James Henry Cousins

“ Lurked the dim fear of one who leaves the shore,
And on the sightless hazard of the wind
Moves into doubt and darkness. O'er and o'er
She turned her thought, till softly on her ear
There broke a song a bard was chanting near.
Because the strong are fallen low,
Who deems that Strength himself is slain?
Through depth and height his arm shall go,
And he shall rear his house again,
Although the strong are fallen low.
Because the living all are dead,
Who deems that Life has found a grave? ”

“ And the sound of the watcher’s old refrain,—
“The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing,
The midnight shadows fly.
The Cross is bending, the night is ending,
The day is drawing nigh.”
. . . . . .
Far out, far out on Life’s wild waters,
Where storms are howling, where breakers toss,
How many of earth’s fair sons and daughters
Are drifting and dragging to gain or loss! ”

“ Ailill the brother of the king awoke
And scanned the portents of the morning sky,
Till on his mind a mellowing radiance broke,
And in his heart there dawned a wondrous face
That lit his world with Love's exalted grace.
Often in dreams a shadow by his side [Pg 16]
Had sung of one who came in some great hour
With Love—and woe. Now came his brother's bride;
And when he bent before her in her bower,
Within his heart the shadow rose and cried,
And passed away, while all his being shook,
Stricken with joy and sorrow in a look. ”

“ See! there is the other pathway, down, down to the home of Night.
Jump! long ere the body be broken, the soul will have taken flight.
He will give His charge to His angels: in their hands they will bear thee up,
As ye tread the Saviour’s pathway, and drink the Saviour’s cup.
There,—lean on my breast, sweet infant, and good-bye to Earth and woe.
Now, sisters, the way lies open: I am weary and long to go!”
They had fought: they had failed; and they followed brave Schakhe, a martyr throng;—
And soft o’er the corpse-strewn valley the winds sigh: “Lord, how long?” ”

“ Thro’ ’whelming winds, thro’ sun and rain,
Have lived these lichened stones,
And that brief tower upreared by those
Whose dread was from the deep,—
In strife their strength, in peace repose,
Their guardian now in sleep.
VII.
Thine eyes, old tower, have scanned the scroll
And palimpsest of Earth,
And fain would we thy thoughts unroll
Thro’ years of bliss or dearth,
For thou from thy calm height dost look
With sage, dispassionate eye,
To where the star of day-dawn shook
Within a youthful sky.
VIII.
We deem thee old ”

“ Perchance to win from life's controlling powers
The healing of thy heart's infirmity;
Perchance—" "Oh! speed the hazard of those hours,"
He cried, "that blind the flame of low desire
In the white light of Love's transmuting fire." V [Pg 26] Hard by the swift-winged star, the moth-like moon
Sheds golden dust on waves of day that ebb
Into the deep beyond life's wan lagoon.
The spider Night now spins his monstrous web,
And spots the dark with many a pale cocoon
Hung in his vaporous cave, whose phantoms creep
In visions round the heavy brain of sleep. ”

“ The sounding seas and snows of earth,
The fruitful fields and farms. [A]
Here priestly power has thrown around
A circuit wide and high,
A bar where waves of human sound
Beat vainly, drop, and die.
“Who dreams of war in such a scene
Of undisturbed repose?
Who babbles here of spite and spleen?
Who rhymes of human woes?
Nought here is heard of mingling cries,
Of life’s unlovely jars
Nought here is seen but yonder skies,
And circling suns and stars!” ”

“ And all the world stands smiling silver-browed.
King Eochaidh for a moment bent his head
In thought; then smiling he arose and said:
"I am not careless of the ancient need
That moves your minds. Within my own it moves
Like a long-hidden, unforgotten seed
The spring has touched uneasily: like hooves
Long captive, when the trumpet has decreed
A royal pilgrimage, and in the liss
They dance to taste the highway's ringing bliss. ”

“ A dissonant note from hidden harp-strings drawn
Troubled the dreams of Eochaidh and Etain.
By day the dream had faded to a mist [Pg 17]
In some far-folded valley of the mind;
But when, heart-charmed in evening's amethyst,
The labouring world grew wonderfully kind,
And upturned lips by brooding love were kissed;
Like silent rain in summer twilight spilled,
A wandering thought King Eochaidh touched and chilled. ”

“ Ah, me! the race goes blindly on
And leaves the old familiar ways;
And still, earth-weighted, flowers the dawn
To still ignoble days;
And men, as sheep within their folds,
Grope round their world with great sad eyes ”

“ Old kings are harvested in Death's long swathe.
Closed from alarm the shingled roofs now rise
Ringed through the dark with flaming searching eyes.
The word has passed, "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 shining shields that turn the torches dim.
Throned firm in strength defying power or guile,
He joys, and hopes—yet fears Etain's faint smile. ”

“ Before you two paths lie open: one leads where dangers lurk,
And the pain and the dumb dishonour from the merciless hand of the Turk.{72}
Choose ye! Will ye thread that pathway, prove false to the men ye love;
Prove false to the children ye bore them; prove false to the God above?
Will ye sell yourselves to the spoilers of father and mother and child,
Who butchered and then, like devils, at their cries for mercy smiled? ”

“ And love's compelling poppy on thy mouth,
And watched thee robe thy maiden blossoming grace
And dream a king came riding from the south;
Yet in thy sigh in Eochaidh's royal place,
Unseen I saw the waft of hidden wings
Set past these perishing substantial things.
"For thou wert born for love whose windless sail
Moves on great deeps beyond life's shallow range.
Love linked in flesh with failing flesh shall fail:
Love knit in thought with changing thought shall change,
Nor all desire against slow Time prevail ”

“ And sang the battle song of tears,
Sounds small, and faint, and far;
And men have found another chord,
An offspring, not of heart, but head;
And gold is God, and lust is Lord,
And Love lies stricken dead! ”

“ Gathers warm love about him like a fleece;
And through the land his joy wide-circling goes,
Stirring swift hands that bid the earth increase
Her gift of good, till wealth and fatness throng
Their duns with praise, and fill their mouths with song.
Life's labour widely shared the lightlier lies [Pg 37]
Along the days; and when its tumults cease,
Free brain and limb are swift in rivalries
Upon the bloodless battlefields of peace
In thought's affray, or deed of strength whose prize
Scarce more adorneth him whose power prevails,
Than him who strongly dares and greatly fails. ”

“ In Earth’s expanding range,
The height and depth, the rise and fall,
The first and last of Change.
“Kings pale and perish, dogmas die,
The world goes slowly on
To greet an all-unclouded sky,
To kiss a purer dawn. ”

“ Wrapt in deep joy, beyond his joy has slept
Into a passionless calm, that wakes and knows
Love's highest bliss in honour stainless kept.
Farewell, and when a little while has flown
I come again." He ceased. She stood alone.
Far through the morn the horn of Eochaidh blew,
Outspeeding runners hot with glad return.
From post to post goes welcoming halloo:
Far off the shouldered spear-heads dance and burn
Through smother of wheels, and marching men that strew
Their wake with dust and song, and storm at last
Round dun and liss, their prosperous journey past. ”

“ And reached a joy beyond the shrill affray
Of horns and harps loud with the songs of strife
Or little triumphs of a passing day;
And grasped, in giving, life's most perfect gift—
Love that is raised by that which it doth lift.
So moved the twain through sunshine barred with gloom, [Pg 20]
Finding in each twin solace and despair:
He, like a frail and gently tended bloom,
Grudged each day's health that took him past her care ”

“ Uncounted thousands of full-armëd men,
Bards, chieftans, clansmen, women, maids, youths, children:—then
XLVII.
As if the sea had stolen half the glow
Of the sunk sun, the quiet Loch flushed red,
And lengthened day, e’en tho’ the day did go
To other lands. “Some portent this,” they said,
“Of the fight’s finish: one hath joined the dead—
Which, shall appear full soon.”—Lo! on the sea
What form is yon that waves a hideous head
Within its hand? They gaze, they shout: “’Tis he,
Fergus, Ultonia’s King. Fergus hath victory!” ”

“ And deepening vision sounds a deeper bliss,
Till joy rolls round the fretted shores of life;
And in swift stroke of hate, and love's long kiss,
She marks one law work out one hidden Will,
And life and death one happy doom fulfil. ”

“ Some lesson yet is there, tho’ anguish-taught;
Some profit yet remains, tho’ it in blood be bought.
{45} XLII.
One falleth—that foul spirit: then is past
Temptation of ambition; but, perchance
Mine arm may fail: sobeit, then is cast
Away the secret.” On did he advance.
And one who saw his eyeballs’ lightning glance,
And marked his mood and manner, thro’ the crowd
Spread rumouring words, keen, swift as strong-threwn lance,
That drew them forth, a multitude, all browed
With wonderment that grew with each swift stride, till, loud
XLIII.
And deep before them, Rory swells and swings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Blow up love's ruddy peat in man and wife:
And all that night, harps throb and warpipes cry
Around the king, enthroned in joy complete,
Etain beside him, Ailill at his feet.
But through the songs of praise that round him swell,
One voice to him has music sweeter far. ”

“ And Heav’n and Earth, in mutual rapture, strung
Ethereal harps, and took one reeling kiss,
’Till, seated with much joy, Earth grew remiss:
But, love was rife, and, ah! the Earth was young.
O trembling tears of dawn in Nature’s eyes!
Forget your sadness. Lo! methinks the hour
When recreant Love turns loveward, thrills the dome ”

“ And one was loud with song, and quivering string,
And all life's pageantry and noisy breath
Wherewith men strive to drown the voice of death.
Then said Etain: "King Eochaidh in his might [Pg 25]
Drew me to bonds of happiness; but thou
Art as a voice that calls across the night
To where some dawn blows freshly on the brow,
And love with love moves freely as the light,
Mingling in happy dreams their shadowy wings
Beyond these perishing substantial things.
"Ah, me, the pain in joy, the joy in grief!
Who tells the end when once has moved the foot? ”

“ King Fergus started upward to his feet,
And saw, but dimly, toward him quickly steer
A dreadful shape that came like lightning fleet,
And chilled the monarch’s blood such fearful foe to meet.
XXIII.
It was the Muirdris!! Nought that men have known
Could match its awful visage: high upheld
On ogrish limbs, one moment ape-like grown,
It flew along, till, lo! ”

“ And in long nights, when age and childhood sleep,
Bright eyes that flicker round the rushlit board
Mark how the chess-players, in silence deep,
Meet skill with skill, until delight is roared
At cunning scheme, or swift unreckoned leap:
But, cute as fox or quick as tern awing,
No hand is found to mate King Eochaidh's king. ”

“ 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, [Pg 43]
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." ”

“ I am grateful to all who essay in a sincere spirit the difficult task of making Dublin a book-producing place. In ‘The Little Library,’ author, editor, publisher, and draughtsman have combined in an honest endeavour to attain that desirable end. The writer of ‘Idylls’ gives us ten short prose-poems, of which I take the liberty to give the first in its entirety as a specimen. ”

“ Thus Ailill broke the silence with a cry.
"O bitter joy! O sorrow passing sweet!
O blossoming life that leads to love's pale death!
O gain that speeds to loss on laggard feet!
O living voice that kills the word it saith! ”

“ Hath come—as ne’er before—when billow and brine
Yield to a mortal every whit of power—
Save one—how suns soe’er may shine or clouds may lower.”
XII.
Low bowed the Monarch his assenting head.
The elfin chieftain swiftly drew anear
Doffing his hood, long-trailing, ruby red.
Lo! on the King ’tis placed. In either ear
They plant sweet spices, herbs, anointing clear;
And weird enchantments drown the muffled roar
Of throbbing ocean. Then the charioteer
Beholds his master pass the waters o’er,
And stands, a lonely man upon a lonely shore.
. . . . . . ”

“ Come the gleam of the steely lightning, and the wild, soul-harrowing sound,{71}
As mother and sister and daughter, and the child at its mother’s breast
Go down in the surge of slaughter and the wreck of the great Opprest.
And now they are huddled together, as the death-cries rise and swell,
Where the rock runs up to Heaven, and the gulf goes down to Hell,—
On the edge of a beetling hillock; when, lo! from the ’wildered crowd,
On a peak of the rock steps Schakhe, and calls to her sisters, loud:—
“O sisters in nameless sorrow, baptised in a life of tears ”

“ One thought of faithlessness a moment read
Should bring to birth the thing he most doth dread. VII [Pg 42] 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. ”

“ There he’s: take him! You can rhyme of chubby cheeks, and laughy eyes
That have housed far down within them little patches of the skies;{82}
You can paint your glowing pictures, that a tear may wash away
When a future Vandal stumbles through your dream some after day.
Mine are coloured from th’ eternal, set by Love in Fancy’s mould,
Knowing nought of life’s mutations, Summer’s heat or Winter’s cold.
X.
So you’ve only come this morning, courier dove with pinions white? ”