XVI.
“I will descend to Rory: haply there
May dwell some secret whose resistless charms,
Bent to my kindred’s service, danger, care
Shall put apart, and shield from hurt or harm
In council grave or battle’s loud alarm.
What ho, Muëna. Haste my charioteer.
Who boasts that weak has grown my kingly arm
To sweep its path of all restriction clear?
Fergus is Fergus still—and Fergus knows no fear!”
XVII.
Muëna heard, and answered word by deed.
Soon rolled the chariot round the palace hall,
And Eastward toward the ocean; steed by steed
Stretched to the task his limbs; their hoofs did fall
Like rain on summer noons. The curlews’ call
Gave token of the near-approaching end,
And soon before their eyes the ocean wall
Shouldered the shock of waters that extend
To meet the sky. The King did to the marge descend.
XVIII.
Know you the Loch of Rory? Sages tell
How, when the sons of Adam felt the force
Of watery judgments, came a vagrant swell
And burst round shores of Eireann. Man and horse,
King, chief, and clansman, in the widening course
Of high, resistless billows, sank from sight
’Mong cries from throats in sudden anguish hoarse
That called, and called, and ceased when fell the night,—
And on a stranger shore soft broke the morning’s light.
XIX.
Across this shore Ultonia’s King now passed.
The waves that rattled up the pebbled strand
Rose in their ranks, then low before him cast
Themselves, and stood aside on either hand.
The King moved forward. Never magic wand
More swift compelled submission. Thro’ the spray,
As tho’ he trod upon the level land,
He took, ’twixt watery walls, a deepening way,
Till o’er his head the waves shut out the light of day.
XX.
Forward he fared. No swimmer’s opened eye
E’er scanned so sweet a sight. In glimmering green
Slow lightening upward to the watery sky
That arched the watery world, in softer sheen
Than mortals wot of, lay the fairy scene:—
Fantastic rocks, sea-flowers that rose and fell
As brushed by silent shapes that moved between
Him and the darkening distance, fairy cell,
And beds of ocean bloom more sweet than Asphodel.