Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Padraic Colum (1881–1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922.

By Stephen Gwynn

57. The Woman of Beare

EBBING, the wave of the sea

Leaves, where it wantoned before

Wan and naked the shore,

Heavy the clotted weed.

And my heart, woe is me!

Ebbs a wave of the sea.

I am the woman of Beare.

Foul am I that was fair,

Gold-embroidered smocks I had,

Now in rags am hardly clad.

Arms, now so poor and thin,

Staring bone and shrunken skin,

Once were lustrous, once caressed

Chiefs and warriors to their rest.

Not the sage’s power, nor lone

Splendour of an aged throne,

Wealth I envy not, nor state.

Only women folk I hate.

On your heads, while I am cold,

Shines the sun of living gold

Flowers shall wreathe your necks in May:

For me, every month is grey.

Yours the bloom: but ours the fire,

Even out of dead desire.

Wealth, not men, ye love; but when

Life was in us, we loved men.

Fair the men, and wild the manes

Of their coursers on the plains;

Wild the chariots rocked, when we

Raced by them for mastery.

Lone is Femen: Vacant, bare

Stands in Bregon Ronan’s chair.

And the slow tooth of the sky

Frets the stones where my dead lie.

The wave of the great sea talks;

Through the forest winter stalks;

Not to-day by wood and sea

Comes King Diarmuid here to me.

I know what my King does.

Through the shivering reeds, across

Fords no mortal strength may breast,

He rows—to how chill a rest!

Amen, Time ends all.

Every acorn has to fall.

Bright at feasts the candles were,

Dark is here the house of prayer.

I, that when the hour was mine

Drank with kings the mead and wine,

Drink whey-water now, in rags

Praying among shrivelled hags.

Amen, let my drink be whey,

Let me do God’s wil all day—

And, as upon God I call,

Turn my blood to angry gall.

Ebb, flood, and ebb: I know

Well the ebb, and well the flow,

And the second ebb, all three—

Have they not come home to me!

Came the flood that had for waves

Monarchs, mad to be my slaves,

Crested as by foam with bounds

Of wild steeds and leaping hounds.

Comes no more that flooding tide

To my silent dark fireside.

Guests are many in my hall,

But a hand has touched them all.

Well is with the isle that feels

Now the ocean backward steals:

But to me my ebbing blood

Brings again no forward flood.

Ebbing, the wave of the sea

Leaves, where it wantoned before,

Changed past knowing the shore,

Lean and lonely and grey.

And far and farther from me

Ebbs the wave of the sea.