James Henry Cousins

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 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! ”

“ 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.
. . . . . . ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Guiding lightning-footed planets as they in their orbits run;{81}
And I’ve heard that all have sprung from atoms crowding God’s abyss,—
Mars, the evil-eyed and warlike; Sol, the pivot-point of bliss.
VII.
Yes, a weakness, sprung from weakness, weaker waxes, and a strength
On from strength to strength goes marching, grasping God’s right hand at length;
For the mickle at the shoulder means the muckle at the hand,
And the hair’s breadth on the compass means the ship upon the land.
VIII.
Aye, wife ”

“ 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 ”

“ And Fergus o’er Ultonia’s host shall reign,
If but to meet our thoughts your constant strength ye strain.
{40} XXXIII.
“Let fools and babblers take their journey far,
And silent sit as sent’nel to your speech.
What wots the King of that which him doth mar
If but the knowledge in the breast of each
Be locked beyond a thought’s long-arméd reach
Till forced forgetfulness doth rust the key
Or haply lose it. E’en your art let teach
The water to forget his form to see
Or give it back, when to ablution cometh he.”
XXXIV.
Approval shone within their eyes. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The circuit of the island can be made on foot leisurely in a couple of hours, and the walk affords a view of the extensive waters of the once Dane-infested lough, the distant hoary walls of Greyabbey, the haunts of Saint Patrick, the reputed scene of the death{52} of Ollav Fola (, the lawgiver of Erin) , and the martial deeds of De Courcey.
Ballydrain, about half-way between Comber and Mahee Island, is so-called from , a townland, and , a blackthorn tree; and the reader will observe the connection between this place and the Island of Mahee. ”

“ The Island of Endrim—or, as it is now called, in memory of its Patron Saint, Mahee—is situated most picturesquely on Strangford Lough, about seven miles from Comber, Co. Down, and is approachable on foot or car by a modern causeway-road, which crosses an intervening island. ”

“ The blemish on the Monarch’s face. She cries:
“King Fergus, heartless coward! I loathe, despise
Your craven hand, nor e’en a word would deign,
But that I deem your spirit’s shape and size
Must match your brute-like visage.” Purpling plain
With rage, he drew his sword and cut the maid in twain.
XXXIX.
A maddened moment’s deed! ”

“ Cousins not only excels as a sonneteer; but in “The Legend of the Blemished King” he performs the remarkable feat of producing a poem of classical character, containing forty-eight stanzas, cast perfectly in the no less difficult mould known as the Spenserian stanza—eight heroic lines, followed by an Alexandrine, rhyming thus:—1, 3 ”