stair. 
 And must I pace a chamber bare? 
 Not so, the Brenny plains are wide. 
 And there are banners where I ride!" 
 
CREATURES AND THINGS 
 
 SEEN 
 
The Wild Ass 23 
 
 THE WILD ASS 
 
 The wild ass lounges, legs struck out 
 In vagrom unconcern: 
 The tombs of Achaemedian kings 
 Are for those hooves to spurn. 
 
 And all of rugged Tartary 
 Lies with him on the ground. 
 The Tartary that knows no awe. 
 That has nor ban nor bound. 
 
 The wild horse from the herd is plucked 
 To bear a saddle's weight; 
 The boar is one keeps covert, and 
 The wolf runs with a mate; 
 
 But he's the solitary of space, 
 Curbless and unbeguiled; 
 The only being that bears a heart 
 Not recreant to the wild. 
 
 THE VULTURES 
 
 Foul-feathered and scald-necked, 
 They sit in evil state; 
 Raw marks upon their breasts 
 As on men's wearing chains. 
 
24 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Impure, though they may plunge 
 Into the morning's springs. 
 And spirit-dulled, though they 
 Command the heavens' heights. 
 
 Angels of Foulness, ye. 
 So fierce against the dead! 
 Sloth on your muffled wings, 
 And speed within your eyes! 
 
 THE BISON 
 
 How great a front is thine — 
 A lake of majesty! 
 Assyria knew the sign — 
 The god-incarnate king! 
 
 A lake of majesty — 
 The lion's drowns in it! 
 And thy placidity — 
 A moon within that lake! 
 
 As if thou still dost own 
 A world, thou takest breath — 
 Earth-shape, and strength of stone, 
 A Titan-sultan's child! 
 
The Pigeons 25 
 
 THE PIGEONS 
 
 Odalisques, odalisques, 
 
 Treading the pavement 
 
 With feet pomegranate-stained: 
 
 When we 'd less years 
 
 We bartered for, bought you — 
 
 Ah, then, we knew you. 
 
 Odalisques, odalisques, 
 
 Treading the pavement 
 
 With feet pomegranate-stained! 
 
 Queens of the air, — 
 
 Aithra, lole, 
 
 Eos or Auge, 
 
 Taking new beauty 
 
 From the sun's evening brightness. 
 
 Gyring in light 
 
 As nymphs play in waters — 
 
 Aithra, lole, 
 
 Eos or Auge ! 
 
 Then down on our doorsteps, 
 Gretchen and Dora . . . 
 
26 Dramatic Legends 
 
 THE BIRD OF PARADISE 
 
 With sapphire for her crown, 
 And with the Libyan wine 
 For lustre of her eyes; 
 With azure for her feet 
 (It is her henna stain); 
 Then iris for her vest, 
 Rose, ebony, and flame, 
 She lives a thing enthralled, 
 In forests that are old. 
 As old as is the moon. 
 
 THE HUMMING BIRD 
 
 Up from the navel of the world, 
 Where Cuzco has her founts of fire. 
 The passer of the Gulf he comes. 
 
 He lives in air, a bird of fire. 
 Charted by flowers still he comes. 
 Through spaces that are half the world. 
 
 With glows of suns and seas he comes; 
 A life within our shadowed world 
 That's bloom, and gem, and kiss of fire! 
 
The Monkeys 27 
 
 THE MONKEYS 
 
 Two little creatures 
 With faces the size of 
 A pair of pennies 
 Are clasping each other: 
 "Ah, do not leave me," 
 One says to the other, 
 In the high monkey- 
 Cage in the beast-shop. 
 
 There are no people 
 To gape at them now. 
 For people are loth to 
 Peer in the dimness; 
 Have they not builded 
 Streets and playhouses. 
 Sky-signs and bars 
 To lose the loneliness 
 Shaking the hearts 
 Of the two little monkeys? 
 
 Yes. But who watches 
 The penny-small faces 
 Can hear the voices: 
 "Ah, do not leave me; 
 Suck I will give you. 
 
28 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Warmth and clasping, 
 And if you slip from 
 This beam, I can never 
 Find you again." 
 
 Dim is the evening. 
 
 And chill is the weather; 
 
 There, drawn from their colored 
 
 Hemisphere, 
 
 The apes liliputian 
 
 With faces the size of 
 
 A pair of pennies. 
 
 And voices as low as 
 
 The flow of my blood. 
 
 IN THE CAROLINA WOODS 
 
 Not in a cavern where the winds 
 
 Trample with battle call — 
 
 But in these woods, in these deep woods 
 
 Where branch and branch let fall 
 
 Not moss, but grey and cobweb beards. 
 
 Kings' cabalistic beards — 
 
 Here you should lie, you kings of eld, 
 Barbarossa, Boabdil, 
 
The Hornet's Nest 29 
 
 And Czar Lazar, and Charlemagne; Arthur 
 
 and Gaelic Finn — 
 Here where the muffling Spanish moss 
 Forests with forests fill. 
 
 AN INDIAN SHOWING FEATS 
 
 The quickness that he won in the death 
 
 chase, 
 Out on the plains, five hundred moons 
 
 ago; 
 The hardness wrought by hungers, and the 
 
 skill 
 That notched the hardness, arrow to that 
 
 bow: 
 
 He shows them these, while these depart 
 
 from him. 
 Like warriors softly shod, with bodies bent; 
 They reach the mesa bluff; around it howl 
 Coyotes, in long, lonely discontent. 
 
 THE HORNET'S NEST 
 
 — How strangely like a churchyard skull. 
 The thing that's there amongst the leaves! 
 
30 Dramatic Legends 
 
 — A hornet's nest; but stir the branch 
 And they '11 be round your head and ears ! 
 
 — Livid, uneyed, articulate. 
 
 How like a skull their nests are made! 
 
 — How like to hornets' nests the skulls 
 On many a one that still has flesh! 
 
Reminiscence 33 
 
 REMINISCENCE 
 
 I 
 
 The Swallows sang 
 Alien to us are 
 
 Your fields, and your cotes, and your 
 glebes; 
 Secret our nests are 
 
 Although they be built in your eaves; 
 Uneaten by us are 
 
 The grains that grow in your fields. 
 
 The Weathercock on the 
 
 barn answered 
 
 Not alien to ye are 
 
 The powers of un-earth-bound beings: 
 Their curse ye would bring 
 
 On our cotes, and our glebes, and our 
 fields. 
 If aught should befall 
 The brood that is bred in the eaves. 
 
 The Swallows answered 
 If aught should befall 
 Our brood that 's not traveled the seas, 
 
34 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Your temples would fall. 
 
 And blood ye would milk from your 
 beeves : 
 Against them the curse we would bring 
 
 Of un-earth-bound beings! 
 
 11 
 
 The blackbird there was singing, 
 "Oh, now you know my sort; 
 I 'd rather have a guinea 
 Than I would a five pound note. 
 
 "For a guinea it would sink. 
 And a note it would swim; 
 And yellow is a guinea, 
 And yellow is my bill. 
 
 "And since you 've heard my singing, 
 And since you know my sort. 
 You 'd better leave your guinea. 
 And take your five pound note." 
 
 Ill 
 
 I saw the wind to-day: 
 I saw it in the pane 
 Of glass upon the wall: 
 
Reminiscence 35 
 
 A moving thing, — 'twas like 
 No bird with widening wing, 
 No mouse that runs along 
 The meal bag under the beam. 
 
 I think it like a horse, 
 
 All black, with frightening mane. 
 
 That springs out of the earth, 
 
 And tramples on his way. 
 
 I saw it in the glass, 
 
 The shaking of a mane : 
 
 A horse that no one rides! 
 
 IV 
 
 Meet for a town where pennies have few pairs 
 In children's pockets, this toy-booth with its 
 
 wares — 
 Jew's harps and masks and kites, 
 And paper-lanterns with their farthen-lights. 
 All in a dim-lit window to be seen; 
 Within— 
 
 The walls that have the patches of the damp. 
 The counter where there burns the murky 
 
 lamp. 
 And then, the counter and the shelf between — 
 The dame. 
 Meager, grey-polled, lame. 
 
36 Dramatic Legends 
 
 So she is here since times legendary — 
 A bird of little worth, a sparrow, say. 
 Whose crib 's in some neglected passage-way, 
 And one 's left wondering who brings crumbs 
 
 to her; 
 Soft-voiced and friendly-spoken, she will hop 
 The inches of her crib, this narrow shop 
 When you step in to be her customer. 
 
 How's custom? Bad enough; she had not 
 
 sold 
 Six kites this windy year for boys to hold — 
 She sold kites by the gross in times agone; 
 Marbles, none at all — 
 The children had no money to make call. 
 Wasn't it poor, the town, 
 Where boys 
 
 Could not buy marbles, leaving other toys 
 Like tops and balls — 
 Where little girls could hardly pay for dolls? 
 
 But she's not tragical — no, not a bit — 
 She laughs as she talks to you — that is it! 
 Her eyes are like the farthen-candle's light 
 In paper-lanterns when they burn bright; 
 And she herself is like a kite upborne, 
 A paper-kite held by a string that's worn; 
 
Reminiscence 37 
 
 And like a Jew's harp when you strike its 
 
 tongue — 
 That way her voice goes on! 
 
 Well, Miler Dowdall, the great pugilist, 
 Who had the world once beneath his fist, 
 Would step in here to buy his pockets full; 
 We used to see him with deft hands held up 
 To win the champion's belt or silver cup. 
 Upon the hoardings on our way to school; 
 Now Miler's is a name that 's blown by! 
 
 How strange to think that she is still inside 
 After so many turns of the tide — 
 Since this lit window was a dragon's eye 
 To turn us all to wonder coming nigh — 
 Since this dim window was a dragon's eye! 
 
 V 
 
 Over old walls the Laburnums 
 
 hang cones of fire; 
 Laburnums that grow out of old 
 
 mould in old gardens: 
 
 Old men and old maids who have money or 
 
 pensions 
 Have shuttered themselves in the pales of old 
 
 gardens. 
 
38 Dramatic Legends 
 
 The gardens grow wild; out of their mould the 
 
 Laburnums 
 Draw cones of fire. 
 
 And we, who 've no lindens, no palms, no ce- 
 dars of Lebanon, 
 
 Rejoice you have gardens with mould, old 
 men and old maids: 
 
 The bare and the dusty streets have now the 
 
 Laburnums, 
 Have now cones of fire! 
 
 VI 
 
 Down a street that once I lived in 
 You used pass, a honey-seller, 
 And the town in which that street was 
 Was the shabbiest of all places; 
 You were different from the others 
 Who went by to barter meanly: 
 Different from the man with colored 
 Windmills for the children's pennies; 
 Different from the drab purveyor 
 With her paper screens to fill up 
 Chill and empty fireplaces. 
 
 You went by, a man upstanding. 
 On your head a wide dish, holding 
 
Reminiscence 39 
 
 Dark and golden lumps of honey; 
 You went slowly, like an old horse 
 That 's not driven any longer. 
 But that likes to take an amble. 
 
 No one ever bought your honey. 
 No one ever paid a penny 
 For a single comb of sweetness; 
 Every house was grim unto you 
 With foregone desire of eating 
 Bread whose taste had sweet of honey. 
 
 Yet you went, a man contented 
 'S though you had a king to call on 
 Who would take you to his parlor. 
 And buy all your stock of honey. 
 On you went, and in a sounding 
 Voice just like the bell of evening. 
 Told us of the goods you carried. 
 Told us of the dark and golden 
 Treasure dripping on your wide dish. 
 
 You went by, and no one named you! 
 
 VII 
 
 "The bond-woman comes to the boorie; 
 She sings with a heart grown wild. 
 How a hundred rivers are flowing 
 Between herself and her child. 
 
40 Dramatic Legends 
 
 "Thea comes the lad with the hazel, 
 And the folding-star is in the rack; 
 'Night 's a good herd' to the cattle, 
 He sings 'She brings all things back.' " 
 
 VIII 
 
 The crows still fly to that wood, and out of 
 
 that wood she comes, 
 Carrying her load of sticks, a little less now 
 
 than before. 
 Her strength being less; she bends as the 
 
 hoar rush bends in the wind; 
 She will sit by the fire, in the smoke, her 
 
 thoughts on the root and the living 
 
 branch no more. 
 
 The crows still fly to that wood, that wood 
 
 that is sparse and gapped; 
 The last one left of the herd makes way by 
 
 the lane to the stall. 
 Lowing distress as she goes; the great trees 
 
 there are all down; 
 No fiddle sounds in the hut to-night, and a 
 
 candle only gives light to the hall. 
 
 The trees are sparse and gapped, yet a 
 sapling spreads on the joints 
 
Reminiscence 41 
 
 Of the wall, till the castle stones fall down 
 
 into the moat: 
 The last one who minds that our race once 
 
 stood as a spreading tree. 
 She goes, and thorns are bare, where the 
 
 blackbird, his full songs done, strikes 
 
 one metal note. 
 
 IX 
 
 The Mountain Thrush I say. 
 But I am thinking of her, Nell the Rambler: 
 She 'd come down to our houses bird-alone. 
 From some haunt that was hers, and we would 
 
 see her 
 Drawing the water from the well one day. 
 For one house or another, or we 'd hear her 
 Garrulous with the turkeys down the street. 
 We children. 
 
 From neighbour's house to neighbour's house 
 
 she 'd go 
 Until one day we 'd see 
 Her worn cloak hanging behind our door; 
 And then, that night, we 'd hear 
 Of Earl Gerald: how he rides abroad. 
 His horse's hooves shod with the weighty 
 
 silver, 
 
42 Dramatic Legends 
 
 And how he '11 ride all roads till those silver 
 
 shoes 
 Are worn thin; 
 
 As thin as the cat's ears before the fire, 
 Upraised in such content before the fire. 
 And making little lanterns in the firelight. 
 
 The Mountain Thrush, when every way 's a 
 
 hard one, 
 Hops on in dumbness till a patch of sunlight. 
 Falling, will turn her to a wayside song: 
 So it was with her. Rambler Nell, a shelter, 
 A bit upon the board, and she flowed on 
 With rambler's discourse — tales, and rhymes, 
 
 and sayings. 
 With child's light in her worn eyes, and 
 
 laughter 
 To all her words. 
 
 The lore she had — 
 
 'Twas like a kingly robe, on which long rains 
 Have fallen and fallen, and parted 
 The finely woven web, and have washed away 
 The kingly colors, but have left some threads 
 Still golden, and some feathers still as shining 
 As the kingfisher's. While she sat there, not 
 spinning. 
 
Reminiscence 43 
 
 Not weaving anything but her own fancies, 
 We ate potatoes out of the ash, and thought 
 
 them 
 Like golden apples out of Tiprobane. 
 
 When winter's over-long, and days that 
 
 famish 
 Come one upon another like snow-flakes. 
 The Mountain Thrush makes way down to 
 
 our houses: 
 Takes doorstep-shelter. 
 Hops round for crumbs, and stays a while a 
 
 comer 
 Upon our floors. 
 
 She did not think 
 
 Bread of dependence bitter; three went with 
 
 her — 
 Hunger, Sorrow, and Loneliness, and they 
 Had crushed all that makes claims, though 
 
 they'd not bent her, 
 Nor emptied her of trust — what was it led 
 
 her 
 From house to house, but that she always 
 
 looked for 
 A warmer welcome at the hearth ahead ? 
 
44 Dramatic Legends 
 
 So she went on until it came one day 
 The Mountain Thrush's heart-stop on the 
 way. 
 
 X 
 
 An old man said, "I saw 
 
 The chief of the things that are gone; 
 
 A stag with head held high, 
 
 A doe, and a fawn; 
 
 "And they were the deer of Ireland 
 That scorned to breed within bound: 
 The last; they left no race 
 Tame on a pleasure ground. 
 
 "A stag, with his hide all rough 
 With the dew, and a doe and a fawn; 
 Nearby, on their track on the mountain 
 I watched them, two and one, 
 
 "Down to the Shannon going — 
 
 Did its waters cease to flow. 
 
 When they passed, they that carried the 
 
 swiftness. 
 And the pride of long ago? 
 
Reminiscence 45 
 
 "The last of the troop that had heard 
 
 Finn's and Oscar's cry; 
 
 A doe and a fawn, and before, 
 
 A stag with head held high ! " 
 
 XI 
 
 "A Stranger you came to me over the Sea, 
 But welcome I made you, Seumas-a-ree, 
 And shelter I gave you, my sons set to ward 
 
 you. 
 Red war I faced for you, Seumas-a-ree. 
 
 "Now a craven you go from me, over the 
 
 sea, 
 But my best sons go with you, Seumas-a-ree; 
 Foreign graves they will gain, and for those 
 
 who remain 
 The black hemp is sown — och, Seumas-a-ree! 
 
 " But the Boyne shall flow back from the far 
 
 Irish Sea, 
 On the causeway of Aughrim our victory 
 
 shall be: 
 Two centuries of years and the child on the 
 
 knee 
 Will be rocked to this cronach, Seumas- 
 
 a-ree 
 
4-6 Dramatic Legends 
 
 XII 
 
 You blew in 
 Where Jillin Brady kept up state on nothing. 
 Married her daughter, and brought to Jillin's 
 
 house 
 A leash of dogs, a run of ferrets, a kite 
 In a wired box; linnets and larks and gold- 
 finches 
 In their proper cages, and you brought with 
 you this song: 
 
 If you come to look for me, 
 Perhaps you '11 not me find: 
 For I '11 not in my Castle be — 
 Inquire where horns wind. 
 
 Before I had a man-at-arms 
 I had an eager hound: 
 Then was I known as Reynardine, 
 In no crib to be found. 
 
 You used to say 
 Five hounds* lives were a man's life, and 
 
 when Teague 
 Had died of old age, and when Fury that was 
 
 a pup 
 When Teague was maundering, had turned 
 
 from hill to hearth 
 And lay in the dimness of a hound's old age, 
 
Reminiscence 47 
 
 I went with you again, and you were upright 
 As the circus rider standing on his horse; 
 Quick as a goat that will take any path, and 
 
 lean — 
 Lean as a lash; you would have no speech 
 With wife or child or mother-in-law, till you 
 Were out of doors and standing on the ditch, 
 Ready to face the river or the hill — 
 
 The Hen-wife's son once heard the 
 
 grouse 
 Talk to his soft- voiced mate; 
 And what he heard the heath-poult 
 
 say. 
 The loon would not relate. 
 
 Impatient in the yard he grew. 
 
 And patient on the hill; 
 
 Of cocks and hens he 'd take no 
 
 charge, 
 And he went with Reynardine. 
 
 Lean days when we were idle as the birds. 
 That will not preen their feathers, but will 
 
 travel 
 To taste a berry, or pull a shred of wool 
 That they will never use. We pass the 
 
 bounds: 
 A forest's grave, the black bog, is before us, 
 
48 Dramatic Legends 
 
 And in its very middle you will show me 
 
 The snipe's nest that is lonelier than the 
 snipe 
 
 That 's all that 's there; and then a stony 
 hill, 
 
 A red fox climbing, pausing, looking round his 
 tail 
 
 At us travailing against wind and rain 
 
 To reach the river-spring where Finn or Fer- 
 gus 
 
 Hardened a spear, back of a thousand years. 
 
 And still your cronies are what they were 
 
 then — 
 The hounds that know the hill and know the 
 
 hearth; 
 (One is Fury that 's as old as Argos now 
 That crawled to Odysseus coming back) ; 
 Your minstrels, the blackbird singing still 
 When kites are leaving, crows are going 
 
 home, 
 And the thrush in the morning like a spectre 
 
 showing 
 Beside the day-spring; and your visitors. 
 The cuckoo that will swing upon a branch. 
 The corncrake with quick head between the 
 
 grass- tufts. 
 
Reminiscence 49 
 
 And still your song is what it used to be- 
 About that Reynardine who came to lord 
 A Castle (O that Castle with its trees!), 
 Who heard the horns, and let his turret 
 
 grow 
 The foxglove where his banner should be 
 seen: 
 
 The hawk is for the hill, he cried, 
 
 The badger for the glen; 
 
 The otter for the river-pools — 
 
 Amen, amen, amen! 
 
 XIII 
 
 It would not be far for us to go back to the 
 
 age of bronze: 
 Then you were a King's daughter; your father 
 
 had curraghs on shore, 
 A herd of horses, good tillage upon the face 
 
 of the hills. 
 And clumps of cattle beyond them — the 
 
 black and broad-horned kine. 
 
 And I, I was good at the bow, but had no men, 
 
 no herds. 
 And you would have been bestowed in a while 
 
 on some unrenowned 
 
50 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Ulysses, or on the old King to whom they 
 
 afterwards raised 
 Three stones as high as the elk's head (this 
 
 cromlech where we now sit). 
 
 How fair you were when you walked there 
 
 beside the old forest trees! 
 So fair that I thought you would change and 
 
 fly away a white swan! 
 And then we were mates for play; all-eagle 
 
 thereafter you grew 
 To drive me to range the tempest, King's 
 
 child of the hero-age ! 
 
 I called three times as an owl: through the 
 
 gaps where the herders watched 
 You ran, and we climbed the height where 
 
 the brackens pushed at our knees; 
 And we lay where the brackens drew the 
 
 earth-smell out of the earth, 
 And we journeyed and baffled the fighters of 
 
 ill-wishing Kings! 
 
 It would not be far for us to go back to the 
 
 age of bronze! 
 The fire left there by the nomads is lone as a 
 
 burning ship! 
 
Reminiscence 5 1 
 
 We eat them as we fare along, green ears of 
 
 the wild wheat; 
 At last, a King, I relieve a good clan from a 
 
 dragon's spleen! 
 
 Pieces of amber I brought you, big as a bow- 
 man's thumbs. 
 
 Trumpets I left beside you, wrought when the 
 smiths had all art, 
 
 A dancing-bird that I caught you — they are 
 in the age of bronze: 
 
 I bring you; you bring me again, the love, the 
 triumph, the strife! 
 
 XIV 
 
 "The "(jlackbird's nest in the briar. 
 The sea-gulls' nests on the ground — 
 They're nests, and they're more than nests," 
 
 said he, 
 "They are tokens I have found. 
 
 "Here, where the rain-dashed briar is 
 A mark in the empty glade. 
 The blackbird's nest is seen," he said, 
 "Clay-rimmed, uncunningly made; 
 
52 Dramatic Legends 
 
 "By the inland lake, its shore, 
 Where the surgeless water shoves. 
 The sea-gulls have their nests," he said, 
 As low as the catties' hooves." 
 
 I heard a poet say it. 
 The sojourner of a night; 
 His head was up to the rafter, 
 Where he stood in a candle's light. 
 
 "Your houses are like the sea-gulls' 
 Nests— they are scattered and low; 
 Like the blackbirds' nests in the briar," he 
 
 said, 
 "Uncunningly made — even so. 
 
 "But close to the ground are reared 
 The wings that have widest sway, 
 And the birds that sing best in the wood," 
 
 he said, 
 "Were bred with their breasts to the clay. 
 
 "You've wildness — I've turned it to song; 
 You've strength — I've turned it to wings; 
 The welkin 's for your conquest then, 
 The wood to your music rings; 
 
Reminiscence 53 
 
 "Till your salt shall lose its savor, 
 
 And your virgin soil be cropped; 
 
 Till you own like other peoples; 
 
 And the breath of your need be stopped." 
 
 I heard a poet say it, 
 The sojourner of a night; 
 His head was up to the rafter 
 Where he stood in a candle's light. 
 
DRAMATIC LEGENDS 
 
Swift's Pastoral 57 
 
 SWIFT'S PASTORAL 
 
 A story that has for its background Saint 
 Patrick's Purgatory. 
 
 Characters: Jonathan Swift and Esther 
 Vanhomrigh. 
 
 Esther 
 
 I know the answer: 'tis ingenious. 
 
 I 'm tired of your riddles, Doctor Swift. 
 
 Swift 
 
 Faith, so am I. 
 
 Esther 
 
 But that 's no reason why you '11 be splenetic. 
 
 Swift 
 
 Then let us talk. 
 
 Esther 
 
 But will you talk, too ? Oh, is there nothing 
 
 For you to show your pupil on this highway? 
 
 Swift 
 
 The road to Dublin, and the road that leads 
 
 Out of this sunken island. 
 
58 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Esther 
 
 I see a Harper: 
 
 A Harper and a country lout, his fellow, 
 
 Upon the highway. 
 
 Swift 
 
 I know the Harper. 
 
 Esther 
 
 The Doctor knows so much, but what of that ? 
 
 He '11 stay splenetic. 
 
 Swift 
 
 I have seen this Harper 
 
 On many a road. I know his name, too — 
 
 I know a story that they tell about him. 
 
 Esther 
 
 And will it take the pucker off his brow 
 
 If Cadenus to Vanessa tell the tale? 
 
 Swift 
 
 God knows it might! His name 's O'Caro- 
 
 lan — 
 Turlough O'Carolan; and there is a woman 
 To make the story almost pastoral. 
 
 Esther 
 
 Some Sheelah or some Oonagh, I '11 engage. 
 
Swift's Pastoral 59 
 
 Swift 
 
 Her name 
 
 Was Bridget Cruise. She would not wed him, 
 
 And he wed one who had another name. 
 
 And made himself a Minstrel, but a Minstrel 
 
 Of consequence. His playing on the harp 
 
 Was the one glory that in Ireland stayed 
 
 After lost battles and old pride cast down. 
 
 Where he went men would say: 
 
 "Horses we may not own, nor swords may 
 
 carry. 
 But Turlough O'Carolan plays upon the harp, 
 And Turlough O'Carolan's ten fingers bring us 
 Horses and swords, gold, wine, and victory." 
 
 Esther 
 
 Oh, that is eloquence! 
 
 Swift 
 
 I know their rhapsodies. But to O'Carolan: 
 
 He played, and drank full cups; made proper 
 
 songs 
 In praise of banquets, wine-cups, and young 
 
 maids — 
 Things easily praised. And then when he 
 
 was old — 
 
 Esther 
 How old ? 
 
6o Dramatic Legends 
 
 Swift 
 
 Two score of years and ten. 
 
 Esther 
 
 But that 's not old! 
 
 Swift 
 
 And that 's not old! Good God, how soon 
 
 we grow 
 Into the Valley of the Shadow of Death! — 
 Not into the Valley, Vanessa, mark, of Death, 
 But into the shadow! Two score of years and 
 
 ten — 
 Have we not three score and some more to 
 
 live? 
 So has the tree that 's withered at the top — 
 Dead in the head ! Aye, we, Vanessa, grow 
 Into the Shadow, and in the Shadow stay 
 So long! 
 
 Esther 
 
 I thought the story would divert Cadenus. 
 
 Swift 
 
 It will, it will, Vanessa. What was I 
 
 Just saying? 
 
 Esther 
 
 When he was old— 
 
Swift's Pastoral 6i 
 
 Swift 
 
 When he was old 
 
 And blind — did I say he was blind? 
 
 Esther 
 
 You did not say it. 
 
 Swift 
 
 He 's blind — not book-blind, but stone-blind. 
 
 He cannot see 
 
 The wen that makes two heads upon the 
 
 fellow 
 That goes beside him, hunched up with the 
 
 harp; 
 He cannot see 
 
 The Justice to the assizes riding 
 With soldiers all in red to give him state. 
 He cannot see 
 The beggar's lice and sores. 
 
 I tell a story: 
 
 When this O'Carolan was old and blind. 
 As I have said, he made the pilgrimage: 
 'Twas to . . . No, no, 'twas not the place 
 That I'm proscribed to, but yet one that 's 
 
 called 
 Saint Patrick's Purgatory. 
 
62 Dramatic Legends 
 
 'Tis on an island in a lake, a low 
 
 Island or islet. The water round 
 
 Is dun, unsunned; there are no meadows near. 
 
 No willows grow, no lark nor linnet sings; 
 
 The banks there take a bleakness from the 
 
 clouds. 
 A fissure In the island leads down to 
 The Purgatory of Souls, their fable says. 
 
 And now the Harper is but one of those. 
 The countless wretches, who have brought 
 
 their sores 
 To that low island, and brought darkened 
 
 spirits — 
 Such stream has flowed there for a thousand 
 
 years. 
 I do not know 
 What length of time the Harper stays, while 
 
 crowds 
 Are shambling all around him, weeping, 
 
 praying. 
 Famishing themselves; or drinking the dun 
 
 water 
 Of the lake for wine; or kneeling, with their 
 
 knees 
 On sharpened stones; or crowded 
 In narrow, stony cells. 
 
Swift's Pastoral 63 
 
 Esther 
 
 It is a place 
 
 Papistical. 
 
 Swift 
 
 It is a place 
 
 Most universal. Do we not walk 
 
 Upon a ground that 's drenched with tears, 
 
 and breathe 
 An air that 's thickened with men's darkened 
 
 spirits? 
 Aye, and on an islet. 
 
 Suffering pain, and hearing cries of wretches : 
 Cut off, remote, banished, alone, tormented! 
 Name the place as you will, or let it be 
 Saint Patrick's Purgatory. 
 
 But comes a time the blind man rows to shore 
 From that low island. He touches shore, and 
 
 cries 
 "Hands for a blind man's help!" and hands 
 
 were held him — 
 He touched a hand. 
 
 Here then 's the pastoral 
 The hand, the fingers of the hand, the clasp. 
 The spirit flowing through— he knew them 
 all; 
 
64 Dramatic Legends 
 
 He knew all well, and in an instant knew 
 
 them. 
 And he cried out, "The hand of Bridget 
 
 Cruise!" 
 
 Oh, in the midmost of our darkened spirits 
 To touch a hand, and know the truth within 
 
 it — 
 That truth that's clasped, that holds, the 
 
 truth that 's all 
 For us — for every day we live, the truth ! 
 To touch that hand, and then once more to 
 
 turn — 
 To turn around upon the world's highway, 
 And go alone — poor hand, poor hand! 
 
 But she 
 
 This Bridget Cruise, was leaving that dull 
 
 shore 
 For that low island, and had cares beyond 
 The memory of O'Carolan. Well, they 
 
 passed. 
 He going and she coming; well, and then 
 He took his harp, and the country lout, his 
 
 fellow. 
 Went with him, as we see them going now. 
 
The Bird of Jesus 65 
 
 Esther 
 
 They 've passed : there is no one now beside us. 
 
 And will you take my hand? You used to 
 
 call me 
 A white witch, but there is no witchery 
 In this plain hand of mine! 
 
 You 've told a double story. Doctor Swift. 
 
 THE BIRD OF JESUS 
 
 It was pure indeed. 
 
 The air we breathed in, the light we saw, 
 I and my brother, when we played that day, 
 Or piped to one another; then there came 
 Two young lads of an age with one another. 
 And with us two, and these two played with 
 
 us. 
 And went away. 
 
 Each had a bearing that was like a prince's, 
 Yet they were simple lads and had the kind- 
 ness 
 Of our own folk — lads simple and unknowing: 
 Then, afterwards, we went to visit them. 
 
66 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Theirs was a village that was not far off, 
 But out of reach — toward elbow, not toward 
 
 hand: 
 And what was there were houses — 
 Houses and some trees — 
 And it was like a place within a fold. 
 
 We found the lads, 
 
 And found them still as simple and unknow- 
 ing, 
 
 And played with them: we played outside the 
 stall 
 
 Where worked the father of the wiser lad — 
 
 Not brothers were the boys, but cousins' 
 children. 
 
 There was a pit: 
 
 We brought back clay and sat beside the stall. 
 
 And made birds out of clay; and then my 
 
 brother 
 Took up his bird and flung it in the air: 
 His playmate did as he, 
 And clay fell down upon the face of clay. 
 
 And then I took 
 
 The shavings of the board the carpenter 
 Was working on, and flung them in the air, 
 And watched them streaming down. 
 
The Bird of Jesus 67 
 
 There would be nought to tell 
 Had not the wiser of the lads took up 
 The clay he shaped: a little bird it was; 
 He tossed it from his hand up to his head: 
 The bird stayed in the air. 
 
 what delight we had 
 
 To see it fly and pause, that little bird, 
 Sinking to earth sometimes, and sometimes 
 
 rising 
 As though to fly into the very sun; 
 At last it spread out wings and flew, and 
 
 flew. 
 Flew to the sun! 
 
 1 do not think 
 
 That we played any more, or thought of play- 
 ing. 
 For every drop of blood our bodies held 
 Was free and playing, free and playing 
 
 then. 
 Four lads together on the bench we sat: 
 Nothing was in the open air around us. 
 And yet we thought something was there for 
 
 us — 
 A secret, charmed thing. 
 
68 Dramatic Legends 
 
 So we went homeward; by soft ways we went 
 That wound us back to our familiar place. 
 Some increase lay upon the things we saw: 
 I '11 speak of grasses, but you '11 never know 
 What grass was there; words wither it and 
 
 make it 
 Like to the desert children's dream of grass; 
 Lambs in the grass, but I will not have told 
 
 you 
 What fleece of purity they had to show; 
 I '11 speak of birds, but I will not have told you 
 How their song filled the heart; and when I 
 
 speak 
 Of him, my brother, you will never guess 
 How we two were at one! 
 
 Even to our mother we had gained in grace! 
 
 THE LAMENTS OF QUEEN GORMLAP 
 
 Thou art lone to-night and unlit; no more 
 
 than a cairn art thou 
 To the dead, O House of Kings! 
 
 Thou that didst have thy feasts, thou that 
 
 didst have thy glow. 
 Thou art lone to-night and unlit! 
 
Lament of Queen Gormlai 69 
 
 Every Kingdom must pass; one Kingdom, 
 
 one only, endures ! 
 Thou art lone to-night and unlit, and I am 
 
 remembering Niall ! 
 
 II 
 
 Din of a wedding there! To whomsoever it 
 
 brings 
 Delight, there is one to whom each loud 
 
 voice brings a grief: 
 O woman, handfasted, besought — the like 
 
 my lot was once! 
 
 And Thou, the Giver of Dooms! Thou hast 
 deserved from me 
 
 Reproach, why didst thou slay King Aedh's 
 upright son ? 
 
 Were he in captor's hands, gold and swift 
 steeds would go 
 
 To ransom him, and more — all men 's remem- 
 brances ! 
 
 Were he in captor's hands, and then were he 
 set free 
 
 Unransomed, 'twere the meed of all that he 
 bestowed! 
 
70 Dramatic Legends 
 
 And I, what would I bring to ransom him who 
 
 gave 
 Out of one spoil to me no less than twelve 
 
 score kine? 
 White bed on which he lay — white bed to 
 
 which would come 
 The men of Oriel — thou art now without thy 
 
 pride! 
 A grief it is to me, white one, to see thee thus ! 
 His tunic is beside, but he who made it brave 
 In Cenannas now lies, alone, and cold, and 
 
 dead. 
 
 When once my hero went in battle from 
 
 Armagh, 
 He said, "If one meet death, and one of us 
 
 abide 
 What should the living do?" I answered him, 
 
 "O King, 
 If one should meet with death, let both of us 
 
 be brought 
 To share a single grave in Aileach's quiet 
 
 ground." 
 "If thou, O Gormlai, be first that's laid in 
 
 earth. 
 No woman will I take, no mirth henceforth 
 
 I'll know." 
 
Lament of Queen Gormlai 7 1 
 III 
 
 Lift thy foot, take it away. 
 From my Niall's side, O Monk: 
 Too heavily thou heapest clay, 
 
 Monk! 
 
 Too long, I think, thou hast been nigh, 
 Heaping clay on Niall's grave: 
 At his side I used to lie, 
 OMonk! 
 
 Too long has he, my bosom's friend. 
 Been in the dark, there where his feet 
 Do not reach the coffin's end. 
 Too long. 
 
 Not by my good will his head 
 Is underneath that cross you raise: 
 Nor that the flagstone on his bed 
 Is placed. 
 
 Like to Deirdre when she stood 
 
 Watching Naisi's burial. 
 
 Till her heart burst out in blood, 
 
 1 stand. 
 
72 Dramatic Legends 
 
 I am Gormlai, she who made 
 Verses that the learned knew: 
 Would that upon me were laid 
 That stone. 
 
 Lift thy foot, take it away, 
 From my Niall's side, O Monk: 
 Too long hast thou been heaping clay: 
 Lift thy foot ! 
 
 IV 
 
 A man's hound 
 
 Is given no credit where it's not been followed: 
 
 Outlandish and disturbing it will seem. 
 
 And one unloved — 
 
 Her presence draws affronts to corner and 
 
 nook. 
 Even as the hound whose course has not 
 
 been told. 
 
 Should I say 
 
 The raven's black, they '11 hurtle around my 
 
 words: 
 White feathers they will throw into my face. 
 
Lament of Queen Gormlai 73 
 
 Be my walk 
 
 Crooked or straight, be it queenly or abased, 
 
 The Leinstermen will say it is my spite. 
 
 Bare yon hill 
 
 That 's had its copse stripped off; the 
 
 shoulder 's bare 
 Where there is none to put an arm across. 
 
 Open 's the warp 
 
 Upon the gears — a tale they tell in this 
 
 house — 
 Where children there are none to weave a 
 
 strength. 
 
 As it 's with a man: 
 
 Out of all women he 's matched with only one; 
 
 And as a woman 's mated with one man. 
 
 So was Niall 
 
 The unstained King, the bounteous, upright 
 
 man 
 A match for me, and I a match for him. 
 
 Long am I 
 
 In Muiregan's house: worn am I: I cannot 
 
 Abide with them, I with my broken days. 
 
74 Dramatic Legends 
 
 THE MIRACLE OF THE CORN* 
 
 People in the Legend: 
 
 Fardorrougha a Farmer 
 
 Sheila Fardorrougha's wife 
 
 Paudeen Fardorrougha's ser- 
 vant, a Fool 
 
 AisLiNN A child 
 Three Women 
 
 Shaun o'the Bog A Poor Man 
 
 The action passes in a Farmer's house in Ire- 
 land in the old times. 
 
 Scene: The interior of Fardorrougha^ s 
 house. The door is at back R; the hearth L, 
 the window R are only conventionally repre- 
 serjted. What is actually shown is a bin Jar 
 corn, shelves with vessels, benches, and a shrine. 
 The bin projects from back C; the shelves with 
 vessels are each side of the bin; the shrine is R; 
 it holds a small statue of the Virgin; a rosary 
 of large beads hangs from it; the benches are 
 R and L. One is at the conventional fireplace. 
 
 Corn is used in the sense of any kind of grain — as it is used in 
 Ireland and England — the bread-stufT and the symbol of fertility. 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 75 
 
 and the other is down from the conventional 
 door. 
 
 All the persons concerned in the action are on 
 the scene when it opens, and they remain on the 
 scene. They only enter the action when they go 
 up to where the bin is. Going back to the places 
 they had on the benches takes them out of the 
 action. 
 
 On the bench near the hearth sit the people 
 of Fardorrougha s household — Fardorrougha, 
 Sheila, Paudeen, Aislinn. On the bench near 
 the door sit the strangers — three women, one of 
 whom has a child with her, and Shaun 0' the 
 Bog. The people are dressed in greys and 
 browns, and brown is the color of the interior. 
 The three women and Shaun 0' the Bog are 
 poorly dressed; the women are barefooted. 
 Paudeen is dressed rudely, and sandals of hide 
 are bound across his feet. Fardorrougha, 
 Sheila, and Aislinn are comfortably dressed. 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 They 're moaning still: 
 
 The cattle are a long time moaning now. 
 
 Day in, day out; and will they never stop 
 
 Their moaning, Master Fardorrougha? 
 
76 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 We could drive the cows 
 
 To another place, but the house would not 
 
 be safe 
 While we were gone; Paudeen, you know 
 There are those outside who would break in 
 
 my door. 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 Aye, the people 
 
 Are bad from want. They 're worse oflF than 
 
 the cattle: 
 The people have to watch 
 The black rain and it falling all the day. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 We 've hay 
 
 For our own cows; give them a lock 
 
 Of what the widow of Seumas saved. 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 Is it the hay 
 
 That's under the hurdles behind the hedge? 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 That hay: 
 
 She put lean beasts upon me, and she owes 
 
 me 
 Their fattening. 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 
 
 11 
 
 {Paudeen goes back to his place on the bench. 
 Aislinn comes to the bin.) 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 What child is this? 
 
 Aislinn 
 
 Aislinn is my name. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 Who was it 
 
 Gave you that name? It is strange to name 
 
 Anyone Dream! 
 
 Aislinn 
 
 My own people 
 
 Gave me that name. And now you'll wonder 
 
 What brings me to your house. Sheila, your 
 
 wife. 
 Has brought me here to keep her company. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 And you are welcome. There are no young 
 ones here. 
 
 Aislinn 
 
 I am well used 
 
 To doing things about a house, and I 
 
 Can sweep the floor, and put the fire down. 
 
 And mind the children. 
 
78 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 There are no children in the house you've 
 
 come to: 
 Are you 
 Afeard of me? 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 No, Fardorrougha, I'm not afeard. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 You are like 
 
 The brown bird in the cage, Aislinn. 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 What has Sheila 
 
 Upon her altar? I would like to see: 
 
 It is the image of the Mother of God! 
 
 O why will the rain, 
 
 Dear Mother of God, keep falling? It de- 
 stroyed 
 
 The crop, before the crop was out of the 
 ground; 
 
 Why will the black rain keep falling now? 
 
 {Fardorrougha goes back to the bench. 
 Sheila goes to Aislinn.) 
 
 Sheila 
 
 It is the will of God. 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 79 
 
 AlSLlNN 
 
 God's will is set 
 
 Against us all; it is against 
 
 The cattle in the field, and it was they 
 
 Stood by His crib; they're moaning always 
 
 now: 
 He has forgotten them. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Do not be listening to 
 
 The cattle moaning; do not be watching 
 
 The black rain and it falling all the day. 
 
 AlSLlNN 
 
 You God has not forgotten. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 God has not forgotten 
 
 Me, Aislinn. 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 IfHe has left 
 
 Your fields to the rain. He knows that you 
 
 Have a good roof and riches under it. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 To have them is no sign 
 
 That God remembers one: I used to look 
 
 Upon my roof and riches, and yet say 
 
 "You have forgotten me. Almighty God!" 
 
8o Dramatic Legends 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 And could you say, 
 
 When there was corn, "You have forgotten 
 
 me. 
 Almighty God?" 
 
 Sheila 
 
 And when I would look 
 
 Upon my fields and they heavy with the 
 grain, 
 
 "You have remembered the furrows," I 
 would say, 
 
 "And they are fruitful, but you have for- 
 gotten 
 
 Me, Almighty God!" 
 
 And now. 
 
 Now when the furrows are forgotten, He, 
 He has remembered me. O Aislinn, child, 
 Your arms put round me — I would have you 
 
 near: 
 I want 
 
 Your face before me; I would have a face 
 Like yours, but glad; a child's face glad and 
 
 bright! 
 
 (Paudeen goes to the bin and opens it.) 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 8i 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 That's empty, and that will take some filling, 
 
 too; 
 That's empty, and it will hold an apron-full; 
 That's empty, and you can put more 
 Than a cap-full in it. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 What are you doing at the bin, Paudeen ? 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 Making it ready to put corn in it. 
 
 " Better have the corn in the bin," says he, 
 
 "Than in the barn, after what happened 
 
 Last night in the barn," says he. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 What was it happened? 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 "And only Gorav," says he, 
 
 "Only Gorav, the good dog, got the man by 
 
 the throat. 
 There would be a thief in the parish and a 
 
 wronged man," says he. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 The hard, hard man. 
 
82 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 "There's a good door to my house," says he, 
 
 "And the bin's within for corn; and if the 
 
 priest," says he. 
 Can't put the fear of God into the people, 
 Gorav, maybe, can, " says he. 
 
 That's empty, that's empty, that's empty. 
 
 {Paudeen goes back to his place on the bench.) 
 
 Sheila 
 
 He has all 
 
 The corn that's in the country, and he sets 
 
 Brutes to guard it. The people bring their 
 
 cattle 
 Before he gives them corn to keep them 
 
 living. 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 I'm not afeared 
 Of Fardorrougha. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 He is not set 
 
 In hardness yet; he'll give back 
 
 In arm-fulls what he took in his hands! 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 Will it be long till then. 
 Woman of Fardorrougha? 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 83 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Not long, not long: 
 
 The fruit is ripening that will bring him to 
 
 Himself; O Aislinn, do not think 
 
 Too hardly of my man; there was no child 
 
 About our house, Aislinn ! 
 
 {Fardorrougha goes to the iin, bringing with 
 him a bag of corn.) 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 Woman of the house, be careful that you put 
 The big bolt on the door when it gets dark. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Let it not come 
 
 Between you and your rest, Fardorrougha. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 I grudge 
 
 To give them corn even for what they bring 
 me. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Look at Aislinn here: 
 
 Would you not let it all go with the wind 
 
 To have a child like Aislinn for your own? 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 Woman, content yourself 
 With what is given. 
 
84 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Sheila 
 
 God has given 
 
 House and mill, and land and riches, but not 
 
 Content. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 Then let what is not 
 Trouble us not. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Aislinn was with me all the day; Aislinn 
 Will fill a bin for you. Aislinn, take 
 A measure off the dresser, and help Fardor- 
 rougha 
 Empty the sack. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 Aislinn! It was a woman surely 
 
 That named her Dream. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 She is a biddable child, and one that's good 
 
 About a house. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 She'll have no need 
 
 To do much while she's here. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 And isn't it well, Fardorrougha, 
 
 To see a child that isn't white- faced? 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 85 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 The corn into the bin! 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Isn't it a comfort 
 
 To see a child like Aislinn here ? Then think 
 
 Of a glad, bright child! 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 I have no thought 
 
 To go that far. That world, woman. 
 
 The world of bud and blossom, has gone by: 
 
 There's only now. 
 
 The ragged sky, the poor and wasted ground, 
 
 The broken-spirited ones — the people 
 
 Like you, and me, and Paudeen. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 No, Fardorrougha, no. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 The world of bud and blossom has gone by. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 No, Fardorrougha. 
 
 Listen to me, Fardorrougha! 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 Well, my woman. 
 
86 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Sheila 
 
 I have something, 
 
 Fardorrougha, to tell to you. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 And I am listening, woman. 
 
 {Paudeen goes to the bin.) 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 Shaun o' the Bog is on the pass 
 
 Before the barn. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 Before the barn? Is it me he wants? 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 It's for the woman 
 
 Of the house he's asking. " Is she by herself? " 
 
 Says he to me. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 She's not by herself, if that's the chance 
 
 He's seeking. You, Sheila; 
 
 There's something else you would have said, 
 
 maybe, 
 "Loose the corn you've gathered." Let you 
 
 not. 
 Or the harsh word that has not been, will be 
 Between us. 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 87 
 
 I'll see the man, and if he wants to make it 
 A bargain that is fair, it 's with myself 
 That he must talk. 
 
 {Fardorrougha goes back to the bench. 
 Paudeen has some hay in his hands. He has 
 taken it from under where he sat.) 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 Where did he say 
 
 I was to put the hay I got under the hedge? 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Where the cows are. O 
 
 How can your mind keep on the hay ? I know : 
 
 It is because you're simple! Or so they say. 
 
 Paudeen, 
 
 Why do they call you a fool? Why 
 
 Do they call him a fool, Aislinn? 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 It is because 
 
 His mind keeps on the one thing only. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 He can see only 
 
 The hay that's in his hands. But then 
 They are all foolish! Paudeen, they that 
 gathered 
 
88 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Many thoughts while in the womb are foolish 
 
 now 
 As you are. 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 But you said 
 
 I was a clean, well-built boy, anyhow, 
 
 Woman of the house. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Yes, I said it. 
 
 {Paudeen goes back to the bench.) 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 I'm not afeard 
 
 Of Fardorrougha: I do not think him hard. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 His heart opened to you. 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 He knows that I 
 
 Am not afeard of him. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 His heart opened to you, and that's a sign: 
 
 Yes, that 's a sign I take. 
 
 AlSLlNN 
 
 And do you think that he would ever give 
 The harsh word to you ? 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 89 
 
 Sheila 
 
 O Aislinn, pray: 
 
 Pray that it will never come to that; the 
 
 thought 
 Of the harsh word has come to me, 
 Again and again, like some dark bird. 
 
 Aislinn 
 
 And have you never had 
 
 The harsh word from him? 
 
 Sheila 
 
 But now 
 
 The harsh word would be the end of all. 
 
 Listen to me! Outside 's the rain: 
 
 The desolation of the rain is near me: 
 
 If he gave me 
 
 The harsh word, the rain, the desolation 
 
 Would be all round me, and what fruit could 
 
 be? 
 O glad, bright child of my dream! Apple 
 
 blossom ! 
 What fruit would you, tender and shining, 
 
 make 
 And the tree of you with desolation round it? 
 
 (7*^1? three women leave the bench and come 
 to the bin. One has a child with her.) 
 
go Dramatic Legends 
 
 Sheila 
 
 What can I do for you, women? 
 
 First Woman 
 
 We have eaten 
 
 Only nettles and roots since the want came: 
 
 Our children droop. 
 
 Second Woman 
 
 You do not know what it is 
 
 To see a child droop. 
 
 Third Woman 
 
 God has not opened 
 
 Doors of madness and pain for you. 
 
 {Sheila takes a vessel and holds it to a child 
 who drinks?) 
 
 First Woman 
 
 Do not forget my child. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Take 
 
 What is in my house, women. 
 
 {She opens the bin and fills a woman s 
 apron with corn. The other women hold out 
 their aprons. Sheila fills them.) 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 91 
 
 First Woman 
 
 May God 
 
 Heap up store for you, and may you have 
 
 Clan with store. 
 
 Second Woman 
 
 May God be with your husband when his 
 
 hand 
 Scatters the seed, and may his labor be 
 Prosperous ! 
 
 Third Woman 
 
 And may your own labor be 
 
 Light, and watched by the Mother of God! 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Women, who am I 
 
 That ye should pray for me! 
 
 {The women go to the bench. Sheila stands 
 quiet. AisUnn goes to her.) 
 
 Aislinn 
 
 Now there is no more 
 
 O' the corn. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 But God will have love 
 
 And pity for us. 
 
92 Dramatic Legends 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 The bins are emptied — will Fardorrougha 
 
 .? 
 
 Sheila 
 Ohush! 
 
 There is the cattle's moan; here is Paudeen 
 Who brings them hay — Paudeen who is 
 With the broken things! My heart is heavy 
 again! 
 
 AlSLlNN 
 
 Fardorrougha . . . 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Fardorrougha ! I had forgotten him : 
 
 God protect me! 
 
 The rain, the rain! The black and ragged 
 
 sky. 
 The poor and wasted ground — how could 
 
 there be 
 Any but Paudeen's like. 
 
 {Paudeen goes to the bin.) 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 But you said 
 
 I was a clean and well-built boy yourself. 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 93 
 
 Sheila 
 
 I said it. And now, Paudeen, 
 
 Open the bins. 
 
 {Paudeen lets down the fronts of the bin and 
 it is shown to be empty.) 
 
 Paudeen 
 
 O what will we tell 
 
 Fardorrougha? Can any of you think 
 
 Of a story to tell him ? 
 
 Sheila 
 
 We can tell him 
 
 No story at all. 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 But we might 
 
 Keep him from the bin. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 No, Aislinn, no: 
 
 No good would be in that. 
 
 It was the right I did. Their children now 
 Around them crowd. O children, I would 
 
 give 
 Bread to you, again and over agam! 
 
94 Dramatic Legends 
 
 I, too. 
 
 Was one of them who had their minds upon 
 
 The one thing only; I hardened 
 
 To make things easy for myself. It is not 
 
 "God protect me," I should be saying now. 
 
 But "God forgive me." 
 
 {Shaun o' the Bog comes from the bench. He 
 goes to the bins.) 
 
 Shaun 
 
 Fardorrougha told me 
 To wait upon him here. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 And what has Fardorrougha 
 
 Promised to you, Shaun ? 
 
 Shaun 
 
 The corn in the bins. And I have given 
 
 My wool and loom to him. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 He has not what he thinks he has, but you 
 
 Will not go empty for all that. 
 
 Shaun 
 
 It is well for Aislinn, 
 
 The child that's with you in this house. 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 95 
 
 Sheila 
 
 Aislinn, go talk to Shaun; he need not be 
 
 Anxious nor fretted. 
 
 Aislinn 
 
 Nor need you be 
 
 Anxious nor fretted. Sheila. 
 
 Sheila 
 
 I am not anxious any more, Aislinn. 
 
 {Fardorrougha goes to the bin.) 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 The corn is here that I will give you, Shaun, 
 For wool and loom; open you the bin. 
 And see how much is in it. 
 
 {Shaun opens the bin. A very great quantity 
 of corn gushes out.) 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 I did not think 
 
 So much was there. He'll not get all 
 For wool and loom; I will not wrong my- 
 self; 
 As much as half is fair. 
 
 {He turns to the bin and sees that Shaun, 
 Sheila and Aislinn are kneeling beside the 
 heap of corn.) 
 
g6 Dramatic Legends 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 Why are you kneeling, Shaun ? 
 
 Shaun 
 
 I kneel because I know 
 
 My children will be fed. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 Why are you kneeling. Sheila? 
 
 Sheila 
 
 I kneel because I know 
 
 The fields will break to corn because of the 
 
 love. 
 And pity God has for us. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 Why are you kneeling, Aislinn? 
 
 AlSLINN 
 
 I kneel because I know 
 
 A miracle has happpened; Sheila need not 
 
 dread 
 The harsh word from you any more or never. 
 
 Fardorrougha 
 
 An air comes from it all — a smell of growing, 
 Green, growing corn; and I mind that I 
 Brought Sheila from her mother's to this 
 house 
 
The Miracle of the Corn 97 
 
 Across a field of corn that smelled sweet, 
 
 sweet, 
 And whispered lovingly. I'm greatly 
 
 changed. 
 And often I am strange even to myself. 
 What good's in what I've gathered? It's 
 
 between 
 Myself and her; but when she rises now 
 Nothing will be between us; at what she '11 
 
 say 
 All I have gathered I shall give away. 
 
 {With Sheila, Aislinn, and Shaun still 
 kneeling the scene closes.) 
 
Notes 99 
 
 NOTES 
 
 I. The Rune Master 
 
 Kuno Meyer died in Germany in the autumn of 1919. In 
 the poem written on the announcement of his death, his 
 translation of the dialogue between King Guire and his hermit 
 brother Maravaun ("King and Hermit") is referred to, with 
 his translationof "The Voyage of Bran" and one of the poems 
 in his "Ancient Irish Poetry" called "The Tryst after Death." 
 
 2. Wandering and Sojourning 
 
 The two poems given under this title are translations from 
 the Irish: The first, "Spring," is from the Irish of Raftery, a 
 Connacht poet of the eighteenth century, and the second, 
 "Autumn," is a versification of a passage in Kuno Meyer's 
 translation of a mediaeval tale. 
 
 3. The Poor Girl's Meditation 
 
 The original and a literal translation are given by Dr. 
 Douglas Hyde in his "Love Songs of Connacht." 
 
 4. The Wife of Tone 
 
 This and the two pieces that follow were written for famous 
 Irish airs — the first to the beautiful melody that is known as 
 "The Londonderry Air, " and the other two to the airs that 
 give titles to them. "The Fair Hills of Eire" freely translates 
 the first and last stanzas of the famous eighteenth century 
 poem of exile, and "Shall I Go Bound and You Go Free" is 
 derived from the first line of a folk song that is given in one of 
 Mr. Herbert Hughes' collections. The words of "The Wife 
 of Tone " paraphrase what the wife of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 
 the leader of the United Irishmen, wrote in her journal on her 
 parting with her son; in accordance with her husband's wish 
 he had been brought up to take service with an army that 
 was engaged in a war of national liberation. 
 
loo Dramatic Legends 
 
 5. The Laments of Queen Gormlai 
 
 These are renderings of four out of the eleven "Poems 
 Attributed to Queen Gormlaith," text and literal translations 
 of which have been given by Professor Osborn Bergin. The 
 poem on the burial of Niall has been nobly translated by Dr. 
 Sigerson in his "Bards of the Gael and Gall" and by Dr. 
 Douglas Hyde in his "Literary History of Ireland." The 
 poems are in lamentation for the death of Niall Black-knee 
 and for her own state of dependence in a Leinster household, 
 away from her husband's Ulster kingdom. Niall Black-knee 
 was killed near Dublin, in a battle with the Norse in 917. 
 His wife Gormlaith lived for thirty-one years after his death. 
 Professor Bergin declares that if the poems were actually 
 written by Gormlaith they were altered afterward.