 Book 1 of The Wondrings of Ashin by William Butler Yeats. You who are bent and bawled and blind with a heavy heart and a wandering mind, have known three centuries' old sing of delients with a demon thing. Sad to remember, sick with years, the swift innumerable spears, the horsemen with their floating hair and bowls of barley, honey and wine, those merry couples dancing in tune and the white body that lay by mine, at the tail though words be lighter than hair, must live to be old like the wandering moon. Calty and Conan and Finn were there when we followed a deer with our banged hounds, with bran, skelton, antelomere, and passing the furbolgs, burial mounds, came to the carn-heaped grassy hill where passionate Maeve is stony still, and found on the dove-grey edge of the sea, a pearl-pale high-born lady who rode on a horse with bridle of fin-driny, and like a sunset were her lips, a stormy sunset on doomed ships, a citron color gloomed in her hair, but down to her feet white vesture flowed and with the glimmering crimson glow of many a-figured embroidery, and it was bound with a pearl-pale shell that wavered like the summer streams as her soft bosom rose and fell. You were still wrecked among heathen dreams. Why do you wind no horn, she said, and every hero drip his head? The hornless deer is not more sad that many a peaceful moment had more slick than any granary mouse in his own leafy forest-house among the waving fields of fern, the hunting of heroes should be glad. O pleasant woman, answered Finn, we think on Oscar's penciled urn and on the hero's lying slang on gabbra's rave and covered plain, but where are your noble kith and kin, and from what country do you ride? My father and my mother are Angus and Edane, my own lane, I am in my country far beyond the tumbling of this tide. What dream came with you that you came through bitter tide on foam-wet feet? Did your companion wander away from where the birds of Angus swing? Thereon did she look haughty and sweet. I have not yet, O weary king, been spoken of with any man, yet now I choose for these four feet, ran through the foam and ran to this that I might have your son to kiss. But there are no better than my son that you, through all that foam, should run. I love no man, though kings be sought untold the dain and poets brought, rhyme that rhymed upon Ashene's name, and now I'm dizzy with the thought of all that wisdom and for fame, of battles broken by his hands, of stories builded by his words that are like coloured Asian birds at evening in their rainless lands. O Patrick, by your brazen bell there was no limb of mine, but fell into a desperate gulf of love. Who only will I wed, I cried, and I will make a thousand songs and set your name or names above, and captive's bound with eleven thongs. Shall kneel and praise you one by one at evening in my western done. O Ashene, mount by me and ride, to shores by the wash of the tremulous tide where men have heaped no burial mounds, and the days pass by like a wayward tune. A broken faith has never been known, and the blushes of first love never have flown, and there I will give you a hundred hounds, no mightier creatures, bay at the moon, and a hundred robes of murmuring silk, and a hundred calves and a hundred sheep, his long wall whiter than a sea, froth flows, and a hundred spears and a hundred bows, and oil and wine and honey and milk, and always never anxious sleep while a hundred you, this mighty of limb, but knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife, and a hundred ladies marry as birds, who when they dance to a fitful measure, have a speed like a speed at the salmon herds. Shall follow your horn and obey your whim, and you shall know the dain and leisure, and I am here with you for a wife. When she sighed gently, it grows late, music and love and sleep await, for I would be when the white moon climbs, and red sun falls, and the world grows dim. And then I mounted, and she bound me with her triumphant arms around me, and whispering to herself, and wound me, that when the horse had felt my weight, he shook himself and knaved three times, Coyote, Conan, and Finn came near, and wept and raised their lamenting hands, and bid me stay with many a tear, that we rode out from the human lands. In what far kingdom do you go, are Fenyans with the shield and bow? Where are you phantoms, white as snow, whose lips had life's most prosperous glow, or you with whom in sloping valleys, or down the dewy forest alleys, I chased it more on the flying deer, with whom I hurled the hurrying spear, and read the foeman's buckler's rattle, and broke the heaving ranks of battle, and brand Skeolen and Lomere, where are you with your long rough hair? You go not where the red deer feeds, nor tear the foeman from their steeds. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head, companions long accursed and did, and hounds for centuries dust and deer. We galloped over the glossy sea, I know not if days passed or hours, but I am sang continually. Dainan songs and enduy showers of pensive laughter, unhuman sound, lulled unweariness and softly round, my humans sorrow her white arms wound. We galloped, now a hornless deer passed by us, chased by a phantom hound, or pearly white save one red deer, and now a lady rode like the wind, with an apple of gold in her tossing hand, and a beautiful young man flowed behind with quenchless gaze and fluttering hair. Were these two born in the Dainan land, or have they breathed the mortal air? Ex them no longer, Nahem said, and sighing bowed her gentle head, and sighing laid the pearly tip of one long finger on my lip. But now the moon like a white rose shone in the pale west, and the sun's rim sank, and clouds arrayed their rank on rank about his fading crimson ball. The floor of Alne Huynne's hosting hall was not more level than the sea, as full of loving fantasy, and with low murmurs we rode on. There many a trumpet twisted shell at an immortal silence sleeps, dreaming of her own melting hues, her golds, her ambers and her blues, pierced with soft light the shallowing dips, but now a wandering land breeze came, and a far sound of feathery choirs it seemed to blow from the dying flame. It seemed to sing in the smongering fires the horse towards the music raced, naing along the lifeless waste like a sweaty finger's many a tree, rose ever out of the warm sea, and they were trembling ceaselessly, as though they all were beating time upon the centre of the sun, to that low laughing woodland rhyme, and now our wandering hours were done. We counted to the shore and knew the reason of the trembling trees, which the songbirds flew will conber on like a swarming bees, while round the shore a million stilt like drops of frozen rainbow light, and pondered in a soft-fane mood upon their shadows in the tide, and told the purple deeps their pride and murmured snatches of delight, and on the shores were many boats with bending sterns and bending bales, and carven figures on their prowls of bitterns and fish-eating stoats, and swans with their exalted throats, and where the wooden waters meet we tied the horse in a leafy clump, and naim blew three merry notes, out of the little tall silver trump, and then an answering whispering flew over the bare and woody land, a whisper of impetuous feet, and ever nearer, nearer grew, and from the woods rushed out a band of men and ladies hand in hand and singing, singing all together. Their brawls were white as fragrant milk, their cloaks made out of yellow silk, and trimmed with many a crimson feather, and when they saw the cloak I wore was dim with mire of a mortal shore, they fingered it and gazed on me, and laughed like murmurs of the sea, but naim, with a swift distress, bid them away and hold their peace, and when they heard her voice they ran and knelt there, every girl and man, and kissed as they would never cease, her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress, she bade them bring us to the hall, rang the streams from sun to sun, a druid dream of the end of days, where the stars are to wane and the world to be done. They led us by long and shadowy ways, where drops of dew in myriads fall, and tangled creepers every hour, blossom in some new crimson flower, and once a sudden laughter sprang from all their lips, and once they sang together, while the dark woods rang, and made in all their distant parts, with berm of bees in honey-marts, a rumour of delighted hearts, and once a lady by my side gave me a harp, and bid me sing, and touched the laughing silver string, but when I sang of human joy, a sorrow wrapped each merry face, and Patrick, by your beard, they wept, until one came, a tearful boy, a sadder creature never stepped in this strange human bard, he cried, and caught the silver harp away, and weeping over the white strings hurled it down in a leaf hid hollow place, that kept dim waters from the sky, and each one said with a long, long sigh, oh saddest harp in all the world, sleep there till the moon and the stars die. And now, still sad, we came to where, a beautiful young man dreamed within, a house of wattles, clay, and skin, one hand up held his beardless chin, and one asceptor flashing out, wild flames of red and gold and blue, like to a merry wandering route of dancers leaping in the air, and men and ladies knelt them there, and showed their eyes with teardrops dim, and with low murmurs prayed to him, and kissed the sceptre with red lips, and touched it with their fingertips. He held that flashing sceptre up, joy drowns with twilight in the dew, and fills with star's night's purple cup, and wakes the sluggard seeds of corn, and stirs the young kid's budding horn, and makes the infant ferns unwrap, and for the peewit paints his cap, and rolls along the unwieldy sun, and makes the little planets run, and if joy were not on the earth there were an end of change and birth, and earth and heaven and hell would die, and in some gloomy barrow lie, folded like a frozen fly, then mock at death and time with glances, and wavering arms, and wandering dances. Men's hearts of old were drops of flame that from the saffron morning came, were drops of silver joy that fell out of the moon's pale twisted shell, and now hearts cry that hearts are slaves, and toss and turn in narrow caves, but here there is no law nor rule, or of hands held a weary tool, and here there is no change nor death, but only kind and merry breath, for joy is God, and God is joy, with one long glance for girl and boy, and the pale blossom of the moon, he fell into a druid's womb, and in a wild and sudden dance we mocked at time and fate and chance, and swept out of the wattleth hall, and came to where the dew drops fall among the foam drops of the sea, and there we hushed the revelry, and gathering on our brows a frown, and all our swaying bodies down, and to the waves that glimmer by that sloping green didane and sod, saying God is joy, and joy is God, and things that have grown sad or wicked, and things that fear the dawn of the morrow, or the gray wandering or spray sorrow. We danced to wear in the winding thicket, the damask roses bloom on bloom, what crimson meteors hang in the gloom, and bending over them softly said, bending over them in the dance, with a swift hand, friendly glance, from dewy eyes upon the dead fall the leaves of other roses, on the dead dim earth encloses, but never, never on our graves, heaped beside the glimmering waves, shall fall the leaves of damask roses, and either death nor change comes near us, and all listless hours fear us, and we fear no dawning morrow, or the gray wandering or spray sorrow. The dance wound through the windless woods, the ever-summoned solitudes, until the tossing arms grew still on the woody central hill, and gathered in a panting band, we flung on high each waving hand, and sang unto the starry broods, and our raised eyes, their flash to blow, with milky brightness to and fro, and thus our song arose, you stars, across your wandering ruby cars, shake the loose reins, you slaves of God, he rules you with an iron bond, each one woven to the other, each one woven to his brother, like bubbles in a frozen pond, that we in a lonely land abide unchainable, as the dim tide, with hearts that know no law nor rule, and hands that hold no worrisome tool, folded in love that fears no morrow, nor the gray wandering or spray sorrow. Patrick, for a hundred years I chased upon that woody shore, the deer, the badger, and the boar, oh Patrick, for a hundred years that evening on the glimmering sands, beside the piled up hunting spears, these now outworn and withered hands, wrestled among the island bands, oh Patrick, for a hundred years we went fishing in long boats, with bending sterns and bending bows, and carven figures, on their prowls of bitons and fish eating stoats, oh Patrick, for a hundred years time was my wife, now two things devour my life, for things that most of all I hate, fasting in prayers, too long, yes, yes, for these were ancient Usheen's fate, lest long ago from Heaven's gate, for his last days to lie in wait, when one day by the tide I stood, I found in that forgetfulness of dreamy foam, a staff of wood from some dead warrior's broken lance, I turned it in and called on it, and I wept, remembering how the Fenyans stepped along the blood bedabbled plains, equal to good or grievous chance, there on young Niamh softly came and caught my hands, but spoke no word, save only many times my name, in murmurs like a frightened bird, we passed by woods and lawns of clover, and found the horse and bridled him, for we knew well what one say, his eyes grow dim with all the ancient sorrow of men, and wrapped in dreams rode out again, with hooves of the pale Findrini, over the glimmering purple sea, under the golden evening light, the immortals moved among the fountains by rivers and the woods hold night, some danced like shadows on the mountains, some wandered ever hand in hand or sat in the water, bent down above each hooded knee, and sang with a dreamy gaze, watched where the sun in a saffron blaze was slumbering half in the sea ways, and as they sang the painted birds kept time with their bright wings and feet, like drops of honey came their words, but fainter than a young lamb's bleed, an old man stirs the fire to a blaze in the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother, he is right to each other, he hears the storm in the chimney above and bends to the fire and shakes with the cold, while his heart still dreams of battle and love and the cry of the hounds on the hills of old, but we are apart in the grassy places where care cannot trouble the least of our days, or the softness of youth be gone from our faces, or love's first tenderness die in our gaze, the hair grows old as she plays in the sun, and gazes around her with eyes of brightness, before the sweet things that she dreamed of were done, she limps along in an aged whiteness, a storm of birds in the Asian trees like tulips in the air, a winging in the gentle waves of the summer seas that raised their heads and wonders singing, must murmur at last unjust, unjust, and my speed is a weariness, fault is the mouse, and the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust, and the roof falls in of his tunneled house, that the love-dude dims our eyes till the day when God shall come from the sea with a sigh, and bid the stars drop down from the sky, and the moon like a pale rose wither away. End of Book 1, recorded by Nathan at antipodeanwriter.wordpress.com Book 2 of the Wondrings of Ashin by William Butler Yeats This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Nathan at antipodeanwriter.wordpress.com The Wondrings of Ashin by William Butler Yeats Book 2 Now man of cross ears, shadows call down names, and then away away like whirling flames, and now fled by, is covered without a sound, the youth and lady, and the deer, and hound. Cays no more on the phantoms I am said, and kissed my eyes and swaying her bright head, and her bright body, saying a fairy and man. Before God was, or my old line began, or shadowy, vast, exultant, fairies of old, who wedded men with rings of druid gold, and how those lovers never turned their eyes upon the life that fades and flickers and dies, yet love and kiss on dim shores far away, while ground with music of the sighing spray, yet sang no more as when like a brown bee that has drunk full she crossed the misty sea, with me in her white arms a hundred years, before this day, for now the fall of tears. Troubled her song, I do not know if days or hours pass by yet hold the morning rays shone many times among the glimmering flowers, woven into her hair before dark towers, rose in the darkness, and the white surf gleamed, about them and the horse of fairy screamed, and shivered, knowing the isle of many fears, nor ceased until white names stroked his ears, and named him by sweet names, a foaming tide whitened afar with surge fan-formed and white, versed from a great door, marred by many a blow, from mace and sword and poleaxe, long ago. When God's in giants ward, we rode between the lead-covered pillars, and the green and surging phosphorus alone gave light on our dark pathway to a countless flight of moon steps, glimmered and left and right, dark statues glimmered over the pale tide. Upon dark thrones, between the lids of one, the imaged meteors had flashed and run, and had desported in the stilly jet, the thick stars had dawned and shone and set, since God made time with and sleep the other, stretched his long arm to wear and misty smother. The stream churned chant and churned his lips apart, as though he told his never-slumbering heart of every foam drop on its misty way. Timed the horse to his fast foot of atlay, half in the unvessled sea, we climbed the stair, and climbed so long I thought glass steps were hung from the morning star when these mild words fanned the air like wings of birds. My brothers spring out of their beds at horn, a murmur like young partridge with loud horn, they chased the moon tide dear. And when the dew-drowned stars hang in the air, look too long fishing lines, or point and pair, and ashen hunting spear. O sigh, O fluttering sigh, be kind to me, flutter along the froth lips of the sea, and shores the froth lips yet, and stay a little while, and bid them weep, ah, touch their blue-veined eyelids if they sleep, and shake their coverlet. When you have told how I weep endlessly, flutter along the froth lips of the sea, and home to me again, and in the shadow of my hair lie hid, and tell me that you found a man unbid the saddest of all men. A lady with soft eyes like funeral tapers and face that seemed wrought out of moonlit vapours, and a sad mouth that fear-made trengalus, as any ruddy moth looked down on us, and she with her wave-rusted chain was tied to two old eagles full of ancient pride, that with dim eyeballs stood on either side, few feathers were on their dishevelled wings, for their dim minds were with the ancient things. I bring deliverance, pill-pale, and I am said. Neither the living, nor the unlabouring dead, nor the high gods who never lived may fight, my enemy and hope, demons for fright, jabber and scream about him in the night. For he is strong and crafty as the seas, at spring under the seven hazel trees, and I must knead endure and hate and weep, until the gods and demons drop asleep, hearing aid touch the mournful strings of gold. Is he so dreadful? Be not over-bold, but fly while still you may, and thereon I. This demon shall be battered till he die, and his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide. Flea from him, will pale name weeping cry. For all men flee the demons, but moved not my angry king remembering soul one jot. There was no mightier soul of Heber's line, now it is old and mouse-like for a sign. I burst the chain still earless, nervous blind, wrapped in the things of the young human mind in some dim memory or ancient mood, still earless, nervous blind, the eagle stood, and then we climbed the stair to a high door, a hundred horsemen on the basalt floor. Beneath had paced content, we held our way and stood within clothed in a misty ray. I saw a firm white seagull drift and float under the roof and with a straining throat, shouted and hailed him, young star, for no man's cry shall ever mount so far. Not even your god could have thrown down that hall, stabling his unloosed lightnings in their stall. A had sat down and sighed with the cumbered heart as though his hour would come. We saw to the part that was most distant from the door, green slime made the way slippery and time on time showed prints of seaborn scales, while down through it the captives journeys to and fro were rid, like a small river and where feet touched came a momentary gleam of phosphorus flame under the deepest shadows of the hall. That woman found a ring hung on the wall and in the ring a torch and with its flair, making a world about her in the air passed under the dim doorway out of sight and came again holding a second light burning between her fingers and in mine laid it inside. I held a sword whose shine no centuries could dim and a word ran thereon in Hogham letters Mananan that sea god's name who in a deep content sprained dripping and with captive demon sent out of the seven fold seas built the dark hall rooted in foam and clouds and cried to all the mightier masters of a mightier race and at his cry there came a milk pale face under a crown of thorns and dark with blood but only exalted faces Niam stood with bowed head trembling when the white blade shone the she whose hours of tenderness were gone had neither hope nor fear obeyed them hide under the shadows till the tomoths died of the loud crashing and earth shaking fight. The stage should look upon some dreadful sight and thrust the torch between the slimy flags a dome made out of endless carven jags a shadowy face flowed into a shadowy face looked down on me and in the self-same place I waited hour by hour and the high dome windowless pillarless multitude-ness home a face as waited and the leisure gaze was loaded with the memory of days buried and mighty went through the great door the dawn came in and glimmered on the floor with a pale light I journeyed round the hall and found a door deep and sunken in the wall the list of doors beyond on a dim plane a little runnel made a bubbling strain and on the runnel stony and bare edge a dusky demon dry as a withered sedge swayed crooning to himself an unknown tongue in a sad revelry he sang and swung back aunt and mournful passing to and fro his hand on the runnel's side as though the flower still grew there far in the sea's waste shaking and waving vapor-vapor chased while high frail cloudlets fed with a green light like drifts of leaves immovable and bright hung in the passionate dawn he slowly turned a demon's leisure eyes first white now burned like wings of kingfishers and heroes barking we trampled up and down with blows of sword and braze like a black's wild day gave to high noon and noon to night gave way and when he knew the sword of man and an amid the shapes of night he changed and ran through many shapes a lunged at the smooth throat of a great heel it changed an eye but smote a fir tree roaring in its leafless top there upon I drew the livid chop of a drowned dripping body to my breast horror from horror grew but when the west had surged through heart and spine and cast him in the wave lest nigh I am shudder full of hope and dread these two came carrying wine and meat and bread and healed my wounds with unduance out of flowers that feed white moths by some didane and shrine then in that whore that by the dim sea shine we lay on skins of otters and drank wine brewed by the sea gods from huge cups that lay upon the lips of sea gods in their day and then on heaped up the skins otters slept and when the sun once more in saffron stepped rolling his flagrant wheel out of the deep we sang the loves and angers without sleep and all the exalted labours of the strong but now the lying clerics murder song with barren words and flatteries of the weak in what land do the powerless turn the beak of ravening sorrow for the hand of wrath for all your crossiers they have left the path and wonder in the storms and clinging snows hopeless forever ancient usheen knows for he is weak and poor and blind and lies on the anvil of the world be still the skies are choked with thunder lightning and fierce wind for God has heard and speaks his angry mind go cast your body on the stones and pray for he has wrought in midnight and dawn and day saint do you weep a hero mid the thunder the fenian horses armour torn asunder laughter and cries the armies clash and shock and now the daylight darkening ravens flock see see so mournful laughing fenian horn we feasted for three days on the fourth morn I found dropping seafoam on the wide stare and hung with slime and whispering in his hair that demon dulled and unsung durable and once more to a day long battle fell and at the sundown threw him in the surge to lie until the fourth morn saw emerge his new healed shape and for a hundred years so ward so feasted with nor dreams nor fears nor languor nor fatigue an endless feast an endless war the hundred years had ceased I stood upon the stair the surges bore a beach bow to me and my heart grew sore remembering how I stood by white head thin under a beach at Elmwin and the thin outcry of bats and then young niam came holding that horse and sadly called my name I mounted and we passed over the loam and drifting greyness while this monotone surly and distant mixed inseparably into the clanger of the wind and sea I hear my soul drop down in two decay and men and ants dark tower stone after stone gather sea slime and fall the seaward way and the moon go over waters night and day that all be overthrown until the moon has taken all I wage war on the mightiest men under the skies and they have fallen or fled age after age light as man's love and lighter is man's rage his purpose drips and dies and then lost niam murmured love we go to the island of forgetfulness for lo the islands are dancing and to victories are empty of all power which of these is the island of content none knows she said and on my bosom laid her weeping head end of book two recorded by Nathan at antipodeanwriter.wordpress.com book three of the Wonderings of Usheen by William Butler Heats this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Nathan at antipodeanwriter.wordpress.com The Wonderings of Usheen by William Butler Heats book three fled foam underneath us and round us a wandering and milky smoke high as the saddle girth covering away from our glances the tide and those that fled and that followed from the foam pale distance broke the immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces and sighed I'm used on the chase with the Fenyans and Bran, Skiolen, Lomair and never a song sang at Niam and over my finger tips came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist cold hair and now the warmth of sighs and after the quiver of lips more hours long and riding when rolled in a grizzly peace an isle lay level in the forest with tripping hazel and oak and we stood on a seasedge we saw a knot for whiter a new washed fleece fled foam underneath us and round us a wandering and milky smoke and we rode on the plains of the seasedge the seasedge barren and grey grey sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees dripping and doubling landward as though they would hasten away like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas but the trees grew taller and closer immense in their wrinkling bark dropping a murmurous dropping old silence and that one new live creatures lit there no weasels moved in the dark long sighs arose in our spirits beneath us bubbled the ground and the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun ceased on our hands at our faces on hazel and oak leaf the stars were blotted above us and the whole of the world was one the horse gave a winnie for cumbress with stems of the hazel and oak a valley flowed down from his horse and there in the low grass lay under the starlight and shadow a monstrous slumbering folk their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way and wore axe arrow and shield and blade and drew blanched horns in whose hollow a child of three ears old would sleep on a couch of rushes and all in wrought and in laid and more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold and each of the huge white creatures was huger than four score men the tops of their ears were feathered hands were the claws of birds and shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen breathing came from those bodies long wallace, growin' whiter thin curds the wood was so spacious above them that he who has stars for his flocks found all the leaves with his fingers nor go from his due cumbered skies so long were they sleeping the owls had builded their nests in their locks filling the fibrous dimness with long generations of eyes and over the limbs and the valley the slow owls wandered and came now in a place of star fire and now in a shadow place wide and the chief of the huge white creatures his knees in the soft star flame a loose in a place of shadow by his side gold in the nails of his bird claws flung loosely along the dim ground in one was a branch soft shining with belts more many than size in midst of an old man's bosom owls ruffling and pacing around sidled their bodies against him filling the shade with their eyes and my gaze was thronged with the sleepers of the night since the world began in realms where the handsome were many nor in glamours by demons flung a face as alive with such beauty being known to the salt high of man yet weary with passions that faded when the sevenfold sees the young and I gazed on the bell branch sleeps forebear far sung by the sen nakies I saw how those slumberers weary their camping in grasses deep of wars with the wide world and pacing the shores of the wandering seas laid hands on the bell branch and swayed it and fed of unhuman sleep snatching the horn of Niam I blew along lingering note came sound from those monstrous sleepers a sound like the stirring flies he shaking the fold of his lips seeing the pillar of his throat watched me with mournful wonder out of the wells of his eyes I cried come out of the shadow king of the nails of gold and tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands that we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old your questioner usheen is worthy he comes from the fenian lands half open his eyes were and held me dull with the smoke of their dreams his lips moved slowly in answer no answer out of them came and he swayed in his fingers the bell branch slowly dropping a sound in faint streams softer than snowflakes in April and piercing the marrow like flame wrapped in the wave of that music with weariness more than of earth the moille of my centuries filled me and gone like a sea covered stone with the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the whole of my mirth and a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone in the roots of the grasses the sorrows I laid my body as low and the pearl pale name lay by me her brow on the midst of my breast and the horse was gone in the distance after years again flow square leaves of the ivy moved over as binding us down to our wrist man of many white croziers a century there I forgot how the fetlocks drip blood in the battle and the fallen on the fallen lie rolled how the falconer follows the falcon in the weeds of the herrings bot and the name of the demon whose hammer made concubus gold blade of old and man of the many white croziers a century there I forgot the spear shaft is made out of ashwood the shield out of ossea and hide how the hammers spring on the anvil on the spearheads burning spot how the slow blue eyed oxen of thin low sadly at evening tide but in dreams my old man the tempest with their throngs moved round me of semen or landsmen all at robinter tales came by me the kings of the red branch with roaring of laughter and songs or moved as they moved once love-making or piercing the tempest the sails came blaynade Macnassa who feast would have old times slunk cook barric the traitor and warward the spittle on his beard dry dark baylor as old as a forest cow-born his mighty head sunk helpless men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye by me in soft regraiment the fenians moved in loud streams and grainier walking and smiling soad with her needle of bone so lived I and lived not so wrought I and wrought not with creatures of dreams in a long iron sleep as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone at times our slumber was lightened when the sun was on silver or gold when brushed with the wings of the owls and the dimness they love going by and a glowworm was green on the grassleaf lured from his lair in the mould half-wakening we lifted our eyelids and gazed on the grass with a sigh so watched I went man of the croziers at the heel of the sentry fell weak in the midst of the meadow from his miles in the midst of the air a starling like them that foregathered beneath a moon waking white as a shell and the fenians made foray at morning with ran, Skiolen, the mare I awoke the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran thrusting his nose to my shoulder he knew in his deep that once more moved in my bosom the ancient sadness of man and that I would leave the immortals their dimness their juice dropping asleep oh had you seen beautiful niam grow white as the waters are white lord of the croziers you even had lifted your hands and wept but the bird in my fingers I mounted remembering alone that delight of twilight and slumber were gone and that herbs impatiently stepped I cried oh niam oh white one if only a 12 houred day I must gaze on the beard of thin and move where the old men and young in the fenians dwellings of wattle lean on the chessboards and play ah sweet to me now were even Lord Conan's slanderous tongue like me were some galley for often meridian I remembering its long odd companion selves turning to thread bare rags no more to crawl on the seas with long oars mile after mile but to be amid shooting of flies and flowering rushes and flags the motionless eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thought watched her those seamless faces from the dimmering girth as she murmured oh wondering as she the strength of the bell branch is not for their moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sadness of earth then goes through the lands in the saddle and see what the mortals do and softly come to your niam over the tops of the tide that weep for your niam oh as she weep for if only your shoe brushed lightly as haymouse earth's pebbles you will come no more to my side a flaming line of the world oh when will you turn to your rest a sore from a distant saddle from the earth she made I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn for breast unto breast we shall ningle no more nor our gazes empty their sweetness in the aisles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come where the winds less soft than the breath of the pigeon who sleeps on her nest nor lost in the starfires and odours the sound of the seas fake drum a flaming line of the world oh when will you turn to your rest the whaling grew distant I rode by the woods of the rinking bark where ever is numerous dropping old silence around for no life creatures live there no weasels move in the dark in a reverie forgetful of all things over the bubbling ground and I rode by the plains of the seas where all is barren and grey grey sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees tripping and doubling land would as though they would hasten away like an army of old men lost from the mone of the seas and the winds made the sands on the seas edge turning and turning go as my mind made the names of Athenians far from the hazel and oak I rode away on the surges where high as the saddle though fled foam underneath me and round me a wandering and milky smoke long fled the foam flakes around me the winds fled out of the vast snatching the bird in secret nor knew I it wasn't apart and they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast for remembrance lifting her leanness keened in the gates of my heart til fattening the winds of the morning an odour of new mow and hay came and my forehead fell low and my tears like berries fell down later a sound came half lost in the sound of a shore far away and the great grass barnacle calling and later the shore weeds brown if I were as I once was the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the shells coming out of the seas the dawn comes a jaunt of love on my lips not coughing my head on my knees and praying and wroth with the bells I would leave no saints head on his body from rockland to earth making way from the kindling surges I rode on a bridal path watch wandering to see upon all hands of wattles and woodwork made your bell mounted churches and godless the sacred khan and the wrath and a small and a feeble populous stooping with matic and spade or weeding or plowing with faces as shining with much toil wet while in this and that place with bodies unglorious their chieftains stood awaiting in patience the straw death crows yet one caught in your net and the laughter of scorn from my mouth left a roaring wind in a wood and because I went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright came after the hard gaze of youth or an old man lifted his head and I rode and I cried out of the Fenians hunt wolves in the night so sleep thee by daytime I voice cried the Fenians long time are dead the white beards stood hushed on the pathway the flesh his face as dried grass and in folds around his eyes and his mouth he said as a child without milk and the dreams of the islands were gone and I knew how men sorrow and pass and their love and their eyes they glimmer like silk and wrapping my face in my hair I murmured in old age they ceased and my tears were larger than berries and I murmured where white clouds lie spread and crevro or broad knock thief and with many of old they feast on the floors of the gods he cried no the gods a long time are dead and lonely and longing for time I shivered and turned me about heart me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart I turned and rode to the westward and followed the seas old shout till I saw her move like sleeping till starlight and midnight part and there at the foot of the mountain to carried a sack full of sand they bore it with staggering and sweating but fell with their burden ending down from the gem studded saddle I flung it to five yards with my hand the sod for men waxing so weakly a sod for the Finians old strength the rest you have heard of a crosshead man howl and divided the girth I fell on the path and the horse went away like a summer fly and my years 300 fell on me and I rose and walked on the earth a creeping full of sleep the spittle on his beard never dry how the men of the sand sack showed me a church with its belfry in air sorry place where for swing of the war axe in my dim eyes the cruzio gleams what place have guillolty and conan and brand skeolen la mere speak you too are old with your memories an old man surrounded with dreams where the flesh of the foot on the burning stones is their place where the demons with them with wires on the burning stones of white hill watching the blessed ones move far off and the smile God's face between them a gateway of brass and the howl of the angels who fell put the staff in my hands for I go to the Finians a cleric to chorn the war songs that roused them a lull but they were making clouds with their breath innumerable singing exultant the clay underneath them shall pant and demons be broken in pieces and trampled beneath them in death and demons afraid in their darkness deep horror of eyes and of wings afraid their ears on the earth laid shall listen and rise up and weep hearing the shaking of shields in the quiver of bow strings hearing hell loud with a murmur as shouting and mocking we sweep we will tear out the flaming stones and batter the gateway of brass and enter a numsaith know when there enters the strongly armed guest a clean as a broom turns and march on as oxen move over young grass then feast making converse of wars and of old wounds in turn to our rest on the flaming stones without refuge the limbs of the Finians are tossed none war on the masters of hell who could break up the war near rage but kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age army to be shaken with coughing and broken with rage and pain without laughter a show unto children alone with remembrance and fear all emptied of purple hours as a beggars cloak in the rain as a haycock out on the flood or a wolf sucked under a weir it was sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved evolved there I throw down the chain of small stones when life in my body has ceased I will go to and Conan and brand Skiolom, Lomere and dwell in the house of the Finians be they in flames or at feast End of book 3 End of the Wondrings of Usheen by William Butler Yetts Recorded by Nathan at antipodeanwriter.wordpress.com