OUT upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses, | |
| Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool, | |
| Overhead the sunset fire and flame amasses, | |
| And the moon to eastward rises pale and cool: | |
| Rose and green around her, silver-gray and pearly, | 5 |
| Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed; | |
| For, to wake at daybreak, birds must couch them early, | |
| And the day’s a long one since the dawn was red. | |
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| On the chilly lakelet, in that pleasant gloaming, | |
| See the sad swans sailing: they shall have no rest: | 10 |
| Never a voice to greet them save the bittern’s booming | |
| Where the ghostly sallows sway against the West. | |
| “Sister,” saith the gray swan, “Sister, I am weary,” | |
| Turning to the white swan wet, despairing eyes; | |
| “O,” she saith, “my young one.” “O,” she saith, “my dearie,” | 15 |
| Casts her wings about him with a storm of cries. | |
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| Woe for Lir’s sweet children whom their vile stepmother | |
| Glamoured with her witch-spells for a thousand years; | |
| Died their father raving—on his throne another— | |
| Blind before the end came from the burning tears. | 20 |
| Long the swans have wandered over lake and river. | |
| Gone is all the glory of the race of Lir; | |
| Gone and long forgotten like a dream of fever: | |
| But the swans remember the sweet days that were. | |
| |
| Hugh, the black and white swan with the beauteous feathers, | 25 |
| Fiachra, the black swan with the emerald breast, | |
| Conn, the youngest, dearest, sheltered in all weathers, | |
| Him his snow-white sister loves the tenderest. | |
| These her mother gave her as she lay a-dying; | |
| To her faithful keeping; faithful hath she been, | 30 |
| With her wings spread o’er them when the tempest’s crying, | |
| And her songs so hopeful when the sky’s serene. | |
| |
| Other swans have nests made ’mid the reeds and rushes, | |
| Lined with downy feathers, where the cygnets sleep, | |
| Dreaming, if a bird dreams, till the daylight blushes, | 35 |
| Then they sail out swiftly on the current deep. | |
| With the proud swan-father, tall, and strong, and stately, | |
| And the mild swan-mother, grave with household cares, | |
| All well-born and comely, all rejoicing greatly: | |
| Full of honest pleasure is a life like theirs. | 40 |
| |
| But alas! for my swans, with the human nature, | |
| Sick with human longings, starved for human ties, | |
| With their hearts all human cramped in a bird’s stature, | |
| And the human weeping in the bird’s soft eyes. | |
| Never shall my swans build nests in some green river, | 45 |
| Never fly to Southward in the autumn gray, | |
| Rear no tender children, love no mates for ever, | |
| Robbed alike of bird’s joys and of man’s are they. | |
| |
| Babbles Conn the youngest, “Sister, I remember | |
| At my father’s palace how I went in silk, | 50 |
| Ate the juicy deer-flesh roasted from the ember, | |
| Drank from golden goblets my child’s draught of milk. | |
| Once I rode a-hunting, laughed to see the hurly, | |
| Shouted at the ball-play, on the lake did row; | |
| You had for your beauty gauds that shone so rarely:” | 55 |
| “Peace!” saith Fionnuala, “that was long ago!” | |
| |
| “Sister,” saith Fiachra, “well do I remember | |
| How the flaming torches lit the banquet-hall, | |
| And the fire leapt skyward in the mid-December, | |
| And among the rushes slept our staghounds tall. | 60 |
| By our father’s right hand you sat, shyly gazing, | |
| Smiling half and sighing, with your eyes aglow, | |
| As the bards sang loudly all your beauty praising.” | |
| “Peace!” saith Fionnuala, “that was long ago!” | |
| |
| “Sister,” then saith Hugh, “most do I remember | 65 |
| One I called my brother, one, earth’s goodliest man, | |
| Strong as forest oaks are where the wild vines clamber, | |
| First at feast or hunting, in the battle’s van. | |
| Angus, you were handsome, wise and true and tender, | |
| Loved by every comrade, feared by every foe: | 70 |
| Low, low lies your beauty, all forgot your splendour:” | |
| “Peace!” saith Fionnuala, “that was long ago!” | |
| |
| Dews are in the clear air, and the roselight paling, | |
| Over sands and sedges shines the evening star, | |
| And the moon’s disc lonely high in heaven is sailing, | 75 |
| Silvered all the spear-heads of the rushes are,— | |
| Housèd warm are all things as the night grows colder, | |
| Water-fowl and sky-fowl dreamless in the nest; | |
| But the swans go drifting, drooping wing and shoulder, | |
| Cleaving the still water where the fishes rest. | 80 |
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