Elves and Heroes | Page 6

still?The Fians watched; while on the hill?The little elves came out and gazed,?To be amused and were amazed ...?They saw upon the shrinking sands?The warriors with restless hands?And busy blades, with shields that rose?To buffet the unceasing blows;?They saw before the rising flood?The flash of fire, the flash of blood;?And watched the men with panting breath,?Striving to be the slaves of death;?Now darting wide, now swerving round,?Now clashed together in a bound,?With splitting swords that smote so fast,?As hour by hour unheeded past.
The sands were torn and tossed like spray?Before the whirlwind of the fray,?That waged in fury till the sun?Sank, and the day's last loops were spun--?Then terrible was Goll ... He rose?A tempest of increasing blows,?More furious and fast, as dim,?Uncertain twilight fell ... More grim?And great he grew as, looming large,?He fought, and pressing to the marge?Of ocean, he o'erpowered and drave?The Viking hero back; till wave?O'er ready wave that hurried fleet,?Snuffled and snarled about their feet ...
Then with a mighty shout that made?The rocks around him ring, his blade?Swept like a flash of fire to smite?The last fell blow in that fierce fight--?So great Conn perished like The Red?By Goll's left hand ... his life-blood spread?Over the quenching sands where rolled?His head entwined with locks of gold.?Then passed like thunder o'er the sea?The Fian shout of victory.?And, trembling on the tossing ships,?The Vikings heard, with voiceless lips?And dim, despairing eyes ... Alone?Stood Goll, and like a silent stone?Bulking upon a ben-side bare,?He bent above the hero fair--?Remembering the mighty Red,?And wondering that Conn lay dead.
[Footnote 1: May Day.]
[Footnote 2: Traditional Holy Hill]
THE SONG OF GOLL.
O Son of The Red,?Undone and laid dead--?The blood of a hero?My cold blade hath shed.
Who fought me to-day??Who sought me to slay?--?The son of yon High King?I slew in the fray.
O blade that yon brave?Low laid in the grave,?Ye gladdened the Fians?But grief to Conn gave.
Stone-hearted and strong,?Lone-hearted with long,?Dark brooding, he sought to?Avenge his deep wrong.
Fair Son of The Red,?Care none thou art dead?--?Old Goll of Clan Morna?Will mourn thou hast bled.
O where shall be found?To share with thee round?The halls of Valhalla?Thy glory renowned?
O true as the blade?That slew thee, and made?My fear and thine anger?For ever to fade--
Ah! when upon earth?Again will have birth?A son of such honour?And bravery and worth?
Above thee in splendour?A love that could render?Brave service, burned star-like?And constant and tender.
With fearing my name,?With hearing my fame,?O none would dare combat?With Goll till Conn came? ...
O great was thine ire--?The fate of thy sire,?Awaiting thy coming,?Consumed thee like fire.
O Son of The Red,?Undone and laid dead--?The blood of a hero?My cold blade hath shed.
THE BLUE MEN OF THE MINCH.
When the tide is at the turning and the wind is fast asleep, And not a wave is curling on the wide, blue Deep,?O the waters will be churning on the stream that never smiles, Where the Blue Men are splashing round the charmèd isles.
As the summer wind goes droning o'er the sun-bright seas,?And the Minch is all a-dazzle to the Hebrides;?They will skim along like salmon--you can see their shoulders gleam, And the flashing of their fingers in the Blue Men's Stream.
But when the blast is raving and the wild tide races,?The Blue Men ere breast-high with foam-grey faces;?They'll plunge along with fury while they sweep the spray behind, O, they'll bellow o'er the billows and wail upon the wind.
And if my boat be storm-toss'd and beating for the bay,?They'll be howling and be growling as they drench it with their spray-- For they'd like to heel it over to their laughter when it lists, Or crack the keel between them, or stave it with their fists.
O weary on the Blue Men, their anger and their wiles!?The whole day long, the whole night long, they're splashing round the isles; They'll follow every fisher--ah! they'll haunt the fisher's dream-- When billows toss, O who would cross the Blue Men's Stream?
THE URISK.
O the night I met the Urisk on the wide, lone moor!?Ah! would I be forgetting of The Thing that came with me??For it was big and black as black, and it was dour as dour, It shrank and grew and had no shape of aught I e'er did see.
For it came creeping like a cloud that's moving all alone,?Without the sound of footsteps ... and I heard its heavy sighs ... Its face was old and grey, and like a lichen-covered stone, And its tangled locks were dropping o'er its sad and weary eyes.
O it's never the word it had to say in anger or in woe--?It would not seek to harm me that had never done it wrong,?As fleet--O like the deer!--I went, or I went panting slow, The waesome thing came with me on that lonely road and long.
O eerie was the Urisk that