James Henry Cousins

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of duty done, and love escaped a scar;—
But not of that deep hour, unspeakable
With visitation from beyond the world,
Shut in her heart, a blossom closely curled.
On Eochaidh's royal brow sits glad content
That she, fate's minister to Ailill's pain,
Who dared in faith the perilous descent,
Now stands more white against averted stain.
And Ailill, all his heart in service spent,
Fills their glad hours with tender friendship's light
Sweet as the beam that silvers quiet night. VI [Pg 36] Now at life's wheel Etain the day-long sings ”

“ To me revealed." "Mider: to thee unknown.
No far-sung dun is mine, lineage or fame;
Yet in my realm I keep a steadfast throne,
And for my pleasure play a subtle game
With pawn and puissant knight and watching queen.
Fame trumpets far thy skill: now be it seen."
On swift-set piece and jewelled chessboard break [Pg 39]
Slant arrows from the scarcely risen sun.
Rank faces rank. "Play, king!"... "Not without stake
I play; nor bate the forfeit quickly won,—
Thine?" "Fifty steeds whose hooves shall Erin shake." ”

“ The names of the personages may be pronounced thus: Etain—Etawn', Eochaidh—Yo'hee, Ailill—Al'yil, Mider—Mid'yir.
Dagda is the Irish God of Day, Balor the Irish God of Night.
A dun is a fortified dwelling, a liss is a place for domestic animals. ”