| KING Eochaid came at sundown to a wood | |
| Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen | |
| He had out-ridden his war-wasted men | |
| That with empounded cattle trod the mire; | |
| And where beech trees had mixed a pale the green light | 5 |
| With the ground-ivy’s blue, he saw a stag | |
| Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea. | |
| Because it stood upon his path and seemed | |
| More hands in height than any stag in the world | |
| He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth | 10 |
| Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur; | |
| But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed, | |
| Rending the horse’s flank. King Eochaid reeled | |
| Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point | |
| Against the stag. When horn and steel were met | 15 |
| The horn resounded as though it had been silver, | |
| A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound. | |
| Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there | |
| As though a stag and unicorn were met | |
| In Africa on Mountain of the Moon, | 20 |
| Until at last the double horns, drawn backward, | |
| Butted below the single and so pierced | |
| The entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword | |
| King Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands | |
| And stared into the sea-green eye, and so | 25 |
| Hither and thither to and fro they trod | |
| Till all the place was beaten into mire. | |
| The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met, | |
| The hands that gathered up the might of the world, | |
| And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed | 30 |
| Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air. | |
| Through bush they plunged and over ivied root, | |
| And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves | |
| A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out; | |
| But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks | 35 |
| Against a beech bole, he threw down the beast | |
| And knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant | |
| It vanished like a shadow, and a cry | |
| So mournful that it seemed the cry of one | |
| Who had lost some unimaginable treasure | 40 |
| Wandered between the blue and green leaf | |
| And climbed into the air, crumbling away, | |
| Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision | |
| But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood, | |
The disembowelled horse.
King Eochaid ran, | 45 |
| Toward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breath | |
| Until he came before the painted wall, | |
| The posts of polished yew, circled with bronze, | |
| Of the great door; but though the hanging lamps | |
| Showed their faint light through the unshuttered windows, | 50 |
| Nor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise, | |
| Nor on the ancient beaten paths, that wound | |
| From well-side or from plough-land, was there noise; | |
| And there had been no sound of living thing | |
| Before him or behind, but that far-off | 55 |
| On the horizon edge bellowed the herds. | |
| Knowing that silence brings no good to kings, | |
| And mocks returning victory, he passed | |
| Between the pillars with a beating heart | |
| And saw where in the midst of the great hall | 60 |
| Pale-faced, alone upon a bench, Edain | |
| Sat upright with a sword before her feet. | |
| Her hands on either side had gripped the bench, | |
| Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight. | |
| Some passion had made her stone. Hearing a foot | 65 |
| She started and then knew whose foot it was; | |
| But when he thought to take her in his arms | |
| She motioned him afar, and rose and spoke: | |
| ‘I have sent among the fields or to the woods | |
| The fighting men and servants of this house, | 70 |
| For I would have your judgment upon one | |
| Who is self-accused. If she be innocent | |
| She would not look in any known man’s face | |
| Till judgment has been given, and if guilty, | |
| Will never look again on known man’s face.’ | 75 |
| And at these words he paled, as she had paled, | |
| Knowing that he should find upon her lips | |
The meaning of that monstrous day.
Then she: | |
| ‘You brought me where your brother Ardan sat | |
| Always in his one seat, and bid me care him | 80 |
| Through that strange illness that had fixed him there, | |
| And should he die to heap his burial mound | |
| And carve his name in Ogham.’ Eochaid said, | |
| ‘He lives?’ ‘He lives and is a healthy man.’ | |
| ‘While I have him and you it matters little | 85 |
| What man you have lost, what evil you have found.’ | |
| ‘I bid them make his bed under this roof | |
| And carried him his food with my own hands, | |
| And so the weeks passed by. But when I said | |
| “What is this trouble?” he would answer nothing, | 90 |
| Though always at my words his trouble grew; | |
| And I but asked the more, till he cried out, | |
| Weary of many questions: “There are things | |
| That make the heart akin to the dumb stone.” | |
| Then I replied: “Although you hide a secret, | 95 |
| Hopeless and dear, or terrible to think on, | |
| Speak it, that I may send through the wide world | |
| For medicine.” Thereon he cried aloud: | |
| “Day after day you question me, and I, | |
| Because there is such a storm amid my thoughts | 100 |
| I shall be carried in the gust, command, | |
| Forbid, beseech and waste my breath.” Then I, | |
| “Although the thing that you have hid were evil, | |
| The speaking of it could be no great wrong, | |
| And evil must it be, if done ’twere worse | 105 |
| Than mound and stone that keep all virtue in, | |
| And loosen on us dreams that waste our life, | |
| Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain.” | |
| But finding him still silent I stooped down | |
| And whispering that none but he should hear, | 110 |
| Said: “If a woman has put this on you, | |
| My men, whether it please her or displease, | |
| And though they have to cross the Loughlan waters | |
| And take her in the middle of armed men, | |
| Shall make her look upon her handiwork, | 115 |
| That she may quench the rick she has fired; and though | |
| She may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown, | |
| She’ll not be proud, knowing within her heart | |
| That our sufficient portion of the world | |
| Is that we give, although it be brief giving, | 120 |
| Happiness to children and to men.” | |
| Then he, driven by his thought beyond his thought, | |
| And speaking what he would not though he would, | |
| Sighed: “You, even you yourself, could work the cure!” | |
| And at those words I rose and I went out | 125 |
| And for nine days he had food from other hands, | |
| And for nine days my mind went whirling round | |
| The one disastrous zodiac, muttering | |
| That the immedicable mound’s beyond | |
| Our questioning, beyond our pity even. | 130 |
| But when nine days had gone I stood again | |
| Before his chair and bending down my head | |
| Told him, that when Orion rose, and all | |
| The women of his household were asleep, | |
| To go—for hope would give his limbs the power— | 135 |
| To an old empty woodman’s house that’s hidden | |
| Close to a clump of beech trees in the wood | |
| Westward of Tara, there to await a friend | |
| That could, as he had told her, work his cure | |
And would be no harsh friend.
When night had deepened, | 140 |
| I groped my way through boughs, and over roots, | |
| Till oak and hazel ceased and beech began, | |
| And found the house, a sputtering torch within, | |
| And stretched out sleeping on a pile of skins | |
| Ardan, and though I called to him and tried | 145 |
| To shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him. | |
| I waited till the night was on the turn, | |
| Then fearing that some labourer, on his way | |
| To plough or pasture-land, might see me there, | |
Went out.
Among the ivy-covered rocks, | 150 |
| As on the blue light of a sword, a man | |
| Who had unnatural majesty, and eyes | |
| Like the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods, | |
| Stood on my path. Trembling from head to foot | |
| I gazed at him like grouse upon a kite; | 155 |
| But with a voice that had unnatural music, | |
| “A weary wooing and a long,” he said, | |
| “Speaking of love through other lips and looking | |
| Under the eyelids of another, for it was my craft | |
| That put a passion in the sleeper there, | 160 |
| And when I had got my will and drawn you here, | |
| Where I may speak to you alone, my craft | |
| Sucked up the passion out of him again | |
| And left mere sleep. He’ll wake when the sun wakes, | |
| Push out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes, | 165 |
| And wonder what has ailed him these twelve months.” | |
| I cowered back upon the wall in terror, | |
| But that sweet-sounding voice ran on: “Woman, | |
| I was your husband when you rode the air, | |
| Danced in the whirling foam and in the dust, | 170 |
| In days you have not kept in memory, | |
| Being betrayed into a cradle, and I come | |
| That I may claim you as my wife again.” | |
| I was no longer terrified, his voice | |
| Had half awakened some old memory, | 175 |
| Yet answered him: “I am King Eochaid’s wife | |
| And with him have found every happiness | |
| Women can find.” With a most masterful voice, | |
| That made the body seem as it were a string | |
| Under a bow, he cried: “What happiness | 180 |
| Can lovers have that know their happiness | |
| Must end at the dumb stone? But where we build | |
| Our sudden palaces in the still air | |
| Pleasure itself can bring no weariness, | |
| Nor can time waste the cheek, nor is there foot | 185 |
| That has grown weary of the whirling dance, | |
| Nor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns, | |
| Among those mouths that sing their sweathearts’ praise, | |
| Your empty bed.” “How should I love,” I answered, | |
| “Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bed | 190 |
| And shown my husband sleeping there, I have sighed, | |
| ‘Your strength and nobleness will pass away.’ | |
| Or how should love be worth its pains were it not | |
| That when he has fallen asleep within my arms, | |
| Being wearied out, I love in man the child? | 195 |
| What can they know of love that do not know | |
| She builds her nest upon a narrow ledge | |
| Above a windy precipice?” Then he: | |
| “Seeing that when you come to the death-bed | |
| You must return, whether you would or no, | 200 |
| This human life blotted from memory, | |
| Why must I live some thirty, forty years, | |
| Alone with all this useless happiness?” | |
| Thereon he seized me in his arms, but I | |
| Thrust him away with both my hands and cried, | 205 |
| “Never will I believe there is any change | |
| Can blot out of my memory this life | |
| Sweetened by death, but if I could believe | |
| That were a double hunger in my lips | |
For what is doubly brief.”
And now the shape, | 210 |
| My hands were pressed to, vanished suddenly. | |
| I staggered, but a beech tree stayed my fall, | |
| And clinging to it I could hear the cocks | |
Crow upon Tara.’
King Eochaid bowed his head | |
| And thanked her for her kindness to his brother, | 215 |
| For that she promised, and for that refused. | |
| |
| Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herds | |
| Rose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed door | |
| Jostled and shouted those war-wasted men, | |
| And in the midst King Eochaid’s brother stood. | 220 |
| He’d heard that din on the horizon’s edge | |
| And ridden towards it, being ignorant. | |
