Chapter I: Follow a Star

I follow a star
Burning deep in the blue,
A sign on the hills
Lit for me and for you!

Moon-red is the star,
Halo-ringed like a rood,
Christ's heart in its heart set,
Streaming with blood.

Follow the gilly
Beyond to the west:
He leads where the Christ lies
On Mary's white breast.

King, priest and prophet--
A child, and no more--
Adonai the Maker!
Come, let us adore.

THE SILENCE OF UNLABOURED FIELDS

The silence of unlaboured fields
Lies like a judgment on the air:
A human voice is never heard:
The sighing grass is everywhere--
The sighing grass, the shadowed sky,
The cattle crying wearily!

Where are the lowland people gone?
Where are the sun-dark faces now?
The love that kept the quiet hearth,
The strength that held the speeding plough?
Grasslands and lowing herds are good,
But better human flesh and blood!

THE BEGGAR'S WAKE

I watched at a beggar's wake
In the hills of Bearna-barr,
And the old men were telling stories
Of Troy and the Trojan war.

And a flickering fire of bog-deal
Burned on the open hearth,
And the night-wind roared in the chimney,
And darkness was over the earth.

And Tearlach Ban MacGiolla,
The piper of Gort, was there,
And he sat and he dreamed apart
In the arms of a sugan chair.

And sudden he woke from his dream
Like a dream-frightened child,
And his lips were pale and trembling,
And his eyes were wild.

And he stood straight up, and he cried,
With a wave of his withered hand,
"The days of the grasping stranger
Shall be few in the land!

"The scrip of his doom is written,
The thread of his shroud is spun;
The net of his strength is broken,
The tide of his life is run. . . ."

Then he sank to his seat like a stone,
And the watchers stared aghast,
And they crossed themselves for fear
As the coffin cart went past.

. . . . . . . .

"At the battle of Gleann-muic-duibh
The fate the poets foretold
Shall fall on the neck of the stranger,
And redden the plashy mould.

"The bagmen carry the story
The circuit of Ireland round,
And they sing it at fair and hurling
From Edair to Acaill Sound.

"And the folk repeat it over
About the winter fires,
Till the heart of each one listening
Is burning with fierce desires.

"In the Glen of the Bristleless Boar
They say the battle shall be,
Where Breiffne's iron mountains
Look on the Western sea.

"In the Glen of the Pig of Diarmad,
On Gulban's hither side,
The battle shall be broken
About the Samhain tide.

"Forth from the ancient hills,
With war-cries strident and loud,
The people shall march at daybreak,
Massed in a clamorous crowd.

"War-pipes shall scream and cry,
And battle-banners shall wave,
And every stone on Gulban
Shall mark a hero's grave.

"The horses shall wade to their houghs
In rivers of smoking blood,
Charging thro' heaps of corpses
Scattered in whinny and wood.

"The girths shall rot from their bellies
After the battle is done,
For lack of a hand to undo them
And hide them out of the sun.

"It shall not be the battle
Between the folk and the Sidhe
At the rape of a bride from her bed
Or a babe from its mother's knee.

"It shall not be the battle
Between the white hosts flying
And the shrieking devils of hell
For a priest at the point of dying.

"It shall not be the battle
Between the sun and the leaves,
Between the winter and summer,
Between the storm and the sheaves.

"But a battle to doom and death
Between the Gael and the Gall,
Between the sword of light
And the shield of darkness and thrall.

"And the Gael shall have the mastery
After a month of days,
And the lakes of the west shall cry,
And the hills of the north shall blaze.

"And the neck of the fair-haired Gall
Shall be as a stool for the feet
Of Ciaran, chief of the Gael,
Sitting in Emer's seat!"--

. . . . . . . .

At this MacGiolla fainted,
Tearing his yellow hair,
And the young men cursed the stranger,
And the old men mouthed a prayer.

For they knew the day would come,
As sure as the piper said,
When many loves would be parted,
And many graves would be red.

And the wake broke up in tumult,
And the women were left alone,
Keening over the beggar
That died at Gobnat's Stone.

THE BESOM-MAN

Did you see Paidin,
Paidin, the besom-man,
Last night as you came by
Over the mountain?

A barth of new heather
He bore on his shoulder,
And a bundle of whitlow-grass
Under his oxter.

I spied him as he passed
Beyond the carn head,
But no eye saw him
At the hill foot after.

What has come over him?
The women are saying.
What can have crossed
Paidin, the besom-man?

The bogholes he knew
As the curlews know them,
And the rabbits' pads,
And the derelict quarries.

He was humming a tune--
The "Enchanted Valley"--
As he passed me westward
Beyond the carn.

I stood and I listened,
For his singing was strange:
It rang in my ears
The long night after.

What has come over
Paidin, the besom-man?
What can have crossed him?
The women keep saying.

They talk of the fairies--
And, God forgive me,
Paidin knew _them_
Like his prayers!

Will you fetch word
Up to the cross-roads
If you see track of him,
Living or dead?

The boys are loafing
Without game or caper;
And the dark piper
Is gone home with the birds.

EVERY SHUILER IS CHRIST

Every shuiler is Christ,
Then be not hard or cold:
The bit that goes for Christ
Will come a hundred-fold.

The ear upon your corn
Will burst before its time;
Your roots will yield a crop
Without manure or lime.

And every sup you give
To crutch him on his way
Will fill your churn with milk,
And choke your barn with hay.

Then when the shuiler begs,
Be neither hard nor cold;
The share that goes for Christ
Will come a hundred-fold.

I WISH AND I WISH

I wish and I wish
And I wish I were
A golden bee
In the blue of the air,
Winging my way
At the mouth of day
To the honey marges
Of Loch-ciuin-ban;
Or a little green drake,
Or a silver swan,
Floating upon
The stream of Aili,
And I to be swimming
Gaily, gaily!