Chapter VII: Part 7

They do not look through love to look on thee,
Grave heavenliness! nor know they joy of sight,
Who deem the wave of rapt desire must be
Its wrecking and last issue of delight.
Dead seasons quicken in one petal-spot
Of colour unforgot.

XIII.

This way have men come out of brutishness
To spell the letters of the sky and read
A reflex upon earth else meaningless.
With thee, O fount of the Untimed! to lead;
Drink they of thee, thee eyeing, they unaged
Shall on through brave wars waged.

XIV.

More gardens will they win than any lost;
The vile plucked out of them, the unlovely slain.
Not forfeiting the beast with which they are crossed,
To stature of the Gods will they attain.
They shall uplift their Earth to meet her Lord,
Themselves the attuning chord!

XV.

The song had ceased; my vision with the song.
Then of those Shadows, which one made descent
Beside me I knew not: but Life ere long
Came on me in the public ways and bent
Eyes deeper than of old: Death met I too,
And saw the dawn glow through

Shadows.

[Sidenote: SEBASTIAN EVANS]

Lonely o’er the dying ember
I the past recall,
And remember in December
April buds and August skies,
As the shadows fall and rise,
As the shadows rise and fall.

Quicker now they lift and flicker
On the dreary wall;
Aye, and quicker still and thicker
Throng the fitful fantasies,
As the shadows fall and rise,
As the shadows rise and fall.

Dimmer now they shoot and shimmer
On the dreary wall,
Dimmer, dimmer, still they glimmer
Till the light in darkness dies,
And the other shadows rise,
And the other shadows fall.

When the World is Burning.

[Sidenote: EBENEZER JONES]

When the world is burning,
Fired within, yet turning
Round with face unscathed;
Ere fierce flames, uprushing,
O’er all lands leap, crushing,
Till earth fall, fire-swathed;
Up against the meadows,
Gently through the shadows,
Gentle flames will glide,
Small, and blue, and golden.
Though by bard beholden,
When in calm dreams folden,--
Calm his dreams will bide.

Where the dance is sweeping,
Through the greensward peeping,
Shall the soft lights start;
Laughing maids, unstaying,
Deeming it trick-playing,
High their robes upswaying,
O’er the lights shall dart;
And the woodland haunter
Shall not cease to saunter
When, far down some glade,
Of the great world’s burning,
One soft flame upturning
Seems, to his discerning,
Crocus in the shade.

The Hand.

Lone o’er the moors I stray’d;
With basely timid mind,
Because by some betray’d
Denouncing human-kind;
I heard the lonely wind,
And wickedly did mourn
I could not share its loneliness,
And all things human scorn.

And bitter were the tears,
I cursed as they fell;
And bitterer the sneers
I strove not to repel:
With blindly mutter’d yell,
I cried unto mine heart,--
“Thou shalt beat the world in falsehood
And stab it ere we part.”

My hand I backward drave
As one who seeks a knife;
When startlingly did crave
To quell that hand’s wild strife
Some other hand; all rife
With kindness, clasp’d it hard
On mine, quick frequent claspings
That would not be debarr’d.

I dared not turn my gaze
To the creature of the hand;
And no sound did it raise,
Its nature to disband
Of mystery; vast, and grand,
The moors around me spread,
And I thought, some angel message
Perchance their God may have sped.

[Sidenote: EBENEZER JONES]

But it press’d another press,
So full of earnest prayer,
While o’er it fell a tress
Of cool soft human hair,
I fear’d not;--I did dare
Turn round, ’twas Hannah there!
Oh! to no one out of heaven
Could I what pass’d declare.

We wander’d o’er the moor
Through all that blessed day;
And we drank its waters pure,
And felt the world away;
In many a dell we lay,
And we twined flower-crowns bright;
And I fed her with moor-berries
And bless’d her glad eye-light.

And still that earnest prayer
That saved me many stings,
Was oft a silent sayer
Of countless loving things;--
I’ll ring it all with rings,
Each ring a jewell’d band;
For heaven shouldn’t purchase
That little sister hand.

A Song of Winter.

[Sidenote: EMILY DAVIS

(Mrs Pfeiffer)]

Barb’d blossom of the guarded gorse,
I love thee where I see thee shine:
Thou sweetener of our common-ways,
And brightener of our wintry days.

Flower of the gorse, the rose is dead,
Thou art undying, O be mine!
Be mine with all thy thorns, and prest
Close on a heart that asks not rest.

I pluck thee and thy stigma set
Upon my breast, and on my brow;
Blow, buds, and plenish so my wreath
That none may know the wounds beneath.

O crown of thorn that seem’st of gold,
No festal coronal art thou;
Thy honey’d blossoms are but hives
That guard the growth of winged lives.

I saw thee in the time of flowers
As sunshine spill’d upon the land,
Or burning bushes all ablaze
With sacred fire; but went my ways;

I went my ways, and as I went
Pluck’d kindlier blooms on either hand;
Now of those blooms so passing sweet
None lives to stay my passing feet.

And still thy lamp upon the hill
Feeds on the autumn’s dying sigh,
And from thy midst comes murmuring
A music sweeter than in spring.

Barb’d blossoms of the guarded gorse,
Be mine to wear until I die,
And mine the wounds of love which still
Bear witness to his human will.

The Night Ride.

[Sidenote: ERNEST RHYS]

To-night we rode beneath a moon
That made the moorland pale;
And our horses’ feet kept well the tune
And our pulses did not fail.

The moon shone clear; the hoar-frost fell,
The world slept, as it seemed;
Sleep held the night, but we rode well,
And as we rode we dreamed.

We dreamed of ghostly horse and hound,
And flight at dead of night;--
The more the fearful thoughts we found,
The more was our delight.

And when we saw the white-owl fly,
With hoot, how woebegone!
We thought to see dead men go by,
And pressed our horses on.

The merrier then was Sylvia’s song
Upon the homeward road,--
Oh, whether the way be short or long
Is all in the rider’s mood!

And still our pulses kept the tale,
Our gallop kept the tune,
As round and over hill and vale
We rode beneath the moon.

The House of Hendra.

_‘S’ai Plas Hendre_
_Yn Nghaer Fyrddin:_
_Canu Brechfa,_
_Tithau Lywelyn’._

I.

[Sidenote:

The House of Hendra stood in Merlin’s Town, and was sung by Brechva
on his Harp of gold at the October Feasting of Ivor.
]

In the town where wondrous Merlin
Lived, and still
In deep sleep, they say, lies dreaming
Near it, under Merlin’s Hill,

In that town of pastoral Towy,
Once of old
Stood the ancient House of Hendra,
Sung on Brechva’s harp of gold.

With his harp to Ivor’s feasting
Brechva came,
There he sang and made this ballad,
While the last torch spent its flame.

Long they told,--the men of Ivor,
Of the strain
At the heart of Brechva’s harping
Heard that night, and not again.

[Sidenote: ERNEST RHYS]

II.

[Sidenote:

_Incipit_ Brechva’s Ballad of the House of Hendra, and of his deep
sleep there on Hallowmas Night, and of his strange awaking.
]

In yon town, he sang,--there Hendra
Waits my feet,
In renownèd Merlin’s town where
Clare’s white castle keeps the street.

There, within that house of heroes,
I drew breath;
And ’tis there my feet must bear me,
For the darker grace of death.

There that last year’s night I journeyed,--
Hallowmas!
When the dead of Earth, unburied,
In the darkness rise and pass.

Then in Hendra (all his harp cried
At the stroke),
Twelve moons gone, there came upon me
Sleep like death. At length I woke:

I awoke to utter darkness,
Still and deep,
With the walls around me fallen
Of the sombre halls of sleep:

With my hall of dreams downfallen,
Dark I lay,
Like one houseless, though about me
Hendra stood, more fast than they:

But what broke my sleep asunder,--
Light or sound?
There was shown no sound, where only
Night, and shadow’s heart, were found.

III.

[Sidenote:

Anon he hears a voice in the night, and rising from sleep, looks
out upon the sleeping town.
]

So it passed, till with a troubled
Lonely noise,
Like a cry of men benighted,
Midnight made itself a voice.

Then I rose, and from the stairloop,
Looking down,
Nothing saw, where far before me
Lay, one darkness, all the town.

In that grave day seemed for ever
To lie dead,
Nevermore at wake of morning
To lift up its pleasant head:

All its friendly foolish clamour,
Its delight,
Fast asleep, or dead, beneath me,
In that black descent of night:

But anon, like fitful harping,
Hark, a noise!
As in dream, suppose your dreamer’s
Men of shadow found a voice.

[Sidenote: ERNEST RHYS]

IV.

[Sidenote:

Hearing his name called, Brechva descends to the postern, and sees
thence a circle of Shadows, in a solemn dance of Death.
]

Night-wind never sang more strangely
Song more strange;
All confused, yet with a music
In confusion’s interchange.

Now it cried, like harried night-birds,
Flying near,
Now, more nigh, with multiplying
Voice on voice, “O Brechva, hear!”

I was filled with fearful pleasure
At the call,
And I turned, and by the stairway
Gained the postern in the wall:

Deep as Annwn lay the darkness
At my feet;--
Like a yawning grave before me,
When I opened, lay the street.

Dark as death, and deep as Annwn,--
But these eyes
Yet more deeply, strangely, seeing,
From that grave saw life arise.

And therewith a mist of shadows
In a ring,
Like the sea-mist on the sea-wind,
Waxing, waning, vanishing.

Circling as the wheel of spirits
Whirled and spun,
Spun and whirled, to forewarn Merlin
In the woods of Caledon.

V.

[Sidenote:

The spirits are no dream-folk; but ancient inmates of the House of
Hendra.
]

Shades of men, ay, bards and warriors!--
Wrought of air,
You may deem, but ’twas no dream-folk,
Born of night, that crossed me there.

And my heart cried out,--“O Vorwyn!
They are those
Who of old-time lived to know here
Life’s great sweetness in this house.”

I had bid them kinsman’s welcome,
In a word,
For the ancient sake of Hendra,
Which they served with harp and sword.

But as still I watched them, wondering,
Curiously,
Knowing all they should forewarn me,--
Of my death and destiny!

Ere I marked all in the silence,
Ere I knew,
Swift as they had come, as strangely
Now their shadowy life withdrew.

[Sidenote: ERNEST RHYS]

VI.

[Sidenote:

The Spirits being gone, Brechva hears aërial music, and sees in
vision all the Bards in the seventh Heaven.
]

They were gone; but what sweet wonder
Filled the air!--
With a thousand harping noises,--
Harping, chiming, crying there.

At that harping and that chiming,
Straightway strong
Grew my heart, and in the darkness
Found great solace at that song.

Through the gate of night, its vision,
Three times fine,
Saw the seventh heaven of heroes,
’Mid a thousand torches’ shine:

All the bards and all the heroes
Of old time
There with Arthur and with Merlin
Weave again the bardic rhyme.

There a seat is set and ready,
And the name
There inscribed, and set on high there,--
Brechva of the Bards of Fame.

V

CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-CELTIC POETS

(Manx)

The Childhood of Kitty of the Sherragh Vane.

[Sidenote: T. E. BROWN]

Nice lookin’, eh?
Aye, that’s your way--
Well, I tell ye, the first time ever I seen her,
She wasn’ much more till[27] a baby--
Six years, may be,
Would have been her
Age; at the little clogs at her,[28]
Clitter-clatter,
And her little hand
In mine, to show me the way, you’ll understand,
Down yandher brew,
And me a stranger too,
That was lost on the mountain;
And the little sowl in the house all alone,
And for her to be goin’
The best part of a mile--
Bless the chile!
Till she got me right--
Not a bit shy, not her!
Nor freckened,[29] but talkin’ as purty
As a woman of thirty--
And--“That’s the way down to the School,” says she
“And Saul and me
Is goin’ there every day;
You’ll aisy find the way”--
And turns, and off like a bird on the wing,
Aw, a bright little thing!

Isn’ it that way with these people of the mountain?
No accountin’
But seemin very fearless though--
Very--not for fightin’, no!
Nor tearin’, but just the used they are
Of fogs and bogs, and all the war
Of winds and clouds, and ghos’es creepin’
Unknownst upon them, and fairies cheepin’
Like birds, you’d think, and big bugganes[30]
In holes in rocks; lek makin’ frens
With the like, that’ll work like niggers, they will,
If you’ll only let them; and paisible
Uncommon they are; and little scraps,
That’s hardly off their mammies’ laps
’ll walk about there in the night
The same as the day, and all right--
Bless ye! ghos’es! ar’n’ they half
Ghos’es themselves? Just hear them laugh,
Or hear them cry,
It’s like up in the sky--
Aw, differin’
Total--aye; for the air is thin
And fine up there, and they suck it in
Very strong,
Very long,
And mixes it in the mould
Of all their body and all their sowl--
So they’re often seemin’
Like people dreamin’,
With their eyes open like a surt of a trance.

Graih my Chree.

(Love of my Heart.)

[Sidenote: HALL CAINE]

I.

She was Joney, the rich man’s only child,
He was Juan, a son of the sea.
“Thy father hath cast me forth of his door,
But, poor as I am, to his teeth I swore
I should wed thee, O graih my chree.”

He broke a ring and gave her the half,
And she buried it close at her heart.
“I must leave thee, love of my soul,” he said,
“But I vow by our troth that living or dead,
I will come back rich to thine arms and thy bed,
And fetch thee as sure as we part.”

He sailed to the north, he sailed to the south,
He sailed to the foreign strand,
But whether he touched on the icy cone
Or the coral reef of the Indian zone,
It turned to a golden land.

And he cried to his crew, “Hoist sail and about,
For no more do I need to roam;
I have silks and satins and lace and gold,
I have treasure as deep as my ship will hold
To win me a wife at home.”

They had not sailed but half of their course
To the haven where they would be,
When the devil beguiled their barque on a rock,
And down it sank with a woeful shock
On the banks of Italy.

Then over the roar of the clamorous waves
The skipper his voice was heard,
“I vowed by our troth that dead or alive
I should come back yet to wed and to wive,
And by t’ Lady I keep my word.

“I will come to thee still, O love of my heart,
From the arms of the envious sea;
Though the tempest should swallow my choking breath,
In the spite of hell and the devil and death
I will come to thee, graih my chree.”

II.

“He will come no more to thine arms, my child,
He is false or lost and dead,
Now wherefore make ye these five years’ moan,
And wherefore sit by the sea alone?”
“He will keep his vow,” she said.

She climbed the brows of the cliffs at home,
She gazed on the false, false sea.
“It comes and it goes for ever,” she cried,
“And tidings it brings to the wife and the bride,
But never a word to me.”

Then, of lovers, another came wooing the maid,
But she answered him nay and nay,
The manfullest man and her servant true,
“Give me thy hand and thou shalt not rue,”
She murmured, “Alack, the day.”

Her father arose in his pride and his wrath,
He was last of his race and name,
“Because that a daughter will peak and will pine
Must I never have child of my child to my line,
But die in my childless shame?”

They bore her a bride to the kirkyard gate,
It was a pitiful sight to see,
Her body they decked in their jewels and gold,
But the heart in her bosom sate silent and cold,
And she murmured “Ah, woe is me.”

[Sidenote: HALL CAINE]

III.

They had not been wedded a year, a year,
A year but barely two,
When the good wife close to the hearth-stone crept
And rocked her babe while the good man slept
And the wind in the chimney blew.

Loud was the sea and fierce was the night,
Gloomy and wild and dour;
From a flying cloud came a lightning flash,
A pane of the window fell in with a crash,
And something rang on the floor.

O, was it a stone from the waste sea-beach?
O, was it an earthly thing?
She stirred the peat and stooped to the ground,
And there in the red, red light she found
The half of a broken ring.

She rose upright in a terror of fright
As one that hath sinned a sin,
And out of the dark and the wind and rain,
Through the jagged gap of the broken pane,
A man’s white face looked in.

“Oh, why didst thou stay so long, Juan?
Five years I waited for thee.”
“I vowed by our troth, that living or dead
I should come back yet to thine arms and thy bed,
And my vow I have kept, my chree.”

“But I have been false to my troth, Juan;
Falsely I swore me away.”
“I have silks and satins and lace and gold,
I have treasure as deep as my ship will hold;
And my barque lies out in the bay.”

“But I have a husband that loves me dear;
I promised him never to part.”
“Through the salt sea’s foam and the earth’s hot breath,
Through the grapplings of hell and the gates of death
I have come for thee, Joney, my heart.”

“But I have a child of my body so sweet--
Little Jannie that sleeps in the cot.”
“By the glimpse of the moon, at the top of the tide,
Ere the crow of the cock our vessel must ride,
Or what will befall us, God wot.”

“Now, ever alack, thou must kiss and go back;
My love, I am never for thee.”
“As sure as yon ship to the billows that roll,
By the plight of our troth, both body and soul
You belong to me, graih my chree.”

She followed him forth like to one in a sleep;
It was a woeful and wonderous sight.
The moon on his face from a rift in a cloud
Showed it white and wan as a face in a shroud,
And his ship on the sea gleamed white.

IV.

“Now weigh and away, my merry men all.”
The crew laughed loud in their glee.
“With the rich man’s pride and his sweet daughter,
In the spite of wind and the wild water--
To the banks of Italy!”

The anchor was weighed, the canvas was spread,
All in the storm and the dark,
With never a reef in a stitch of sail,
But standing about to burst the gale
Merrily sped the barque.

[Sidenote: HALL CAINE]

The first night out there was fear on the ship,
For the lady lay in a swoon;
The second night out she woke from her trance,
And the skipper did laugh and his men would dance,
But she made a piteous moan.

“O, where is my home and my sweet baby--
My Jannie I nursed on my knee?
He will wake in his cot by the cold hearth-stone
And cry for his mother who left him alone;
My Jannie, I’m wae for thee.”

The skipper he shouted for music and song,
And his crew they answered his call.
He clothed her in silk and satin and lace,
But still through the rout and riot her face
Showed fit for a funeral.

And ever at night they sailed by the moon,
Through the wild white foam so fleet,
And ever again at the coming of day,
When the sun rose out of the sea they lay
In a mist like a winding sheet.

And still the skipper he kissed her and cried,
“Be merry and let-a-be.”
And still to soothe her he sat through the nights
With his hand in her hand, till they opened the lights
By the banks of Italy.

Then his face shone green as with ghostly sheen,
And the moon began to dip.
“O, think not you, I am the lover ye knew;
I am a ghostly man with a ghostly crew,
And this is a ghostly ship.”

Then he rose upright to a fearsome height,
And stamped his foot on the deck;
He smote the mast at the topsail yards,
And the rigging fell like a house of cards,
And the hulk was a splitting wreck.

O, then as she sank in the water’s womb,
In the churn of the choking sea,
She knew that his arms were about her breast,
As close as his arms might be.
And he cried o’er the tramp of the champing tide
On the banks of Italy,
“By the plight of our troth, by the power of our bond,
If not in this world in the world beyond,
Thou art mine, O graih my chree.”

VI

CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-CELTIC POETS

(Cornish)

The Splendid Spur.

[Sidenote: A. T. QUILLER COUCH]

Not on the neck of prince or hound,
Nor on a woman’s finger twin’d,
May gold from the deriding ground
Keep sacred that we sacred bind:
Only the heel
Of splendid steel
Shall stand secure on sliding fate,
When golden navies weep their freight.

The scarlet hat, the laurell’d stave
Are measures, not the springs of worth;
In a wife’s lap, as in a grave,
Man’s airy notions mix with earth.
Seek other spur
Bravely to stir
The dust in this loud world, and tread
Alp-high among the whisp’ring dead.

=Trust in thyself=,--then spur amain:
So shall Charybdis wear a grace,
Grim Ætna laugh, the Libyan plain
Take roses to her shrivell’d face.
This orb--this round
Of sight and sound--
Count it the lists that God hath built
For haughty hearts to ride a-tilt.

The White Moth.

[Sidenote: A. T. QUILLER COUCH]

_If a leaf rustled, she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
And do they turn and turn in fright,
Those little feet, in so much night?_

The light above the poet’s head
Streamed on the page and on the cloth,
And twice and thrice there buffeted
On the black pane a white-wing’d moth:
’Twas Annie’s soul that beat outside,
And “Open, open, open!” cried:

“I could not find the way to God;
There were too many flaming suns
For signposts, and the fearful road
Led over wastes where millions
Of tangled comets hissed and burned--
I was bewilder’d and I turned.

“O, it was easy then! I knew
Your window and no star beside.
Look up and take me back to you!”
He rose and thrust the window wide.
’Twas but because his brain was hot
With rhyming; for he heard her not.

But poets polishing a phrase
Show anger over trivial things:
And as she blundered in the blaze
Towards him, on ecstatic wings,
He raised a hand and smote her dead;
Then wrote, “=That I had died instead=.”

Featherstone’s Doom.[31]

[Sidenote: STEPHEN HAWKER]

I.

Twist thou and twine! in light and gloom
A spell is on thine hand;
The wind shall be thy changeful loom,
Thy web, the shifting sand.

II.

Twine from this hour, in ceaseless toil,
On Blackrock’s sullen shore;
Till cordage of the hand shall coil
Where crested surges roar.

III.

’Tis for that hour, when, from the wave,
Near voices wildly cried;
When thy stern hand no succour gave,
The cable at thy side.

IV.

Twist thou and twine! in light and gloom
The spell is on thine hand;
The wind shall be thy changeful loom,
Thy web, the shifting sand.

Trebarrow.

[Sidenote: STEPHEN HAWKER]

I.

Did the wild blast of battle sound,
Of old, from yonder lonely mound?
Race of Pendragon! did ye pour,
On this dear earth, your votive gore?

II.

Did stern swords cleave along this plain
The loose rank of the roving Dane?
Or Norman chargers’ sounding tread
Smite the meek daisy’s Saxon head?

III.

The wayward winds no answer breathe,
No legend cometh from beneath,
Of chief, with good sword at his side,
Or Druid in his tomb of pride.

IV.

One quiet bird that comes to make
Her lone nest in the scanty brake;
A nameless flower, a silent fern--
Lo! the dim stranger’s storied urn.

V.

Hark! on the cold wings of the blast
The future answereth to the past;
The bird, the flower, may gather still,
Thy voice shall cease upon the hill!

Witch Margaret.

[Sidenote: RICCARDO STEPHENS]

Who hath not met Witch Margaret?
Red gold her rippling hair,
Eyes like sweet summer seas are set
Beneath her brow so fair;
And cream and damask rose have met
Her lips and cheek to share.

Come up! and you shall see her yet,
Before she groweth still;
Before her cloak of flame and smoke
The winter air shall fill;
For they must burn Witch Margaret
Upon the Castle Hill.

* * * * *

They found on her the devil’s mark,
Wherein naught maketh pain,--
“Bind her and dip her! stiff and stark
She floateth aye again;
Her body changeth after dark,
When powers of darkness reign.”

They drave the boot on Margaret
And crushed her dainty feet;
The hissing searing-irons set
To kiss her lips so sweet:
She hath not asked for mercy yet,
Nor mercy shall she meet.

The silent sky was cold and grey,
The earth was cold and white,
They brought her out that Christmas Day
To burn her in our sight;
The snow that fell and fell alway
Would cover her ere night.

All feebly as a child would go
Her bleeding feet dragged by,
Blood-red upon the white, white snow
I saw her footprints lie;
And some one shrieked to see her so--
God knows if it was I!

Upon her body, all in black,
Fell down her red-gold hair;
All bruised and bleeding from the rack
Her writhen arms hung bare;
Red blood dripped all along her track,
Red blood seemed in the air.

The while they told her deeds of shame,
She, resting in the snow,
Stretched out weak hands toward the flame,
Watched the sparks upward go,
Till on the pale pinched face there came
Some of the red fire’s glow.

* * * * *

Oh, is it blood that blinds mine eyes,
Or is it driving snow?
And are these but the wild wind’s cries
That drive me to and fro,
That beat about mine ears and rise
Wherever I may go?

It’s red and black on Castle Hill!
The people go to pray,
A little wind sighs on, until
The ashes float away;
And then God’s earth is very still,
For this is Christmas Day.

A Ballad.

[Sidenote: RICCARDO STEPHENS]

The Autumn leaves went whispering by,
Like ghosts that never slept.
Up through the dusk a curlew’s cry
From glen to hill-top crept.
The Dead Man heard the burn moan by
And thought for him it wept.

Lapped in his grave, a night and day,
The Dead Man marked the sound:
He knew the moon rose far away,
Grey shadows gathered round,
Then down the glen, he heard the bay
Raised by his great grey hound.

A stag crashed out, and thundered back
--She never turned aside.
The swollen stream ran cold and black,
--She leapt the waters wide,
Nor paused, nor left the shadowy track
Till at the dark grave side.

“What brings you here, my great grey hound,
What brings you here, alone?
True I am dead, but is there found
Beneath my board no bone?
No rushy bed for your grey head
Now I am dead and gone?”

“Your brother reads your title-deeds,
Your wife counts out red gold,
And laughs in rich black widow’s-weeds,
Red-lipped and smooth and bold.
I want no bone, to gnaw alone,
Now that your hand is cold.”

The Dead Man laughed in scornful hate,
While the great hound growled low,
“Last night I rose to Heaven’s gate,”
He said, “for I would know
The best or worst dealt out by Fate,
And whither I must go.”

He paused--“My grave is damp and cold;
I feel the slow worms glide
Smoothly and softly through the mould,
And nestle by my side.
What lives and moves, in wood and wold,
Where love and laughter bide?”

“The wild fowl fly across, and call
In from the grey salt sea;
I scent the red stag by the Fall,
He fears no more from me.
The moon comes up, and over all
She glimmers eerily.”

The corpse replied, “At Heaven’s gates
They stand to let me through,
And there, years hence, a welcome waits
False Wife and Brother too.
Do what you will, my hound, and still
Heaven holds no place for you.

“With tooth and claw tear down to me,
And Death shall be no tether.
The swift red deer once more shall flee,
Panting through burn and heather:
And you and I once more shall be
Hunting my hills together!”

* * * * *

That night the deer across the wold
From dark to dawning fled;
The lady dreamt that, shroud-enrolled,
A corpse had shared her bed;
But by the grave wind-swept and cold,
The great grey hound lay dead!

Hell’s Piper.

[Sidenote: RICCARDO STEPHENS]

O have ye heard of Angus Blair,
Who lived long since in black Auchmair?
And have ye heard old pipers tell
His story--how he piped in Hell?
When Angus piped the old grew young,
Crutches across the floor were flung;
Nay more, ’twas said his witching breath
Had robbed the grave, and cheated death.

Above all else, a march of war
Was what men praised and feared him for;
When that he played, like fire it ran
In blood and brain of every man;
Then stiffened hair began to rise,
Bent brows scowled over staring eyes;
Then, at his will, men spilt their blood
Like water of a winter flood,
Swearing, with Angus, ill or well,
They’d charge light-hearted into Hell.

Long years, through many a feast and fray,
Did Piper Angus pipe his way;
Till, swept upon the swirling tide
Of a night-charge, he sank and died.

That night the Piper rose to tread
The ways that lie before the dead.
He saw God’s battlements afar
Blazing behind the utmost star,
And turning in the chill night air,
Thought he might find a shelter there.

But as he turned to leave the earth,
With all its music, maids, and mirth,
The battered pipes beneath his feet
Screamed out a wailing, last retreat;
Then Piper Angus paused, and thought
Of the wild work those pipes had wrought;
“But there,” quoth he, “in peace and rest,
Up there, the holy ones, the blest,
Praise aye the Lord, and aye they sing,
While golden harps and cymbals ring.
To my wild march or mad strathspey
The heavenly host would say me nay,
And none would hear my chanter more
Unless the Lord went out to war.
But often have I heard men tell
How they would follow pipes to Hell:
That way I’ll try: in Hell maybe
Some corner’s kept for them and me.”

So said, so done--for well content
Down the dark way to Hell he went.
The Chanter felt his finger-tips,
The Blow-pipe thrilled between his lips,
The Drones across his shoulder flung,
Moaned till the Earth’s foundations rung,
The streamers flaunted on the blast
As, striding smoke and shadow past,
With bonnet cocked, and careless air,
Piping his march, went Piper Blair.

Down where the shackled earthquakes dwell
Are piled the reeking halls of Hell.
Their walls are steel, their gates are brass;
Round them four flaming rivers pass;
And sleepless sentinels are set
On every point and parapet,
To hedge the souls whose far-off cries
Up to the world may never rise.

That night, so still the whole place seemed,
You’d think all Hell had peace, and dreamed
For the dark Master, brooding aye
Over lost hope and ancient fray,
Had, from his vantage, pale and grim,
Perchance to please a passing whim,
Hissed down a word which quelled and cowed
And silenced all that shuddering crowd.
So now aloft upon his throne
He sat indifferent, alone,
While poor damned souls who dared not cry
In writhing droves went whirling by.
These, dumb, before he noted aught,
Some strange and wandering sound now caught.

And first a little note they heard
Far off--and like a lonely bird;
And then it grew, and grew, and grew,
As near and nearer still it drew,
Until Hell’s Lord in slow surprise
Turned on the gates his weary eyes.

Then they that bent beneath a load
Stood up, nor felt the fiery goad.
Then they that trod on forks of flame
Tramped to the wild notes as they came.
Then, look, old foes of long ago
Feel old revenge revive and glow.
Then, heedless of the flaming whip,
They roll in one another’s grip
With shout and shriek and throttled jeer,
--And over all the pipes rang clear.

But from the march those pipes turned soon,
And sank, to sing another tune;
A low lament, whose sobbing wail
Filled aching hearts and made them fail.
And they that fought a breath ago
Now wept at one another’s woe.

A second change--a lilting air
Made Hell look bright, made Hell look fair,
And wretches gasping new from death
Followed the tune beneath their breath--
Then, piping yet, erect, alone,
The Piper stood before the throne.

Up rose the Master in his place,
Eyeing the Piper’s careless face,
“No room, no room in Hell can be
For Piper Angus Blair,” cried he;
“Would to such sounds my host had trod
Ere I was hurled down here by God;
Mine hadst thou been, before I fell,
I’d rule in Heav’n now--not in Hell.
Then every night and every day
On Heav’n’s high ramparts shouldst thou play,
But here--here’s neither war nor mirth,
Nor more in Heav’n; so back to Earth.”

Thus now, as over glen and brae
The wild wind wanders on its way,
Dead Piper Angus Blair goes too,
And pipes and pipes the whole world through.
Unseen, unknown he goes. To-day
He’ll pipe perchance for bairns at play
To set them dancing: maybe steal
To-night to watch a roaring reel.
There, when the panting pipers tire,
He joins, and sets all hearts afire;
And ere the dawn his pipes have pealed
Fiercely across some stricken field.
But when each year is at its close
Right down the road to Hell he goes.
There the gaunt porters all a-grin
Fling back the gates to let him in,
Then damned and devil, one and all,
Make mirth and hold high carnival,
The while the Master sits apart
Plotting rebellion in his heart.
Till, when above the dawn is grey,
The Piper turns and tramps away.

VII

MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY BRETON

_O Breiz-Izel, O Kaera bro!_
_Koat enn hi c’ hreiz, mor enn he zro!_

The Poor Clerk.

(Ar C’Hloarek Paour.)

[Sidenote: MEDIÆVAL BRETON]

My wooden shoes I’ve lost them, my naked feet I’ve torn
A-following my sweeting through field and brake of thorn;
The rain may beat, and fall the sleet, and ice chill to the bone,
But they’re no stay to hold away the lover from his own.

My sweeting is no older than I that love her so:
She’s scarce seventeen, her face is fair, her cheeks like roses glow.
In her eyes there is a fire, sweetest speech her lips doth part;
Her love it is a prison where I’ve locked up my heart.

Oh, to what shall I liken her, that a wrong it shall not be?
To the pretty little white rose, that is called Rose-Marie?
The pearl of girls; the lily when among the flowers it grows,
The lily newly opened, among flowers about to close.

When I came to thee a-wooing, my sweet, my gentle May,
I was as is the nightingale upon the hawthorn spray:
When he would sleep the thorns they keep a-pricking in his breast,
That he flies up perforce and sings upon the tree’s tall crest.

I am as is the nightingale, or as a soul must be
That in the purgatory fires lies longing to be free,
Waiting the blessèd time when I unto your house shall come,
All with the marriage-messenger[32] bearing his branch of broom.

Ah, me! my stars are froward: ’gainst nature is my state;
Since in this world I came I’ve dreed a dark and dismal fate:
I have nor living kin nor friends, mother nor father dear,
There is no Christian on earth to wish me happy here.

There lives no one hath had to bear so much of grief and shame
For your sweet sake as I have, since in this world I came;
And therefore on my bended knees, in God’s dear name I sue,
Have pity on your own poor clerk, that loveth only you!

The Cross by the Way.

(Kroaz ann Hent.)

[Sidenote: MEDIÆVAL BRETON]

Sweet in the green-wood a birdie sings,
Golden-yellow its two bright wings,
Red its heartikin, blue its crest:
Oh, but it sings with the sweetest breast!

Early, early it ’lighted down
On the edge of my ingle-stone,
As I prayed my morning prayer,--
“Tell me thy errand, birdie fair.”

Then sung it as many sweet things to me
As there are roses on the rose-tree:
“Take a sweetheart, lad, an’ you may;
To gladden your heart both night and day.”

Past the cross by the way as I went,
Monday, I saw her fair as a saint:
Sunday, I will go to mass,
There on the green I’ll see her pass.

Water poured in a beaker clear,
Dimmer shows than the eyes of my dear;
Pearls themselves are not more bright
Than her little teeth, pure and white.

Then her hands and her cheek of snow,
Whiter than milk in a black pail, show.
Yes, if you could my sweetheart see,
She would charm the heart from thee.

Had I as many crowns at my beck,
As hath the Marquis of Poncalec;
Had I a gold-mine at my door,--
Wanting my sweetheart, I were poor.

If on my door-sill up should come
Golden flowers for furze and broom,
Till my court were with gold piled high,
Little I’d reck, but she were by.

Doves must have their close warm nest,
Corpses must have the tomb for rest;
Souls to Paradise must depart,--
And I, my love, must to thy heart.

Every Monday at dawn of day
I’ll on my knees to the cross by the way;
At the new cross by the way I’ll bend,
In thy honour, my gentle friend!

The Secrets of the Clerk.

[Sidenote: LATER BRETON]

Each night, each night, as on my bed I lie,
I do not sleep, but turn myself and cry.

I do not sleep, but turn myself and weep,
When I think of her I love so deep.

Each day I seek the Wood of Love so dear,
In hopes to see you at its streamlet clear.

When I see you come through the forest grove,
On its leaves I write the secret of my love.

--But a fragile trust are the forest leaves,
To hold the secrets close which their page receives.

When comes the storm of rain, and gusty air,
Your secrets close are scattered everywhere.

’Twere safer far, young clerk, on my heart to write.
Graven deep they’d rest, and never take their flight.

Love Song.

[Sidenote: MODERN BRETON]

In the white cabin at the foot of the mountain,
Is my sweet, my love:

Is my love, is my desire,
And all my happiness.

Before the night must I see her
Or my little heart will break.

My little heart will not break,
For my lovely dear I have seen.

Fifty nights I have been
At the threshold of her door; she did not know it.

The rain and the wind whipped me,
Until my garments dripped.

Nothing came to console me
Except the sound of breathing from her bed.

Except the sound of breathing from her bed,
Which came through the little hole of the key.

Three pairs of shoes I have worn out,
Her thought I do not know.

The fourth pair I have begun to wear,
Her thought I do not know.

Five pairs, alas, in good count,
Her thought I do not know.

--If it is my thought you wish to know,
It is not I who will make a mystery of it.

There are three roads on each side of my house,
Choose one among them.

Choose whichever you like among them,
Provided it will take you far from here.

[Sidenote: MODERN BRETON]

--More is worth love, since it pleases me,
Than wealth with which I do not know what to do.

Wealth comes, and wealth it goes away,
Wealth serves for nothing.

Wealth passes like the yellow pears:
Love endures for ever.

More is worth a handful of love
Than an oven full of gold and silver.

Hymn to Sleep.

[Sidenote: HERVÉ-NOËL LE BRETON]

Keeper of the keys of Heaven,
Lingering near the starry Seven!
Guardian of the gates of Hell,
Hushed beneath thy drowsy spell!
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

When the pilgrim of strange lore
Haunts thy pale phantasmal shore,
Dreams and absolution grant,
Priestess thou and hierophant!
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

Builder of eternal towers!
Weaver of enchanted bowers!
Thou dost forge the fighter’s arms,
Thee the lover woos for charms:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

Thou dost soothe the virgin’s fears,
Thou dost staunch the widow’s tears,
Smooth the wrinkled brows of Care,
Still the cries of wild Despair:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

Healer of the sores of shame!
Cleanser of the unholy flame!
Thou dost breathe beatitude
On the evil and the good:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

[Sidenote: HERVÉ-NOËL LE BRETON]

When the cup that Pleasure sips
Turns to wormwood on the lips;
When Remorse, with venomed mesh,
Frets and tears the writhing flesh:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

Queller of the storms of Fate!
Quencher of the fires of Hate!
In thy peaceful bosom furled
Lies the turmoil of the world:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

Calm as noon’s abysmal blue,
Soundless as the falling dew,
Soft as snow with fleecy plumes,
Sweet as curling incense-fumes:
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

Keeper of the keys of Heaven!
(Cease your vigil, starry Seven)
Guardian of the gates of Hell!
(Loosen not the drowsèd spell)
Fold thy wings and come to me,
Sleep! thou soul’s euthanasy.

The Burden of Lost Souls.

This was our sin. When Hope, with wings enchanted
And shining aureole,
Hung on the blossomed steps of Youth and haunted
The chancel of the soul;

When we whose lips haply had blown the bugle
That cheers the wavering line,
And solaced those to whom the world was frugal
Of Love, the food divine;

Whose hands had strength to strike men’s chains asunder
And heal the poor man’s wrong,
Whose breath was blended with the chords that thunder
Along the aisles of song;

Whose eyes had seen and hailed the Light of Ages,
In cloudiest heavens a star,
Whose ears had heard, on ringing wheels, the stages
Of Freedom’s trophied car:--

We turned, rebellious children, to the clamour
And tumult of the world;
We gave our souls in fee for Circe’s glamour
And white limbs lightly whirled;

We drank deep draughts of Moloch’s unclean liquor
Even to the dregs of shame,
And blinded by the golden lights that flicker
From Mammon’s altar-flame

We burned strange incense, bowed before his idol
Whose eucharist is fire,
And on the neck of passion loosed the bridle
Of fierce and wild desire:--

[Sidenote: HERVÉ-NOËL LE BRETON]

Till now in our own hearts the ashy embers
Of Love lie smouldering,
And scarce our Autumn chill and bare remembers
The glory of the Spring;

While faith, that in the mire was fain to wallow,
Returns at last to find
The cold fanes desolate, the niches hollow,
The windows dim and blind,

And, strown with ruins round, the shattered relic
Of unregardful youth,
Where shapes of beauty once, with tongues angelic,
Whispered the runes of Truth.

Confession.

[Sidenote: VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM]

Since I have lost the words, the flower
Of youth and the fresh April breeze ...
Give me thy lips; their perfumed dower
Shall be the whisper of the trees!

Since I have lost the deep sea’s sadness,
Her sobs, her restless surge, her graves ...
Breathe but a word; its grief or gladness
Shall be the murmur of the waves!

Since in my soul a sombre blossom
Broods, and the suns of yore take flight ...
O hide me in thy pallid bosom,
And it shall be the calm of night!

Discouragement.

[Sidenote: VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM]

Athwart the unclean ages whirled
To solitary woods sublime,
Oh! had I first beheld this world
Alone and free in Nature’s prime!

When on its loveliness first seen
Eve cast her pure blue eyes abroad:
When all the earth was fresh and green,
And simple Man believed in God!

When sacred accents, vibrating
Beneath the naked sun and sky,
Rose from each new-created thing
To hail the Lord of Life on high;

I would have learned and lived in hope
And loved! For in those vanished days,
Faith wandered on the mountain-slope ...
But now the world has changed her ways:

Our feet, less free, less fugitive,
Tread beaten tracks from shore to shore ...
Alas! what is the life we live?
--A dream of days that are no more!

The Black Panther.

[Sidenote: LECONTE DE LISLE]

Along the rosy cloud light steals and twinkles;
The East is flecked with golden filigree:
Night from her loosened necklace slowly sprinkles
Pearl-clusters on the sea.

Clasped on the bosom of the sparkling azure
Soft skirts of flame trail like a flowing train,
And cast on emerald blades a bright emblazure,
Like drops of fiery rain.

The dew shines, like a sheaf of splendour shaken,
On cinnamon leaves and lychee’s purple flesh;
Among the drowsed bamboos the wind’s wings waken
A myriad whisperings fresh.

From mounds and woods, from mossy tufts and flowers,
In the warm air, with sudden tremours thrilled,
Fragrance bursts forth in sweet and subtile showers,
With feverish rapture filled.

By virgin jungle-track and hidden hollow,
Where in the morning sun smoke tangled weeds,
And where live streams their winding channels follow
Through arches of green reeds,

Steals the black panther from her midnight prowling,
With dawn turned to the lair in which her cubs
Among smooth shining bones, with hunger growling,
Grovel beneath the shrubs.

Restless she slinks along, with arrowy flashes
That scan the shadows of the drooping wood.
The bright, fresh-sprinkled crimsoned dew that dashes
Her velvet skin is blood.

[Sidenote: LECONTE DE LISLE]

Behind she drags the relict of her quarry
Torn from the stricken stag, a mangled spoil
That leaves a loathsome trail and sanguinary
Along the moss-flowered soil.

Round her the tawny bees and light-winged dragons
Flit fearless as she glides with supple flanks;
And clustering foliage from a thousand flagons
Pours fragrance on the banks.

The python, through a scarlet cactus peering,
Slowly above the bush lifts his flat head
And curious eyes, his scaly folds uprearing
To watch her stealthy tread.

She glides in silence into the tall bracken,
Then plunges lost beneath the lichened boughs:
Air burns in the vast light, earth’s noises slacken,
And wood and welkin drowse.

The Spring.

A live spring sparkles in the bosky gloom,
Hidden from the noonday glare;
The green reeds bend above its banks and there
Blue-bells and violets bloom.

No kids that batten on the bitter herb,
On slopes of the near hill,
Nor shepherd’s song, nor flute-note sweet and shrill,
Its crystal source disturb.

Hard by, the dark oaks weave a peaceful screen
Whose shade the wild-bee loves,
And nestled in dense leaves the murmuring doves
Their ruffled plumage preen.

The lazy stags in mossy thickets browse
And sniff the lingering dew;
Beneath cool leaves, that let the sunlight through,
The languorous Sylvans drowse.

White Naïs, near the sacred spring that drips,
Closing her lids awhile,
Dreams as she slumbers, and a radiant smile
Floats on her purple lips.

No eye, kindling with love’s desire, has scanned
Beneath those lucent veils
The nymph whose snowy limbs and hair that trails
Gleam on the silvery sand.

None gazed on the soft cheek, suffused with youth,
The splendid bosom’s swerve,
The ivory neck, the shoulder’s delicate curve,
White arms and innocent mouth.

[Sidenote: LECONTE DE LISLE]

But now the lecherous Faun, that haunts the grove,
Spies from his leafy trench
Those supple flanks, kissed by the oozy drench
As with a kiss of love;

Then laughs, as when the Satyr’s wanton imps
A wood-nymph’s bower assail,
And, waking with the sound the virgin pale
Flies like the lightning-glimpse.

Even as the Naiad, haunting the clear stream,
Slumbers in woods obscure,
Fly from the impious look and laugh impure
O Beauty, the soul’s dream!

The Return of Taliesen.

[Sidenote: LEO-KERMORVAN]

On my lips the speech, in my ears the sound of the Armorican:
I hear the voice of Esus by the shores of the ocean,
And the songs which the great bard Ossian
Resings by the ancient dolmen.

Many times since this, my twelfth rebirth on earth,
Have I seen the mistletoe grow green on the oak,
Seen the yellow crocus, the sunbright, and the vervein
Bloom again in the woodlands:

But never shall I see again the white-robed Druid of old
Seek the sacred mistletoe as one seeketh a treasure;
Never more shall I see him cut the living plant
With his golden sickle.

Alas! the valiant chiefs with the flowing locks!
All sleep in the cairns, beneath the fresh green grass;
In vain my voice o’er the fields of the dead lamenting--
“Vengeance! Treason!

“Be swift, Revenge, on the feet of the sorrows of Arvor!”
Alas, dull echoes alone answer my wailing summons.
Treason, indeed, and Vengeance! for lo, in the hallowed Némèdes
The wayside flaunt of the Cross!

Tarann no longer sends forth his terror of thunder!
Camul no longer laughs behind the strength of his arm!
Tentatès, rising in wrath, has not yet crumbled the earth;
Esus is deaf to our call!

Whither, O whither fled are ye, ye powerful, redoubtable gods;
And ye, ye famous Druids, the glory and terror of Armor?
Who has usurped, who has o’erwhelmed ye, unconquerable knights,
Warriors of the golden collar?

[Sidenote: LEO-KERMORVAN]

Thou, who harkenest, I have been in the place of the Ancients!
I, alone among mortals, thence have issued alive:
Alas, the temple was deserted: I saw nought but some wind-haunted oaks
Swaying in the silence.

All is fugitive! pride, pleasure, the song, the dance,
Blithe joys of friendship, noble rivalries all:
The keen swift song of the swords, the whistling lances!
Dreams of a dreamer all!... But no,

A new dawn wakes and laughs on the breast of the darkness;
Earth has her sunshine still, the grave her Spring;
Many a time Dylan hath oared me afar in the deathbarque,
Many a death-sleep mine, and long!

For long I have slept with the heavy sleep of the dead,
Ofttimes my fugitive body has passed into divers forms,
I have spread strong wings on the air, I have swum in dark waters,
I have crawled in the woods.

But, amid all these manifold changes, my soul
Remaineth ever the same: it is always, always “myself”!
And now I see well that this is the law of all that liveth,
Though none beholdeth the reason, none the end.

Still stand our lonely menhirs, and still the wayfarer shudders
As in the desolate dusk he passes these Stones of Silence!
Thou speakest, I understand! Thy Breton tongue
Is that of the ancient Kymry.

Lights steal through the hours of shadow flame-lit for unknown saints,
As, in the days of old, our torches flared on the night:
Ah, before ever these sacred lamps shone for your meek apostles,
They burned for Héol.

Blind without reason are we, thus changing the names of the gods:
Thus, mayhap, we think to destroy them, we who abandon their altars!
But, cold, calm, unsmiling before our laughter and curses,
The gods wait, immortal.

Yea, while the sacred fires still burn along the hill-tops,
Yea, while a single lichened menhir still looms from the brushwood,
Yea, whether they name thee Armorica, Brittany, Breiz-Izèl,
Thou art ever the same dear land!