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| GEORGE BORROW in his Lavengro | |
| Tells us of a Welshman, who | |
| By some excess of mother-wit | |
| Framed a harp and played on it, | |
| Built a ship and sailed to sea, | 5 |
| And steered it home to melody | |
| Of his own making. I, indeed, | |
| Might write for Everyman to read | |
| A thaumalogue of wonderment | |
| More wonderful, but rest content | 10 |
| With celebrating one I knew | |
| Who built his pipes, and played them, too: | |
No more.
Ah, played! Therein is all: | |
| The hounded thing, the hunter’s call; | |
| The shudder, when the quarry’s breath | 15 |
| Is drowned in blood and stilled in death; | |
| The marriage dance, the pulsing vein, | |
| The kiss that must be given again; | |
| The hope that Ireland, like a rose, | |
| Sees shining thro’ her tale of woes; | 20 |
| The battle lost, the long lament | |
| For blood and spirit vainly spent; | |
| And so on, thro’ the varying scale | |
| Of passion that the western Gael | |
| Knows, and by miracle of art | 25 |
| Draws to the chanter from the heart | |
| Like water from a hidden spring, | |
| To leap or murmur, weep or sing. | |
| |
| I see him now, a little man | |
| In proper black, whey-bearded, wan, | 30 |
| With eyes that scan the eastern hills | |
| Thro’ thick, gold-rimmèd spectacles. | |
| His hand is on the chanter. Lo, | |
| The hidden spring begins to flow | |
| In waves of magic. (He is dead | 35 |
| These seven years, but bend your head | |
| And listen.) Rising from the clay | |
| The Master plays The Ring of Day. | |
| It mounts and falls and floats away | |
| Over the sky-line … then is gone | 40 |
| Into the silence of the dawn! | |
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