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!