Preface To Diarmid's Story

Best beloved of ancient stories     Are our Diarmid's woes to me.     Like a mist, by breezes broken,     So this tale of olden glories     Floats in fragments, as a token     Of the song of Ireland's sea.     Through long centuries repeated     Lived the legend told in Erse,     But a change comes swift or slowly     Fades the language, and defeated     Flies the faith, once counted holy,     Old-world ways, and oral verse.     Not from men of note or learning     May we gather now these tales,     Heard beneath the cotter's rafter,     Or where smithy sparks are burning,     Or at sea, when hushed the laughter     Of the breeze on hull and sails.     Then with Ossian's rhythmic Measure     Comes upon the fancy's sight,     One with golden locks; resplendent,     Great and strong with eyes of azure,     And, again in the ascendant,     Magic reasserts her might.     Nought can wound him, sword or arrow,     Only powerless are the spells     Where on the footsole implanted     There is hid a birth-mark narrow,     But this hero's brow enchanted     Every woman's love compels.     Woe to him, that she whose glances     Won the king on Denmark's shore,     Evil, beautiful, imperious,     Born where wheel the grisly dances     Through the glen of ghosts mysterious,     Love's first passion for him bore.     For she saw his forehead bending     O'er the snarling dogs at strife     At the wedding-feast of greeting;     And at dusk unto him wending,     "Come," she said, "let this our meeting     Pledge my soul to thee for life."     "If, O queen, we go together,     Not with friends, nor yet alone     Must thou be, nor sheltered ever,     Housed, nor braving wind and weather;     If on horse or foot, then never     Can thy love to me be known!"     Flight were shield and fence far surer     Gainst a wily woman's ways     Than the wit of man; for seated     Ere the dawn, his fair allurer     At his open door repeated     All his words, with longing gaze.     "Go with me, O Diarmid; see me     Not on horse, or foot; with friends,     Nor alone; not night or morning     Reigns: O come; thou wilt not flee me?     Never lived a warrior scorning     Every joy that loving lends!"     Then at last by her caresses     Into flight and guilt beguiled,     Diarmid loathed his life, abiding     In the caves' or woods' recesses,     Like a thief or coward hiding,     To his fate unreconciled.     Thus the mightiest magician     Warped the true and loyal heart,     And he fled with her, forsaking.     Friends and kinsfolk, while contrition     Gnawed into his life's days, making     Sad his journey, hard his part.     He, a fugitive, whose valiance     Made the Feinne fair Erin's boast!     Where the red cascade descended,     Lovely Grinie's evil dalliance     Held him thrall as though were ended     Noble warring with the host.     He a slave! whose oaths had ever     Bade him "champion the oppressed,"     Pledged him to "confound the clever,     Aid the losing man's endeavour,     Be the first in fight, and never     Heedless of the king's behest"     Once upon a rock, tree-shrouded,     Hungry they had climbed to eat     Where the scarlet berries clustered:     Suddenly below them crowded     Dogs and huntsmen, 'til were mustered     All the Feinne beneath their feet.     Fionn, then, their grim commander,     Dreaming not his wife was near,     Had a giant chess-board graven     On the sod, and played; and under     The green leaves which gave him haven     Diarmid watched the game in fear.     Oscar lost, with Fionn playing,     Until Diarmid, from on high     Dropped the scarlet seeds to guide him,     Thus his presence there betraying:     And the friends of Fionn eyed him,     Shouting, "Thou shalt surely die!"     But all Diarmid's comrades for him     Fought, each venturing his life:     And amid the dread commotion     Fled the twain, until before him     To the peaceful sands of ocean     Ran a woodland stream of strife.     Dwelling on its banks he made him     There the wooden bowls that none     Fashioned with the dirk so deftly.     But the chattering stream betrayed him:     From the secret forest swiftly     Flashed white shavings in the sun.     Then the king cried, "Grinie's lover     Near us hath his lurking place!     Sound the hunting horns around him!     See if from the thickets' cover     By the ancient vows that bound him     He shall come to join the chase!"     *             *             *             *             *     How the queen bore his upbraiding;     How his death in hunting came,     Tell the verses here translated:     Lights are they, in transit fading,     Scattered sparks, oblivion fated,     Memories from a mighty flame!