X.
Wrapt in a dream of ancient days
Thou stand’st aloof from ours,
Yet nought hast thou of battle’s blaze
Or blighting iron showers;
For well-beloved art thou of moon,
And sun, and winds, and stars,
Forever in thy heart attune
To every statelier bars
XI.
Than aught my highest hope could know
In this inspiring breath
Where wilding blossoms bloom and blow,
As life blooms out of death;
Yet fain, withal, my lips would wed
To song, for modern ears,
This chord from lyric days long dead,
This dream from epic years:
The Legend.
Quoth good Saint Mahee of Endrim,
“I shall build for Christ my master
Here a church, and here defend him
And His cause from all disaster.”
Seven score youths cut beam and wattle,
Seven score hands unseared in battle
Their unstinted aid did lend him,
Fast and ever faster.
But tho’ arm, and voice loud-ringing,
To a test of toil defied him,
Right and left the wattles flinging,
Not a tongue could dare deride him
For, before them all, he stood
Finished, waiting. Not a rood
From the spot a bird was singing
In a thorn beside him.
Sang no bird in ancient story
Half so sweet or loud a strain:
Seaward to the Lough of Rory,
Landward then, and back again,
Swelled the song, and trilled and trembled
O’er the toiling youths assembled,
Rang around ’mid Summer glory
There at Ballydrain.
Far more beautiful the bird was
Than the bright-plumed Bird of Bliss
And the Abbot’s feeling stirred was
To its deepest depths, I wis;
’Till, as from the fiery splendour
Moses saw, in accents tender
Spake the bird, and lo, the word was:
“Goodly work is this!”
“True,” quoth Saint Mahee of Endrim,
“’Tis required by Christ my master
Here to build, and here defend Him
And His cause from all disaster;
But my blood mounts high with weening
Of this goodly word the meaning?”
Nearer then the bird did tend him,
Fast and even faster.