WITH THE WILD
 
 A LOST LEADER. 
 
 By the death of the Hon. E tally 
 Lawless Ireland loses a novelist of 
 singular distinction, a poet of high rank 
 and a true lover of the Dark Rosaleen. 
 Miss Lawless began to write late ; she 
 was forty-one when her first book was 
 published. (!iv<>n the health and the 
 time she might have been the great 
 Irish historical novelist we have long 
 hoped for. These brilliant studies, 
 " With Essex in Ireland," and 
 " Maelcha," were but an instalment 
 of what we hoped she would do for the 
 country she loved so dearly ; but, 
 alas, the ill-health that has been hers 
 for many years held her back and we 
 had not even the trilogy. On the 
 other hand, the books she has left us 
 are perfectly matured, considered and 
 definite performances, just as her 
 position in letters is as assured as if 
 she had written as many novels as 
 Sir Walter Scott. She wrote the two 
 historical novels - - ' ; Hurrish," a 
 curiously realistic and powerful story 
 of the Land League days ; " Grania," 
 a Western story, full, as I remember 
 it, of the colours of sea and sky, of 
 bog and mountain, idyllic to some 
 extent, but with familiar and deeper 
 shades in it than the idealist permits. 
 " Gilly " is an exquisite book, and the 
 poems are of quite surprising excel- 
 lence, or would have been surprising 
 if we had recognised in her novels that 
 touch of the poet which the finest of 
 prose must needs possess. Literature 
 is poorer by her loss ; but her death 
 is Ireland's special loss, as her life 
 and work were Ireland's great gain. 
 She was one more added to the spirits 
 of light and leading which an Irish 
 aristocracy has given to the populace. 
 Ireland keeps her in grateful and proud 
 memory. 
 
 KATHARINE TYNAN.
 
 
 Emily Lawless. 
 
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 With the Wild Geese
 
 y '-"-- t 
 
 With the Wild Geese 
 
 By Emily Lawless 
 
 Author of ' Maelcho ' With Essex in Ireland ' 
 With an Introduction by 
 
 Stopford A. Brooke M.A. 
 
 London: Isbister & Co. Ltd. 
 
 15 C5f 1 6 Tavistock Street Covent Garden 
 1901
 
 FIRST EDITION, March 1902 
 REPRINTED November 1902 
 
 Printed by BALI.ANTYNE, HANSON <Sr* Co. 
 London & Edinburgh
 
 Dedication 
 TO THE ATLANTIC 
 
 SPRING stamps her signet on our wayward race, 
 Hers is the charm, hers the elusive grace, 
 Immortal, changeful, even as thy face, 
 King of our hearts. 
 
 A deeper glory fills the glad sunshine, 
 The distance mellows with a hue like wine ; 
 Summer is queen, but Summer too is thine, 
 King of our hearts. 
 
 Now dimly purple pageants fill the eyes, 
 Far o'er the plain the mocking vapours rise, 
 Vefled in autumnal mists thy surface lies, 
 King of our hearts. 
 
 And still when cliff", when headland lie a-cold 
 And the year's tale of glories is all told, 
 Still, still thou reignest, even as old, 
 King oj our hearts.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 SOME months ago, being in Surrey, I saw, by 
 accident, the privately printed poems which 
 now appear for the first time before the public. 
 Miss Lawless's Irish stories, Hurrish, a Study, 
 and Crania, had some years before seemed to 
 me to draw nearer to the soul of the West of 
 Ireland than any other books of the kind ; and 
 the historical and imaginative study, With Essex 
 in Ireland^ was also full of that strange inner 
 life which, below outward appearance, ebbs and 
 flows in the Irish people. 
 
 I read these lyrics of the wild Atlantic lands 
 in the least wild of all the shires of England, 
 and, in my sympathy with them, urged Miss 
 Lawless to publish them. After some per- 
 suasion, she consented to do this, if I would 
 write a preface to them which should explain 
 certain matters among the rest the title of
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 the book to those English readers to whom 
 Irish History is an unknown wilderness. From 
 this point of view a preface may be of some 
 use to a better understanding of the poems. 
 
 The " Wild Geese " was the name given by 
 the romantic and sorrowful imagination of the 
 Irish to the exiles who, like the wild birds and 
 with their wailing cry, migrated to the Conti- 
 nent before and after the Battle of Aughrim, 
 and the Surrender of Limerick in 1691. The 
 Irish officers and soldiers were permitted by the 
 Treaty of Limerick to go where they pleased in 
 ships provided by the English Government. 
 Twenty thousand sorrowing men, and Sarsfield 
 among them, sailed to Brest, and formed the 
 bulk of that Irish Brigade in the Netherlands 
 whose warrior-work was so far-famed. They 
 were only the forerunners of a great exodus of 
 Irishmen flying from the iniquities of the penal 
 laws to give their swords to France, an exodus 
 which lasted fully a hundred years. During 
 the heated wars of that time, from 1(391 to
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 1745, 150,000 Irishmen are said to have died 
 in the service of France alone. Others fought 
 for Spain and Austria. 
 
 These were the Wild Geese, and their 
 history is full of romantic episodes. They 
 never lost the love of their country, and the 
 sorrow of the exile was always in their hearts. 
 They never lost their wrath with England, 
 and well they proved it on many a battlefield. 
 They had the careless courage and lived the 
 wild life of men who had nothing to gain and 
 nothing to lose which could be compared with 
 the steady grief which formed the background 
 of their lives the grief of those who might not 
 land on their native shore. No words that I 
 have read have realised with more insight and 
 sympathy the temper of these daring, high- 
 bred, honourable, reckless and sorrowful men 
 than those with which Miss Lawless has clpthed 
 the bitterness of their exile, their passion 
 for fighting, and their longing for their native 
 land.
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 When we hear of nearly 200,000 men cast 
 out of Ireland and dying in a foreign land 
 and for a foreign cause, we understand the 
 bitter unavailing cry of Ireland in the first 
 poem of this book. Aughrim was the battle 
 fought after the taking of Athlone in 1691. 
 The Irish were defeated on that bloody field 
 by General Ginkle whom William III. had 
 left behind him. Had Sarsfield commanded 
 and not St. Ruth, the French General, it is 
 probable that neither the town nor the battle 
 would have been lost. Immediately after the 
 fight the second siege of Limerick was be- 
 gun. Both parties were now weary of the 
 war, and Limerick, which in its first siege 
 had forced William to departure after a most 
 heroic defence, surrendered on honourable terms. 
 Then began, as I have said, the great exodus 
 of the Irish,* and Clare Coast is the voice 
 
 * A brigade of Irish troops had been serving in the 
 French Army before the surrender of Limerick. Sarsfield 
 and his men formed a New Irish Brigade, the men who
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 of a handful of veterans who, sent over to 
 collect money or recruits, are leaving Clare with 
 new exiles for the coast of France. Those 
 who speak are " war-battered dogs," and their 
 cry reveals the temper and the soul of the Irish 
 Brigade. It is close to the reality. The Choice 
 has the same fruitful motive, but modified 
 by the singer's love for a woman, and by the 
 offer made to him of high place and prosperity 
 by the Irish Government if he would give 
 up his religion and his patriotism an offer 
 made to the leaders of the Wild Geese, and 
 rejected by them all. And the second part 
 of the poem records the sick longing he has 
 to see again his land, and his sweetheart 
 whom he has left for ever. It, too, is close to 
 reality. 
 
 fought in the Netherlands. In the next war, in the reign of 
 Queen Anne, the Irish forces served in each of the four 
 French Armies in different parts of the Continent. They 
 numbered at least four regiments of Cavalry and seven of 
 Infantry. New exiles kept full the gaps that war had 
 made.
 
 Xll 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 These men fought over a great part of the 
 Continent in the service not only of France but 
 of Austria and Spain. At Versailles, at Madrid, 
 at Vienna, they took high honour and received 
 high command. They fought at Steinkirk, 
 1692, where the allied forces under William 
 were defeated. They fought at Landen, 1693, 
 and here Sarsfield, one of the leaders of the last 
 charge, heard the Irish regiments cry as they 
 with the French drove the English in flight 
 across the river Gettc " Remember Limerick." 
 As he lay dying, and saw the blood streaming 
 .from his wound, he rose on his arm and cried : 
 " Oh, that this was for Ireland ! " 
 
 In the new wars which followed the accession 
 of Queen Anne, the Wild Geese increased 
 their honour. Among their exploits was the 
 rescue of Cremona in 1702. Two regiments- 
 Dillon's and Burke's were part of the garrison. 
 The Duke of Villeroy was the commander, and 
 had brought his army after an unsuccessful fight 
 with Prince Eugene into Cremona. Eugene
 
 PREFACE xiii 
 
 planned a surprise ; and Villeroy was sleeping 
 when the Imperial Cavalry, the Prince and 
 seven thousand men had reached the great 
 Square. They thought they had the town ; but 
 the Irish were awake, and finally, after despe- 
 rate fighting, beat Eugene's forces out of the 
 place, and saved the Po gate from a fresh re- 
 inforcement from without. Their pay was 
 raised, and they received public thanks from 
 the French King.* 
 
 In the campaign of 1703 they fought in 
 Italy and on the Rhine, and Nugent's Horse 
 
 * Marshal Villeroy, easy man and careless general, did not 
 escape ridicule. He was captured in his night-shirt. Most 
 people know the epigram 
 
 Fraii^ais, rendez grace a Bellone. 
 
 Votre bonheur est sans egal ; 
 Vous avez conserve Cremone, 
 
 Et perdu votre general. 
 Which Miss Lawless has roughly rendered 
 O Frenchmen, give thanks to Bellona. 
 To you have the Gods been most partial ; 
 You have saved the good town of Cremona, 
 And happily lost your Field-Marshal.
 
 XIV 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 turned the fortunes of the day at Spires. At 
 Blenheim, in 1704, at Ramilies, in 1706, they 
 did well ; they were at Oudenarde and Mal- 
 plaquet, and when the Treaty of Utrecht ended 
 the war in Flanders, they fought on in Germany 
 and Italy. 
 
 It was not only for France the exiles laid 
 down their lives, but for Spain. In the War of 
 the Spanish Succession five Irish regiments were 
 commanded by O'Reillys, O'Haras, Laceys, 
 Wogans and Lawlesses, many of whom were 
 grandees of Spain. At the beginning of the 
 Peninsular War a Blake was in full command of 
 the armies of Spain ; and O'Neills, O'Donnells, 
 and O'Reillys were General officers. Many 
 poems lie hid in the doings of these Wild 
 Geese, many a romance. 
 
 The last poem which concerns them in this 
 book is Fontenoy. The battle of Fontenoy 
 followed that of Dettingen, when, in 1743, the 
 French were terribly beaten by the English and 
 Hanoverians. It was Count Lally of Tollendal,
 
 PREFACE xv 
 
 son of a Sir Gerard Lally of Galway, who rallied 
 the fugitives and saved the retreat ; who after- 
 wards served France so well in India, and met 
 so disgraceful a reward. In 1745 Fontenoy 
 avenged the rout of Dettingen. There were 
 certainly three Irish regiments, probably four, 
 on the ground, most of them sons or relatives 
 of Limerick exiles. They fought on the left of 
 the French line, and it was they, and by Lally's 
 advice, who with the King's household cavalry 
 and the regiment of Normandie, drove back 
 the last magnificent and audacious advance of 
 the English column. The Irish dashed into its 
 right flank with the bayonet, shouting " Re- 
 member Limerick." The guns shattered its 
 front ; the cavalry of the King poured down 
 upon it, and the day was won. 
 
 The Irish Brigade suffered sorely. A fourth 
 of its officers, a third of the rank and file, 
 perished ; but honours fell thick on the sur- 
 vivors, and the soul of Ireland, in its misery, re- 
 joiced. Miss Lawless paints with her suggestive 
 
 t
 
 XVI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 pencil the hunger of the men of Clare for battle 
 with their ancient enemy, and for the rocks and 
 fields of Clare unseen since boyhood; and 
 then, with a fine imagination, tells how the dead 
 rose from the field of Fontenoy and sailed all 
 the night through to their beloved country. 
 The fisherman sees them in the early dawn 
 sweeping home to Corca Bascinn, and calls to 
 them. They answer they are coming home, 
 singing with joy. It is nobly conceived, 
 delicately wrought, and goes to the heart of 
 the matter. 
 
 The poems on the Desmond War refer to 
 that terrible time, the worst perhaps that 
 Ireland ever saw, when during the Geraldine 
 rebellion between 1579 and 1581 the civil war 
 which had broken out between the Butlers and 
 the FitzGeralds in 1565, one acting with the 
 English and the other with the Irish, was intensi- 
 fied by the great Earl of Desmond joining the 
 Irish. Pelham and Ormonde, the Government 
 commanders, laid the whole of Munster under
 
 PREFACE xvii 
 
 fire and sword, and hunted the peasants like 
 foxes through the woods and hills. Leinster 
 broke also into rebellion, and Lord Grey de 
 Wilton, sent by Elizabeth, left in Ireland, it 
 was said, nothing but carcasses and ashes for 
 the Queen to rule over. Munster was made, 
 when the death of Desmond ended the Geraldine 
 rebellion in 1581, an abomination of desolation. 
 " The lowing of a cow or the voice of a plough- 
 man could scarcely be heard from the extreme 
 west of Kerry to Cashel," and Spenser's terrible 
 description of the unutterable misery of the 
 county was the description of an eye-witness. 
 " Out of every corner of the woods and glynnes 
 the people came creeping out on their hands, for 
 their legges could not bear them, and if they 
 found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks there 
 they flocked as to a feast for the time : that in 
 short space of time there was almost no people 
 left, and a most populous and plentifull country 
 suddenly left voide of man and beast." The 
 Dirge for all Ireland shapes this bitter and
 
 XV111 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 piteous fate into words worthy of its sorrow, 
 and calls on the pitying rain to hide it. The 
 Dirge of the Munster Forest deals with the fact 
 that when the rebellion was over the destruction 
 of the Munster woods was seriously taken in 
 hand, because of the shelter they afforded to 
 the last but one of the Desmonds and to his 
 starving followers ; and it enshrines this menace 
 in a form than which nothing more imaginative 
 can be desired, nothing closer to the Celtic 
 belief of a vast spirit in the forest who feels 
 with all Ireland, and with the dead who died 
 for her. 
 
 The rest of the poems are not of Ireland 
 abroad, but of Ireland at home, nor yet of 
 Ireland in the past but in the present. They 
 are rarely touched with hope, and never with 
 gaiety. But they represent well the deep-seated 
 sorrow and love of country which prevails 
 in Ireland below the political squabbles, the 
 religious disturbance, and the battle for the 
 land; and which affects all parties, however
 
 PREFACE xix 
 
 opposed to one another. A true poet sits in 
 the centre of things, among universal emotions. 
 Now and again, a ray of hope, like storm- 
 sunshine, traverses Miss Lawless' poetry, and 
 is born of her deep desire for happier days ; 
 but the clouds, like those that surge up in- 
 cessantly on Clare from the Atlantic, overwhelm 
 its flying light. And this sadness is deepened 
 in her poetry, as we see in the monologue 
 Above the Cliff^ by those inward conflicts or 
 to-day which forbid the full consolation of 
 religious peace, and leave its hopes only too 
 like despondencies. This element adds a per- 
 sonal touch of sorrow to the national sorrow of 
 the book. Moreover, being in its personality 
 apart from Ireland, it enables the writer to 
 stand, when she wills, aside from her patriot 
 grief and to see the misfortune of her country 
 from an isolated point of view. And this gives 
 not a less, but a fuller, reality to such tragic 
 poems on Ireland as those written in the 
 Aran Isles. Yet in far the greater part of the
 
 xx PREFACE 
 
 poetry there is no apartness from the pain ot 
 her native land. That thrills like a violin cry 
 through all this verse, and is expressed with an 
 originality, a personal intensity, which is not 
 common in modern poetry. Nor is wrath 
 omitted. Sometimes, as in Looking Eastward, 
 it is realised with such rudeness of verse and 
 method, broken cries in broken metre, as 
 sorrow naturally has when it is most profound. 
 Reality is a chief element in these poems ; 
 boldness, clearness, conciseness of touch, reson- 
 ant strokes on the centre of things as they 
 are. 
 
 Nor is Nature, amid all this humanity, neg- 
 lected ; and it is Nature as she forms herself in 
 Ireland, where she has her own fashion and in- 
 dividuality, as distinct as that of the people 
 whose character she has partly shaped from 
 century to century. It is this distinctiveness 
 of the doings and forms of Nature which, enter- 
 ing into the lives of the dwellers in all nations 
 as a woman into the heart of a man, makes
 
 PREFACE 
 
 xxi 
 
 them, in absence, cry out for their mother- 
 land, and even die, divided from her. The 
 people of all countries feel it, and none more 
 than the Irish. For in Ireland's distinctive 
 scenery of land and sky and ocean, there is an 
 alluring sentiment, a wild variety, an imaginative 
 disposition of cloud, mountain, forest, lake, 
 cliff and western waters, which in their changes, 
 colour, mystery, and appealing, is more unique 
 than any scenery I have ever known. More- 
 over, a supernatural element always seems to 
 brood over it and in it a spirit that cannot be 
 put by. 
 
 The nearest approach I have met to the 
 striking of this distinct note in the natural 
 scenery of Ireland is in these poems of Miss 
 Lawless, in spite of the fact that the poems 
 are very rarely Nature-poems. The sound 
 of the Atlantic rises and falls through the 
 verse. It is as if one heard the three great waves 
 of Erin breaking round the coast. And the 
 druid-mists come in from the ocean and veil the
 
 xxii PREFACE 
 
 land, and are themselves alive with the old 
 Gods. Nor is that nameless supernatural, the 
 remnant of the Pagan Other-world which 
 created the forces of Nature and shaped them 
 into divine and awful Beings, left unrepresented. 
 The whole forest of Munster is alive and calls 
 on its indwellers to bury its dead. And the 
 wild and solitary places where the broken Fairy- 
 folk have taken refuge, and though deprived of 
 their power, mourn its passing with thin and 
 bitter crying in the night in the lonely islands 
 out at sea these too are not forgotten, nor the 
 poet's sympathy with the impotent misery of 
 these dethroned Powers. Every Rath in Ireland 
 has its dark inhabitants, faded descendants of 
 the dreadful Sidhe. Something of their desert 
 grief has entered into this poetry and given 
 it a solitary cry. No English poet could con- 
 ceive it or attain it. 
 
 There are two little pathetic poems, Honor's 
 Grave and The Stranger 's Grave, which illustrate 
 this power of creating the atmosphere, without
 
 PREFACE 
 
 any set description, of Irish natural scenery. 
 The first is full of grace and tenderness, and the 
 second of the loneliness of the dead who, having 
 had, like unbaptized children, no Christian rites, 
 lives in the island where he lies and cannot join 
 the happier dead. The sea is round Inishmaan, 
 but is not wilder on stormy nights than his 
 heart who lies entombed in the driving sand. 
 The poem chimes in with the desolate fate of 
 Ireland, herself alive yet buried, with her 
 plotting brain and restless heart; not yet cap- 
 able of the peace hoped for in the noble lines 
 that end the poem on the tuft of Bog-Cotton, 
 which, seen in the Tyrol, brings the writer home 
 to the grief and charm of her own land. This 
 poem, with Looking Eastward^ was written in 
 the height of the Home Rule struggle. 
 
 The book closes with two poems An 
 Appeal and A Retort: of excellent matter 
 and workmanship. Both strike, in contrast 
 with the rest of the poems, the chords of hope, 
 and prophesy the peace and joy which yet may
 
 xxiv PREFACE 
 
 be in Ireland. The first has great beauty and 
 serious thought, like the imaginations that the 
 voice and vision of the Atlantic bring on a 
 summer day. The second speaks for itself, 
 and it would be well if England, and Ireland 
 also, laid all it means to heart. 
 
 STOPFORD A. BROOKE. 
 
 Eastbourne, January 1902.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE . . i 
 
 AFTER AUGHRIM . ... 3 
 
 CLARE COAST .... 6 
 
 THE CHOICE. I. II. . . . 14, 16 
 
 CREMONA . . . . . 17 
 
 AN EXILE'S MOTHER . . . .23 
 
 FONTENOY. I. II. . . . . 26, 30 
 
 THE DESMOND WAR ... 33 
 
 DIRGE OF THE MUNSTER FOREST . 35 
 
 DIRGE FOR ALL IRELAND . . 38 
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 41 
 
 HONOR'S GRAVE . 43 
 
 THE STRANGER'S GRAVE . 47 
 
 LOOKING EASTWARD . . . .49 
 
 A DREAM ... 56 
 
 ABOVE THE CLIFF . 58 
 
 FROM THE RATH .... 67
 
 xxvi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TO A TUFT OF WHITE BOG-COTTON . 75 
 
 TWO SONGS, AN APPEAL, AND A RETORT 81 
 
 "WHEN BEACHED STREAMS" . . 83 
 
 THE CORMORANT . . . &5 
 
 AN APPEAL .... 88 
 
 A RETORT . . . . .92
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 " Weep not for the dead^ neither bemoan 
 him, but weep for him that goeth away, 
 for he shall return no mare, nor shall he 
 be seen again in his own country"
 
 AFTER AUGHRIM 
 
 SHE said, " They gave me of their best, 
 They lived, they gave their lives for me ; 
 I tossed them to the howling waste, 
 And flung them to the foaming sea." 
 
 She said, " I never gave them aught, 
 Not mine the power, if mine the will ; 
 I let them starve, I let them bleed, 
 They bled and starved, and loved me still." 
 
 She said, " Ten times they fought tor me. 
 Ten times they strove with might and main,
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Ten times I saw them beaten down, 
 Ten times they rose, and fought again." 
 
 She said, " I stayed alone at home, 
 A dreary woman, grey and cold ; 
 I never asked them how they fared, 
 Yet still they loved me as of old." 
 
 She said, " I never called them sons, 
 I almost ceased to breathe their name, 
 Then caught it echoing down" the wind, 
 Blown backwards from the lips of Fame." 
 
 She said, " Not mine, not mine that fame ; 
 Far over sea, far over land, 
 Cast forth like rubbish from my shores, 
 They won it yonder, sword in hand."
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 5 
 
 She said, "God knows they owe me nought, 
 I tossed them to the foaming sea, 
 I tossed them to the howling waste, 
 Yet still their love comes home to me." 1
 
 CLARE COAST 
 
 Circa 1720 
 
 SEE, cold island, we stand 
 Here to-night on your shore, 
 To-night, but never again ; 
 Lingering a moment more. 
 See, beneath us our boat 
 Tugs at its tightening chain, 
 Holds out its sail to the breeze, 
 Pants to be gone again. 
 Off then with shouts and mirth, 
 Off with laughter and jests, 
 Mirth and song on our lips, 
 Hearts like lead in our breasts.
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Death and the grave behind, 
 Death and a traitor's bier ; 
 Honour and fame before, 
 Why do we linger here ? 
 Why do we stand and gaze, 
 Fools, whom fools despise, 
 Fools untaught by the years, 
 Fools renounced by the wise : 
 Heartsick, a moment more, 
 Heartsick, sorry, fierce, 
 Lingering, lingering on, 
 Dreaming the dreams of yore ; 
 Dreaming the dreams of our youth, 
 Dreaming the days when we stcol 
 Joyous, expectant, serene, 
 Glad, exultant of mood, 
 Singing with hearts afire, 
 Singing with joyous strain,
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Singing aloud in our pride, 
 " We shall redeem her again ! " 
 Ah, not to-night that strain, 
 Silent to-night we stand, 
 A scanty, a toil-worn crew, 
 Strangers, foes in the land ! 
 Gone the light of our youth, 
 Gone tor ever, and gone 
 Hope with the beautiful eyes, 
 Who laughed as she lured us on ; 
 Lured us to danger and death, 
 To honour, perchance to fame, 
 Empty fame at the best, 
 Glory half dimmed with shame. 
 War-battered dogs are we, 
 Fighters in every clime, 
 Fillers of trench and of grave, 
 Mockers, bemocked by time.
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 War-dogs, hungry and grey, 
 Gnawing a naked bone, 
 Fighters in every clime, 
 Every cause but our own. 
 
 See us, cold isle of our love ! 
 Coldest, saddest of isles 
 Cold as the hopes of our youth, 
 Cold as your own wan smiles. 
 Coldly your streams outpour, 
 Each apart on the height, 
 Trickling, indifferent, slow, 
 Lost in the hush of the night. 
 Colder, sadder the clouds, 
 Comfortless bringers of rain ; 
 Desolate daughters of air, 
 Sweep o'er your sad grey plain 
 Hiding the form of your hills,
 
 io WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Hiding your low sand duns ; 
 But coldest, saddest, oh isle ! 
 Are the homeless hearts of your sons. 
 
 Coldest, and saddest there, 
 In yon sun-lit land of the south, 
 Where we sicken, and sorrow, and pine, 
 And the jest flies from mouth to mouth, 
 And the church bells crash overhead, 
 And the idle hours flit by, 
 And the beaded wine-cups clink. 
 . And the sun burns fierce in the sky ; 
 And your exiles, the merry of heart, 
 Laugh and boast with the best, 
 Boast, and extol their part, 
 Boast, till some lifted brow, 
 Crossed with a line severe, 
 Seems with displeasure to ask,
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE n 
 
 " Are these loud braggarts we hear, 
 Are they the sons of the West, 
 The wept-for, the theme of songs, 
 The exiled, the injured, the banned, 
 The men of a thousand wrongs ? " 
 
 Fool, did you never hear 
 Of sunshine which broke through rain ? 
 Sunshine which came with storm ? 
 Laughter that rang of pain ? 
 Boastings begotten of grief, 
 Vauntings to hide a smart, 
 Braggings with trembling lip, 
 Tricks of a broken heart ? 
 
 Sudden some wayward gleam, 
 Sudden some passing sound, 
 The careless splash of an oar,
 
 12 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 The idle bark of a hound, 
 A shadow crossing the sun, 
 An unknown step in the hall, 
 A nothing, a folly, a straw ! 
 Back it returns all all ! 
 Back with the rush of a storm, 
 Back the old anguish and ill, 
 The sad, green landscape of home, 
 The small grey house by the hill, 
 The wide grey shores of the lake, 
 The lew sky, seeming to weave 
 Its tender pitiful arms 
 Round the sick lone landscape at eve. 
 Back with its pains and its wrongs, 
 Back with its toils and its strife, 
 Back with its struggle and woe, 
 Back flows the stream of our life. 
 Darkened with treason and wrong,
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 13 
 
 Darkened with anguish and ruth, 
 
 Bitter, tumultuous, fierce, 
 
 Yet glad in the light of our youth. 
 
 So, cold island, we stand 
 Here to-night on your shore, 
 To-night, but never again, 
 Lingering a moment more. 
 See, beneath us our boat 
 Tugs at its tightening chain, 
 Holds out its sail to the breeze, 
 Pants to be gone again. 
 Off then with shouts and mirth, 
 Off with laughter and jests, 
 Jests and song on our lips, 
 Hearts like lead in our breasts.
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 I WHO speak to you abide, with my choice on 
 
 either side, 
 
 With my fortune all to win and all to wear. 
 Shall I take this proffered gain ? Shall I keep 
 
 the loss and pain, 
 With my own to live and bear ? 
 
 For the choice is open now, I must either stand 
 
 or bow, 
 
 Secure this beckoning sunshine, or else accept 
 the rain.
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 15 
 
 Must be banished with my own, or my race and 
 
 faith disown ? 
 Share the loss, or snatch the gain ? 
 
 Shall I pay the needed toll, just the purchase of 
 a soul, 
 
 Heart and lips, faith and promises to sever ? 
 Six centuries of strain, six centuries of pain, 
 
 Six centuries cry, " Never." 
 
 Then let who will abide, for me the Fates 
 
 decide, 
 
 One road, and only one, ror me they show. 
 There is room enough out there, room to pray, 
 
 and room to dare, 
 Room out yonder and I go !
 
 THE CHOICE 
 II 
 
 HEART of my heart, I sicken to be with you, 
 Heart of my heart, my only love and care ; 
 Little I'd reck if ill or well you used me, 
 Heart of my heart, if I were only there. 
 
 Heart of my heart, I faint, I pine to see you, 
 Christ ! how I hate this alien sea and shore ! 
 Gaily this night I'd sell my soul to see you, 
 Heart of my heart whom I shall see no more.
 
 CREMONA 
 
 1702 
 
 MIDWINTER and midnight 
 Was the hour of that fight, 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !) 
 Every Frenchman soundly sleeping. 
 " Fortressed cities need no keeping ; 
 Let the Irish guard the town." 
 
 Homesick, sad, and weary, 
 Heartsick, hungry, dreary, 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !)
 
 i8 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 O'Brien, Burke, and Tracy, 
 Macmahon, Dillon, Lacy, 
 We watched Cremona town. 
 
 " What mean those distant sounds ! " 
 As the famished panther bounds, 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !) 
 So he bounded through the gate. 
 " Rouse ye, comrades, ye are late ! 
 Prince Eugene has your town ! " 
 
 The town, but not quite all : 
 On that furthest western wall 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !) 
 Sat a cheerless, sleepless band, 
 Far from home, and kith, and land. 
 " Up, boys, up ! Save the town ! "
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 19 
 
 c< Down, and fight them in the streets ! " 
 As the Nore the Barrow meets, 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !) 
 So we swept across their track, 
 Swept across, and hemmed them back 
 From Cremona town. 
 
 " Are ye mad, or in a trance ? 
 Waken, gentlemen of France ! " 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !) 
 " See your lilied flags are flapping, 
 And your Marshal is caught napping 
 In Cremona town." 
 
 Again and yet again, 
 
 Though the third of us are slain, 
 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !)
 
 20 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Though Sieur Villeroy is taken, 
 And the lilied flags are shaken, 
 Till our tardy comrades waken 
 We keep the town. 
 
 Hither, thither goes the fight, 
 
 Through the murk and glare of night. 
 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !) 
 
 Every exiled son of Clare, 
 
 From Kinvarra to Adair, 
 
 The whole Brien stock is there, 
 
 In the black heart of the town. 
 
 " Ha ! they waken up at last ! 
 Hark again, that rallying blast," 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the re nown !)
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 21 
 
 " Now charge them with the lance, 
 Stop the German dogs' advance, 
 Drive them, gentlemen of France, 
 From Cremona town." 
 
 " Back to back, and face to face, 
 Wrest from fate this night's disgrace " 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !) 
 Ere the sun rose from its bed 
 Or that livid dawn grew red 
 Every German spear had fled 
 From Cremona town. 
 
 So failed Eugene's advance, 
 So fail all foes of France ! 
 (Shout, boys, Erin's the renown !)
 
 22 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Let her praises still resound, 
 And while the world goes round 
 To their praise too redound 
 Who stood the victors crowned 
 In Cremona town.
 
 AN EXILE'S MOTHER 
 
 THERE'S famine in the land, its grip is tighten- 
 ing still. 
 
 There's trouble, black and bitter, on every side 
 I glance, 
 
 There are dead upon the roadside, and dead 
 upon the hill, 
 
 But my Jamie's safe and well away in France, 
 Happy France, 
 
 In the far-off, gay and gallant land of France. 
 
 The sea sobs to the grey shore, the grey shore 
 
 to the sea. 
 Men meet and greet, and part again as in some 
 
 evil trance,
 
 24 WITH THE WILD CEESE 
 
 There's a bitter blight upon us, as plain as plain 
 
 can be, 
 But my Jamie's safe and well away in France, 
 
 Happy France, 
 In the far-off, gay and gallant land of France. 
 
 Oh not for all the coined gold that ever I could 
 
 name 
 Would I bring you back, my Jamie, from your 
 
 song, and feast, and dance, 
 Would I bring you to the hunger, the weariness 
 
 and shame, 
 Would I bring you back to Clare out of France, 
 
 Happy France, 
 From the far-off, gay and gallant land of 
 
 France.
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 25 
 
 I'm no great sleeper now, for the n'ghts are 
 
 cruel cold, 
 And if there be a bit or sup 'tis by some 
 
 friendly chance, 
 But I keep my old heart warm, and I keep my 
 
 courage bold 
 By thinking of my Jamie safe in France, 
 
 Happy France, 
 In the far-off, gay and gallant land of France.
 
 FONTENOY. 1745 
 
 I. Before tke Battle ; night 
 
 OH bad the march, the weary march, beneath 
 
 these alien skies, 
 But good the night, the friendly night, that 
 
 soothes our tired eyes. 
 And bad the war, the tedious war, that keeps us 
 
 sweltering here, 
 But good the hour, the friendly hour, that 
 
 brings the battle near. 
 That brings us on the battle, that summons to 
 
 their share 
 The homeless troops, the banished men, the 
 
 exiled sons of Clare.
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 27 
 
 Oh little Corca Bascinn, the wild, the bleak, the 
 
 fair! 
 Oh little stony pastures, whose flowers are sweet, 
 
 if rare ! 
 Oh rough and rude Atlantic, the thunderous, the 
 
 wide, 
 Whose kiss is like a soldier's kiss which will 
 
 not be denied! 
 The whole night long we dream of you, and 
 
 waking think we're there, 
 Vain dream, and foolish waking, we never shall 
 
 see Clare. 
 
 The wind is wild to-night, there's battle in the 
 
 air; 
 The wind is from the west, and it seems to blow 
 
 from Clare.
 
 28 WITH THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Have you nothing, nothing for us, loud brawler 
 
 of the night ? 
 No news to warm our heart-strings, to speed us 
 
 through the fight ? 
 In this hollow, star-pricked darkness, as in the 
 
 sun's hot glare, 
 In sun-tide, moon-tide, star-tide, we thirst, we 
 
 starve for Clare ! 
 
 Hark ! yonder through the darkness one dis- 
 tant rat-tat-tat ! 
 
 The old foe stirs out there, God bless his soul 
 for that ! 
 
 The old foe musters strongly, he's coming on at 
 last, 
 
 And Clare's Brigade may claim its own wherever 
 blows fall fast.
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 29 
 
 Send us, ye western breezes, our full, our right- 
 ful share, 
 
 For Faith, and Fame, and Honour, and the 
 ruined hearths of Clare.
 
 FONTENOY. 1745 
 
 II. After the Battle ; early dawn, Clare coast 
 
 " MARY mother, shield us ! Say, what men are 
 
 ye, 
 
 Sweeping past so swiftly on this morning sea ? " 
 " Without sails or rowlocks merrily we glide 
 Home to Corca Bascinn on the brimming tide." 
 
 " Jesus save you, gentry ! why are ye so white. 
 Sitting all so straight and still in this misty light ? " 
 " Nothing ails us, brother ; joyous souls are we 
 Sailing home together, on the morning sea."
 
 WITH THE WILD GEESE 31 
 
 " Cousins, friends, and kinsfolk, children of the 
 
 land, 
 
 Here we come together, a merry, rousing band ; 
 Sailing home together from the last great fight, 
 Home to Clare from Fontenoy, in the morning 
 
 light. 
 
 " Men of Corca Bascinn, men of Clare's Brigade, 
 Harken, stony hills of Clare, hear the charge we 
 
 made ; 
 
 See us come together, singing from the fight, 
 Home to Corca Bascinn, in the morning light."
 
 THE DESMOND WAR
 
 DIRGE OF THE MUNSTER 
 FOREST. 1581 
 
 BRING out the hemlock ! bring the funeral yew! 
 
 The faithful ivy that doth all enfold ; 
 
 Heap high the rocks, the patient brown earth 
 
 strew, 
 
 And cover them against the numbing cold. 
 Marshal my retinue of bird and beast, 
 Wren, titmouse, robin, birds of every hue ; 
 Let none keep back, no, not the very least, 
 Nor fox, nor deer, nor tiny nibbling crew, 
 Only bid one of all my forest clan 
 Keep far from us on this our funeral day.
 
 36 THE DESMOND WAR 
 
 On the grey wolf I lay my sovereign ban, 
 The great grey wolf who scrapes the earth away; 
 Lest, with hooked claw and furious hunger, he 
 Lay bare my dead for gloating foes to see 
 Lay bare my dead, who died, and died for me. 
 
 For I must shortly die as they have died, 
 
 And lo! my doom stands yoked and linked 
 
 with theirs; 
 
 The axe is sharpened to cut down my pride : 
 I pass, I die, and leave no natural heirs. 
 Soon shall my sylvan coronals be cast ; 
 My hidden sanctuaries, my secret ways, 
 Naked must stand to the rebellious blast ; 
 No Spring shall quicken what this Autumn 
 
 slays. 
 
 Therefore, while still I keep my russet crown, 
 I summon all my lieges to the feast.
 
 THE DESMOND WAR 37 
 
 Hither, ye flatterers ! black, or pied, or brown ; 
 
 Hither, ye furred ones ! Hither every beast ! 
 
 Only to one of all my forest clan 
 
 I cry, c Avaunt ! Our mourning revels flee ! " 
 
 On the grey wolf I lay my sovereign ban, 
 
 The great grey wolf with scraping claws, lest 
 
 he 
 
 Lay bare my dead for gloating foes to see 
 Lay bare my dead, who died, and died for me.
 
 DIRGE FOR ALL IRELAND. 1581 
 
 FALL gently, pitying rains ! Come slowly, 
 
 Spring ! 
 
 Ah, slower, slower yet ! No notes of glee, 
 No minstrelsy ! Nay, not one bird must sing 
 His challenge to the season. See, oh see ! 
 Lo, where she lies, 
 Dead with wide-open eyes, 
 Unsheltered from the skies, 
 Alone, unmarked, she lies ! 
 Then, sorrow, flow ;
 
 THE DESMOND WAR 39 
 
 And ye, dull hearts, that brook to see her so. 
 
 Depart ! go ! go ! 
 Depart, dull hearts, and leave us to our woe. 
 
 Drop, forest, drop your sad accusing tears, 
 Send your soft rills adown the silent glades, 
 Where yet the pensive yew its branches rears, 
 Where yet no axe affronts the decent shades. 
 Pronounce her bitter woe, 
 Denounce her furious foe, 
 Her piteous story show, 
 That all may know. 
 Then quickly call 
 
 Your young leaves. Bid them from their 
 stations tall 
 
 Fall ! fall ! fall ! fall ! 
 Till of their green they weave her funeral pall.
 
 40 THE DESMOND WAR 
 
 And ye, cold waves, who guard that western 
 
 slope, 
 Show no white crowns. This is no time to 
 
 wear 
 
 The livery of Hope. We have no hope. 
 Blackness and leaden greys befit despair 
 Roll past that open grave, 
 And let thy billows lave 
 Her whom they could not save. 
 
 Then open wide 
 
 Your western arms, to where the rain-clouds 
 bide, 
 
 And hide ! hide ! hide ! 
 Let none discern the spot where she hath died.
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES
 
 HONOR'S GRAVE 
 
 TENDER soul of womanhood, 
 
 All her silent suffering past, 
 Pious, pitiful, and good, 
 
 Safe at last ; 
 Sheltered from the rough wind's blast. 
 
 Veiling mists, which come and go, 
 With transparent fingers mark 
 Where she lies. Remote and low, 
 
 Hark ! Oh hark ! 
 What voice whispers through the dark ?
 
 44 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Very soundly doth she sleep, 
 Though around the blown-sand flies, 
 Though above the storm-clouds sweep 
 The burdened skies. 
 She hears nothing where she lies. 
 
 Ancient cross, misused and grey, 
 Ancient cross, with broken arms, 
 Hold her, shield her night and day, 
 Safe from harms ; 
 Shield her by thy sovereign charms. 
 
 Tiny snail-shells, pencilled, pale, 
 In the sands about her lie ; 
 Tiny grass-tufts, thin and frail, 
 
 Cluster slenderly, 
 Gather round her tenderly.
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 45 
 
 Ave Maria ! mother mild, 
 Mary, unto whom she prayed, 
 Shield thy loving-hearted child, 
 
 Gentle maid ! 
 Shield the spot where she is laid.
 
 THE STRANGER'S GRAVE 
 
 In a graveyard upon Inishmaan, dedicated to unbaptized 
 babies, an unknown drowned man lies buried 
 
 LITTLE feet too young and soft to walk, 
 Little lips too young and pure to talk, 
 Little faded grass-tufts, root and stalk. 
 
 I lie alone here, utterly alone, 
 Amid pure ashes my wild ashes mingle ; 
 A drowned man, without a mme, unknown, 
 A drifting waif, flung by the drifting shingle. 
 Oh, plotting brain, and restless heart of mine, 
 What strange fate brought you to so strange a 
 shrine ?
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 47 
 
 Sometimes a woman comes across the grass, 
 Bare-footed, with pit-patterings scarcely heard. 
 Sometimes the grazing cattle slowly pass, 
 Or on my turf sings loud some mating bird. 
 Oh, plotting brain, and restless heart of mine, 
 What strange fate brought you to so strange a 
 shrine ? 
 
 Little feet too young and soft to walk, 
 Little lips too young and pure to talk, 
 Little faded grass-tufts, root and stalk.
 
 LOOKING EASTWARD 
 
 WRITTEN IN 1885 
 
 BLURRED is the arch of sky, mistily grey in the 
 zenith, 
 
 Lost and void in the distance, filled with the 
 haze of September. 
 
 Few and low gleam the lights, seen through the 
 doors of the cabins, 
 
 Small red eyes of flame, set in brown time- 
 wrinkled faces. 
 
 Overhead the clouds dart and scatter like sea- 
 birds ; 
 
 Underfoot, from its caverns, moans and mur- 
 murs Atlantic,
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 49 
 
 Moans and murmurs now, as it murmured and 
 
 moaned at the dawning. 
 Eastward to-night I gaze, to where, like a wave 
 
 grown hard, 
 Rises a long green ridge, set in the swell of the 
 
 sea. 
 
 Puzzled, unquiet, despondent ; wistfully scan- 
 ning the shadows, 
 Muffled and lost in their gloom, as my eyes by 
 
 these veiling vapours. 
 What are thy destinies, say ? what are thy 
 
 hopes, oh island ? 
 What do the coming years, fraught with un- 
 
 guessable things, 
 Hold in their swelling bales, Starveling of 
 
 Fortune, for thee ? 
 Does that implacable star, coldly malignant, 
 
 remorseless,
 
 5 o IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Still with its sinister ray beckon thee on to 
 
 disaster ? 
 Breaking the hearts of thy sons, breaking the 
 
 hearts of thy lovers ? 
 
 Never another land but has gathered some 
 bountiful harvests. 
 
 Never another race but can boast of its moments 
 of triumph. 
 
 Never another shore but some good bark has 
 attained it, 
 
 Laden with spices and ore, laden with silks and 
 with jewels, 
 
 Argosies rich and rare, argosies worth the un- 
 folding. 
 
 Only thou, only thou y hast reaped no fortunate 
 harvests ;
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 51 
 
 Only thou, only thou^ hast stood from the dawn 
 to the gloaming 
 
 Holding out empty hands, pleading in vain to 
 thy God ; 
 
 Pleading with pitiful eyes, and a face grown 
 grey with entreaty, 
 
 Pressing discomfited lips to the bountiful foun- 
 tains of mercy, 
 
 Brimming, o'erbrimming, for others, parched 
 and delusive for thee. 
 
 Century following century, still at the heels of 
 the nations ; 
 
 Poor, divided, derided ; a wit-mark, and sport 
 to the dull. 
 
 What, say what hast thou done, land not wanting 
 in beauty ? 
 
 What, say what hast thou done, race not want- 
 ing in spirit ?
 
 52 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 What antenatal guilt, hid in the womb of 
 
 creation, 
 Robbed thee of honour and pelf, robbed thee of 
 
 peace and of plenty ? 
 Set thee in turbulent seas, hostile to commerce 
 
 and fortune ; 
 Girded thee in by a race, fortunate truly, and 
 
 honest, 
 Noble, and gallant, and free, but narrow and 
 
 niggard in judgment ; 
 Reared thee a race of thine own, varied in aims 
 
 as in blood, 
 
 Fitted to thrive and combine, forced by im- 
 placable fate 
 Further and further apart, as the years and the 
 
 decades unroll ; 
 Leaping to greet at a distance ; set in the 
 
 death-grips at home ?
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 53 
 
 Hark, where the angelus sounds from yon little 
 
 vapour-veiled chapel, 
 Sounding the note of peace, sounding the call 
 
 to prayer, 
 Mark how it sweeps and floats, further and 
 
 further east, 
 Carried along and aloft, as if guided and led 
 
 through the mists, 
 Guided by grey-winged seraphs, speeded by all 
 
 the saints. 
 
 Hast never a saint of thine own, land not want- 
 ing in sanctity, 
 Never a saint who can plead in yon cloud-hid 
 
 sessions on high 
 Standing erect, not crouching ; a suitor not to 
 
 be daunted, 
 Urging a manifest plea ; claiming a right to he 
 
 heard ?
 
 54 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Then when the claim is made, then when the 
 
 plea is heard, 
 Sudden, as when some frost breaks, and the 
 
 world is glad, 
 Melting the obdurate ice, hard with the frost of 
 
 the centuries, 
 Joy the magician appears ; streams awaken and 
 
 sing. 
 Wakens that land from its sleep, waken its sons 
 
 from their stupor, 
 Rubbing astonished eyes, rid of the nightmare 
 
 of ages. 
 Brother no longer 'gainst brother, hurting the 
 
 heart of their mother ; 
 Neighbour no longer 'gainst neighbour, rousing 
 
 the scorn of the stranger ; 
 Snatching precarious food from mouths already 
 
 too empty ;
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 55 
 
 Driving precarious gains from shores already 
 
 too vacant. 
 Ah, but what of those sessions ? Ah, but what 
 
 of that suitor ? 
 Was there ever so stalwart a saint, ever so 
 
 dauntless a pleader ; 
 Strong, persistent, resolved, vowed in the end 
 
 to prevail ? 
 Nay, I know not, I see not ; nought see I but 
 
 the vapours 
 
 Rolling eternally in ; heavy, tenacious, unkind ; 
 Thicker and thicker still, hiding the land in 
 
 their clutches, 
 Wrapping it carefully round, as a corpse is 
 
 wrapped in its cere-cloth ; 
 Leaving me, feebly lamenting, here in the mist 
 
 and the darkness, 
 Staring with purblind eyes ; puzzled, unquiet, 
 
 despondent.
 
 A DREAM 
 
 LAST night in dreams I seemed to slowly wend 
 
 Along a coast like this, all seared and bare, 
 And met you there, my old, my long-time 
 
 friend, 
 
 And breathed old fragrance lingering in the 
 air. 
 
 For near a rock I found a curragh tied, 
 And, entering, floated down along the bay, 
 
 And now and then an idle oar I plied, 
 
 Then touched another headland, seared and 
 grey.
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 57 
 
 There, in a cave, part open to the light, 
 
 I found you sitting, smiling, on the strand, 
 And all my heart sprang upwards at the sight, 
 And out I leaped, and gaily waved my hand. 
 " Old friend, what joy to find you here," I 
 
 said; 
 
 Then all at once remembered you were 
 dead.
 
 ABOVE THE CLIFF 
 
 A Monologue 
 
 You say, Honorius, that this life they led 
 
 Here on the last verge of a worn-out world, 
 
 A life of adoration and of prayer, 
 
 A life outside of life ; a life within 
 
 The life to be ; a life whose every breath 
 
 Was one continuous supplicating cry 
 
 To Him who be He who He may they 
 
 loved, 
 Proclaimed, feared, worshipped ; this same life, 
 
 you say, 
 
 Was a mere chasing of delusions ; just 
 A shadow-dance ; a harmless dream in short.
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 59 
 
 Their hope a dream, their faith a dream, their 
 
 God 
 A dream perchance ; their saints, in any 
 
 case, 
 
 Good groping creatures, dead and gone to dust, 
 Used up to furbish fifty other lives, 
 Each one as dear, or little dear to her, 
 (The mighty, careless mother of us all,) 
 As theirs, or any other mortal's life. 
 
 Honorius, I am half upon your side, 
 Seeing that both of us are reared on doubt ; 
 And yet, Honorius, words are strange- look 
 
 down, 
 
 Can you perceive, far off against the shore, 
 Where the pale surf just lips the dull green land,
 
 60 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Can you discern a little brownish speck 
 A gable end, part of a low brown roof r 
 Under that low brown roof a woman lies, 
 And has lain there this five years past or more. 
 Dying, but very slowly ; she may last 
 Another six months, so her neighbours tell 
 
 me. 
 
 A while since, sitting for a space beside her, 
 And groping feebly through the forms of 
 
 speech, 
 
 I traversed all the usual platitudes, 
 Painfully, one by one. Said, She was good ; 
 Said, Patience was a marvellous antidote; 
 Said, Suffering seemed our common heritage ; 
 And as a last resource, for crowning flatness, 
 That life was really very, very cruel. 
 To this she, lifting up her mild grey eyes, 
 Assented gently. Then as if remorseful,
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 61 
 
 Or in excuse for one unfairly chidden, 
 Added in mild apology, " Auch well, 
 What is it after all, but just a dream ? " 
 
 Mark that, Honorius ! mark, your very word ! 
 A dream ! a dream ! she held it all a dream. 
 But what ? Not your dream, nothing less, good 
 
 friend ; 
 
 Her dream was now, her certainty to come. 
 Her waking day lay in the vast Beyond. 
 She held this poor pretence of yours and 
 
 mine 
 
 At being alive ; this thing of walks and talks, 
 Of sleep, food, play, work, and the rest of it 
 Not to be reckoned up as life at all, 
 A thing of nought, and therefore void of 
 
 blame.
 
 62 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Why blame it, she would say, when all men 
 
 knew 
 
 It had no substance, no reality, 
 But merely served the purpose of the moment, 
 And was a sort of mirage of the night, 
 That night which ushers in the true to-morrow ? 
 
 Honorius, is she right ? or, friend, are you ? 
 Or are you both right ? And is all a dream ? 
 This ridge on which we sit ; those stones about 
 
 us; 
 
 Yon poor rude chapel, battered by the storms ; 
 Restless Atlantic, and his myriad tribes ; 
 And this great cloud-filled arch which covers 
 
 all. 
 Are they, you, me, and all our teeming world
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 63 
 
 Of ships, and men, and fish, and birds, and 
 
 towns, 
 
 A phantom place, in which dim shadows grope, 
 And meet, or rather make pretence to meet ; 
 And love, and kiss, and mate, and rear their 
 
 kind, 
 
 And yet are nothing, nothing all the time, 
 But the mere froth and fury of a dream 
 A baseless dream, a sordid dream to boot ; 
 Ugly, and mean, confused, and vain, and dull ; 
 In which a crowd of little air-built mimes, 
 Hate, clutch, and try to wound their fellow 
 
 mimes, 
 
 And wound themselves instead ; and utter cries, 
 And stretch out phantom arms to phantom 
 
 skies, 
 And all the while are nothing ? Feverish 
 
 dreams,
 
 64 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 The nerve -built puppets of an aguish night, 
 A goblin brood, mist-born, and fever-hatched, 
 Within the void of some prodigious brain ? 
 
 No, no, good comrade mine, by all we love ; 
 By all we are, have been, or hope to be, 
 Let us fling off such juggling with our wits. 
 Else see, our feet are here upon the brink, 
 Our ears are filled with this bewildering 
 
 surge ; 
 
 If all are phantoms, then this so-called height, 
 This twice or thrice a hundred feet of cliff, 
 Is but one phantom more, and should we 
 
 cross it 
 
 We do but act as some despairing sleeper, 
 Who, sick of dreams, turns wearily in bed.
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 65 
 
 Give me your hand, old friend, and hold you 
 
 mine 
 
 Firmly in yours. The path at worst is short, 
 We will not spoil such shortness, by your 
 
 leave, 
 
 With any such mere pitfalls for our brains, 
 Such half-sprung air-traps. As the wise man 
 
 said, 
 
 Let us at least pretend that you and I 
 Exist ; have substance. Further, that the rest, 
 These goodly kindly mortals whom we know, 
 Are in like case. They may be ; and if so, 
 Then are their struggles real. Their pains 
 Seem true enough, God knows ! Real their 
 
 souls, 
 
 Real the God who saves them? He at least 
 Must know if He be fact or not, or if 
 Ought be at all. Then when the viewless brink
 
 66 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Is once more reached, by no unfair short-cut, 
 We may confront that Be or Not to be, 
 That vast Perhaps, that undeciphered If, 
 With open eyes, and undiscouraged hearts. 
 Nay with, who knows ? some shadow of that 
 
 glee, 
 
 Fearful, yet not all fearful, with which they, 
 The first gay bold explorers of our race, 
 Ignorant mariners, but steadfast souls, 
 Strode to the beach, unloosed some crazy 
 
 planks, 
 
 And with a brief committal of themselves 
 To Him who, named or unnamed, still they 
 
 trusted, 
 Sailed their frail crafts to find an unknown sea..
 
 FROM THE RATH 
 
 I HEARD the sound by snatches through the 
 
 night. 
 
 The wind had risen, and the sea in wrath 
 Shook the small island to its buttresses. 
 It was a sound of weeping, strangely clear, 
 Or more than weeping ; one which tore the 
 
 heart, 
 And filled the brain, and seemed to still the 
 
 blood. 
 A sound of sobs, mingled with half-formed 
 
 words ; 
 The maddened, feeble, helpless, hopeless cry
 
 68 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Of some tormented creature. And it came 
 From where, perched on the ridge above my 
 
 head, 
 
 The rath rose greyly. Nothing living stirred, 
 Our little sea-girt world was lapped in sleep, 
 Yet still that cry rose, rose, and rang again, 
 Lost in the storm, then rising high and shrill, 
 Thin as some gnat's hum on a summer's noon ; 
 So clear, so loud, so torturingly shrill, 
 That Pity's self would fain have struck it 
 
 dumb. 
 
 I slept, and, dreaming, lost it. Suddenly 
 It rose again, and shriller than before, 
 Shrill with the dreadful shrillness of despair. 
 It seemed the cry of one that knows its doom, 
 Yet knows not all ; or, shudderingly, fears
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 69 
 
 Worse than it knows. A horror of the thing 
 Grew on me as I listened. Next came dawn, 
 And with the earliest day I climbed the 
 
 slope, 
 
 Passing between tall sentinel rows of stones, 
 Jagged and splintered like some ogre's sword 
 And stood within the precincts of the rath. 
 
 Even in the eye of day it seemed to hold 
 Some ghostly adumbration from the night, 
 Some lurking legacy from dead pagan days, 
 Bloody, and secret, dark, unnameable, 
 Branding the spot and its unhallowed stones 
 As with a martyr's curse. The morning 
 
 smiled ; 
 Its new-born light spread clean along the 
 
 ridge,
 
 70 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 Still wet with rain, or, slipping down the 
 
 edge, 
 
 Awoke an opal hid at every turn. 
 And tiny new-born trefoils caught the light 
 On soft red claws, and tender, green-fringed 
 
 spears ; 
 
 And busy emmets drove a bustling trade 
 About the rude base of an old grey cross, 
 And the sea smiled its own enchanting smile. 
 
 Only for me the night still marred the day ; 
 Only for me some desecrating touch 
 Lay on the scene. Some sanguinary trail, 
 Not to be healed by flower, or sun, or sea. 
 No, nor by cross. Rather it seemed to 
 mock
 
 IN THE ARAN ISLES 71 
 
 The Pity which that cross stood surety for. 
 What ? eighteen centuries ? a speck ! a span ! 
 One streak of light on Time's dark-pillared 
 
 dome ; 
 
 One patch of verdure in a desert's glare ; 
 One tear dropped on the heights of Golgotha. 
 
 Oh weary human drove, slayers and slain, 
 What ghostly scroll records your unknown 
 
 deeds ? 
 What unseen track, thorny, and smeared with 
 
 blood, 
 
 Has felt the tread of your unnumbered feet ? 
 Oh wan-eyed Pity, and ye pitiless Fates, 
 Thin-lipped, cold-visaged, fed on sighs and 
 
 groans,
 
 72 IN THE ARAN ISLES 
 
 What piteous ghosts attend your shadowy 
 
 halls, 
 
 Or moan in troops beneath your leafless woods ? 
 What full-fed rivers, flushed with countless 
 
 tears, 
 
 Go rolling greyly down your brine-filled coasts ? 
 What gulfs, what tides of mortal agony, 
 Sleep in the Past, that huge unplumbed sea ?
 
 TO A TUFT OF WHITE BOG- 
 COTTON, GROWING IN 
 THE TYROL
 
 TO A TUFT OF WHITE BOG- 
 COTTON, GROWING IN 
 THE TYROL 
 
 WRITTEN IN 1886 
 
 AND is it thou ? small playmate of the fens, 
 Child of damp haunts, and pallid sea-borne 
 
 fogs, 
 
 Light flutterer over dank and oozy glens, 
 White-tufted, starry friend of Irish bogs ! 
 What dost thou, tossed upon this mountain 
 
 here, 
 
 Flaunting thy white crest in this alien air ? 
 Thy little pennon swelled by this loud breeze
 
 76 TO A TUFT OF 
 
 Far out of reach of every low compeer; 
 
 Far from thy barren moor lands, waste and bare, 
 
 And distant moan of sullen Celtic seas ? 
 
 Shall brawling torrent, lost to every beam, 
 White with its spoil of glacier and moraine, 
 Serve thee as well as some slow-moving stream 
 Brown with its brimming toll of recent rain, 
 Yet clear as beads that on mid-ocean float, 
 And sad as airs which flow from Sorrow's pipe, 
 Sad as when from green hills one plaintive bleat 
 Wakens the silence with its homeless note, 
 And listening plovers wheel, and summer snipe 
 Fret thy cold shallows with their hovering feet.
 
 WHITE BOG-COTTON 77 
 
 Yet ask me not what thy small plumes recall, 
 Nay, hush ! have pity ! waken not that moan ; 
 Wake not the dead Past underneath its pall, 
 Wake not sick Sorrow where she sleeps alone. 
 For there are fields no sun hath ever blessed, 
 And there are days whose memory wakes no 
 
 strain 
 
 But the long murmurs of a vanquished host, 
 For whose return no altar fires are dressed, 
 And Echo only sends back sobs of pain, 
 And winds are fraught with sighs of battles lost. 
 
 Lost ! lost ! for ever lost ! How sound they 
 
 sleep, 
 How sound, dear God, who fought so well in 
 
 vain ! 
 Little they heed if we their memory keep,
 
 7 8 TO A TUFT OF 
 
 Little they heed, brave hearts, the loss or 
 
 gain. 
 
 For us, and not for them, that past still frowns; 
 For us, and not for them, its vapours coil ; 
 To us and not to them the shame appears 
 That heroes fell, yet won no hero crowns, 
 That blood flowed but to gorge the thankless 
 
 soil, 
 And Sorrow's self half blushed to own her 
 
 tears. 
 
 Yet Sorrow still is Sorrow. And for this, 
 For her soft sake who holds us all in thrall, 
 Whose thin cold cheek e'en kings are bound to 
 
 kiss, 
 
 Who with her quick tear dews the lowliest pall ; 
 For her yon land still keeps its deathless 
 
 charm,
 
 WHITE BOG-COTTON 79 
 
 A hovering charm, faint as lone airs which blow 
 E'en in the very ear of tranced death ; 
 So that, however oft we raise that psalm, 
 Still at the oft-told tale the tear-drops flow, 
 And listening Pity sighs her tenderest breath. 
 
 Then, little plume, uplift thy modest crown, 
 Nor here alone exalt that snow-white head, 
 But in yon western land of sad renown, 
 Whose only wealth is its forgotten dead. 
 For never Fortune showed one steadfast frown, 
 Nor ever Loss but hid some secret gain, 
 Nor Woe but, turning, caught a glad surprise, 
 Though every tongue conspired to blight renown, 
 And every memory was fraught with pain, 
 And every breath defamed those low sweet 
 skies.
 
 So WHITE BOG-COTTON 
 
 For Time is with us. Time who gilds the 
 
 wheat, 
 And rounds the year, and stays the raving 
 
 blast ; 
 Time, o'er whose breast the hurrying moments 
 
 fleet, 
 
 Before whose car all trophies fall at last. 
 So that at last, across that sad green plain, 
 Charming all hearts with her enchanted eyes, 
 Charming e'en memory till its throbbings cease, 
 Bringing all good things with her in her train, 
 Soothing the stricken, strengthening the wise, 
 Slowly comes on the winged form of Peace.
 
 TWO SONGS, AN APPEAL 
 AND A RETORT
 
 "WHEN BEACHED STREAMS" 
 
 SONG 
 
 WHEN beached streams run thick and slow, 
 And efts upclimb, with oozy slime, 
 And only marish blossoms blow, 
 
 Then sounds the merry hunting horn. 
 
 Blow ! blow ! the merry hunting horn. 
 
 When all the ways are dark and brown, 
 And not a bird uplifts its strain, 
 And leaves come circling slowly down, 
 
 Then starts the merry hunting train. 
 
 Blow ! blow ! the merry hunting train.
 
 84 "WHEN BEACHED STREAMS" 
 
 When rain-drops stand on every ledge, 
 And all forlorn, the forests mourn, 
 And daily starker grows the hedge, 
 
 Then comes the merry hunting time, 
 Blow ! blow ! the merry hunting time. 
 
 When Time the gold with grey replaces, 
 And mocks with scorn the hues of morn, 
 And thins the long-remembered faces, 
 
 Then sounds the merry hunting horn, 
 Blow ! blow ! the merry hunting horn. 
 
 From With Essex in Ireland.
 
 THE CORMORANT 
 SONG 
 
 Now the seagull spreads his wing, 
 
 And the puffin seeks the shore, 
 
 Home flies every living thing, 
 
 Yo, ho ! the breakers roar ! 
 
 Only the Cormorant, dark and sly, 
 Watches the waves with a sea-green eye. 
 
 Under his bows the breakers fleet, 
 
 All alone, alone went he ; 
 
 Flying alone through the blinding sleet, 
 
 Flying alone through the raging sea. 
 Only the Cormorant, dark and sly, 
 Watches the waves with a sea-green eye.
 
 86 THE CORMORANT 
 
 Round his bark the billows roar, 
 
 Dancing along to a lonely grave ; 
 
 Death behind, and Death before. 
 
 Yo, ho ! the breakers rave ! 
 
 Only the Cormorant, dark and sly, 
 Watches the wives with a sea-green eye. 
 
 Hark ! the waves on their iron floor, 
 
 See Kilstiffin's naked brow ! 
 
 Iron cliff, and iron shore, 
 
 Erin's saints preserve him now ! 
 Only the Cormorant, dark and sly, 
 Watches the waves with a sea-green eye. 
 
 Hark ! was that a drowning cry ? 
 Erin's saints receive his soul !
 
 THE CORMORANT 87 
 
 Nothing now twixt sea and sky. 
 
 Yo, ho ! the breakers roll ! 
 
 Only the Cormorant, dark and sly, 
 Watches the waves with a sea-green eye.
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 DAYS of unstinted splendour, days of unceasing 
 rain, 
 
 Days all beringed with pleasure, days all be- 
 streaked with pain. 
 
 Hark ! for I hear them calling, from over the 
 rocks and the sand ; 
 
 Hark ! for I hear them calling, far off in that 
 wild west land ; 
 
 Up from the hearts of the mountains, cold, 
 ascetic, severe ; 
 
 Up from the breasts of the streams, brown, be- 
 jewelled, and clear ;
 
 AN APPEAL 89 
 
 Up from thy oozy depths, loud-tongued friend 
 
 of the blast, 
 They rise, they return, they throng ; ghosts of 
 
 the days that are past. 
 Past, and dim, not dead, they live, as our lost 
 
 ones Jive, 
 In our eyes, in our hearts, in our souls, with 
 
 all that they had to give, 
 And the sound of Atlantic pervades them, and 
 
 seems in our ears from afar, 
 Like the sound of 'Thy voice, Oh Eternal, whose 
 
 runnels and ripples we are. 
 Thine were they ere we knew them, giver of 
 
 joy and of pain ; 
 
 Thine those days, not ours ; to Thee they re- 
 turned again. 
 For what are the drops and the streams to the 
 
 infinite sweep of the sea ;
 
 9 o AN APPEAL 
 
 And what are our days or our years, Master ot 
 
 Aeons, to Thee ? 
 And the days yet unborn shall be good, and 
 
 the children shall walk in Thy light : 
 Say, shall it not be so, who bringest the day 
 
 from the night ? 
 Look ! for I see them coming, far over the rocks 
 
 and the sand ; 
 Look ! for I see them coming, away to that wild 
 
 west land, 
 Our own west land, which knows us, whose sons 
 
 and daughters are we, 
 Waste, untoward to others, dear as a mother 
 
 to me. 
 Whose days shall yet be good, whose daughters 
 
 and sons shall rejoice, 
 Standing erect and proud, in the old green home 
 
 of their choice.
 
 AN APPEAL 91 
 
 So let it be, Oh Lord ; let thy people! be glad in 
 thy light, 
 
 Though we, who plead, pass and perish, wind- 
 blown waifs of a night.
 
 A RETORT 
 
 NOT hers your vast imperial mart, 
 Where myriad hopes on fears are hurled, 
 Where furious rivals meet and part 
 To woo a world. 
 
 Not hers your vast imperial town, 
 Your mighty mammoth piles of gain, 
 Your loaded vessels sweeping down 
 To glut the main. 
 
 Unused, unseen, her rivers flow, 
 From mountain tarn to ocean tide ; 
 Wide vacant leagues the sunbeams show, 
 The rain-clouds hide.
 
 A RETORT 93 
 
 Tou swept them vacant ! Your decree 
 Bid all her budding commerce cease; 
 Tou drove her from your subject sea, 
 To starve in peace ! 
 
 Well, be it peace ! Resigned they flow, 
 No laden fleet adown them glides, 
 But wheeling salmon sometimes show 
 Their silvered sides. 
 
 And sometimes through the long still day 
 The breeding herons slowly rise, 
 Lifting grey tranquil wings away, 
 To tranquil skies. 
 
 Stud all your shores with prosperous towns I 
 Blacken your hill-sides, mile on mile ! 
 Redden with bricks your patient downs ! 
 And proudly smile !
 
 94 A RETORT 
 
 A day will come before you guess, 
 A day when men, with clearer light, 
 Will rue that deed beyond redress, 
 Will loathe that sight. 
 
 And, loathing, fly the hateful place, 
 And, shuddering, quit the hideous thing, 
 For where unblackened rivers race, 
 And skylarks sing. 
 
 For where, remote from smoke and noise, 
 Old Leisure sits knee-deep in grass ; 
 Where simple days bring simple joys, 
 And lovers pass. 
 
 I see her in those coming days, 
 Still young, still gay ; her unbound hair 
 Crowned with a crown of starlike rays, 
 Serenely fair.
 
 A RETORT 95 
 
 I see an envied haunt of peace, 
 Calm and untouched ; remote from roar, 
 Where wearied men may from their burdens cease 
 On a still shore. 
 
 THE END
 
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