HE stept a man out of the ways of men, | |
| And no one knew his sept or rank or name,— | |
| Like a strong stream far issuing from a glen, | |
| From some source unexplored, the Master came; | |
| Gossips there were, who, wondrous keen of ken, | 5 |
| Surmised that he should be a child of shame; | |
| Others declared him of the Druids; then | |
| Through Patrick’s labors fallen from power and fame. | |
| |
| He lived apart, wrapt up in many plans; | |
| He wooed not women, tasted not of wine; | 10 |
| He shunned the sports and councils of the clans, | |
| Nor ever knelt at a frequented shrine. | |
| His orisons were old poetic ranns, | |
| Which the new Ollaves deemed an evil sign; | |
| To most he seemed one of those pagan Khans, | 15 |
| Whose mystic vigor knows no cold decline. | |
| |
| He was the builder of the wondrous Towers, | |
| Which, tall and straight and exquisitely round, | |
| Rise monumental round the isle once ours; | |
| Index-like, marking spots of holy ground, | 20 |
| In gloaming glens, in leafy lowland bowers, | |
| On rivers’ banks, these Cloiteachs old abound; | |
| Where Art, enraptured, meditates long hours, | |
| And Science flutters like a bird spell-bound! | |
| |
| Lo! wheresoe’er these pillar-towers aspire, | 25 |
| Heroes and holy men repose below,— | |
| The bones of some gleaned from the pagan pyre, | |
| Others in armor lie, as for a foe: | |
| It was the mighty Master’s life-desire | |
| To chronicle his great ancestors so; | 30 |
| What holier duty, what achievement higher, | |
| Remains to us, than this he thus doth show? | |
| |
| Yet he, the builder, died an unknown death: | |
| His labor done, no man beheld him more; | |
| ’T was thought his body faded like a breath, | 35 |
| Or, like a sea-mist, floated off Life’s shore. | |
| Doubt overhangs his fate and faith and birth; | |
| His works alone attest his life and lore,— | |
| They are the only witnesses he hath, | |
| All else Egyptian darkness covers o’er. | 40 |
| |
| Men called him Gobhan Saer, and many a tale | |
| Yet lingers in the byways of the land, | |
| Of how he cleft the rock, and down the vale | |
| Led the bright river, childlike, in his hand; | |
| Of how on giant ships he spread great sail, | 45 |
| And many marvels else by him first planned: | |
| But though these legends fade, in Innisfail | |
| His name and towers for centuries shall stand. | |
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