The treasury of Irish romance has been eagerly drawn upon by the literary poet; and splendid stories they are for his purpose. Every one by this time knows the incomparable Deirdre legend, in one or other of the fine versions by Mr Yeats, Mr Trench or Synge. Deirdre, as a heroine of the ancient world, positively shines beside a Helen or a Cleopatra. In her is crystallized the Celtic conception of womanhood, with her free, clean, brave, generous soul; magnificently choosing her true mate rather than wed the High King Conchubar; and with her lover magnificently paying the penalty of death.
We have become almost as familiar, too, with the Hosting of Maeve, the prowess of Cuchulain, and the mythological figures of Dagda and Dana, who are the Zeus and Hera of early Irish religion. Here is a fragment of a poem by Mr James Cousins called "The Marriage of Lir and Niav." The personages of the story belong to very early myth. To find Lir you must go back past the heroes and the demigods: further still, past the gods themselves, to their ancestors. For Lir was the father of Mananan the sea-god; and he was the Lord of the Seven Isles. Niav (or Niamh) is described as the Aphrodite of Irish myth; which probably accounts for the symbolism in the passage where Lir first sees her—
But, as upon the breathless hour of eve,
The gentle moon, smiling amid the wreck
And splendid remnant of the flaming feast
Wherewith Day's lord had sated half the world,
Sets a cool hand on the tumultuous waves,
And soothes them into peace, and takes the throne,
And beams white love that wakens soft desire
In waiting hearts; so in that throbbing pause
Came Niav, daughter of the King whose name
May not be named till First and Last are one.
... And He who stood
Unseen, apart, marked how about Her form,
Clothed white as foam, Her sea-green girdle hung
Like mermaid weed, and how within her wake
There came the sound and odour of the sea,
The swift and silent stroke of unseen wings,
And little happy cries of mating birds;
This poem appeared in one of Mr. Cousins' earlier books, The Quest, published in 1904; and it is interesting to observe in it the little signs which indicate the nearness of the poet at that time to the source of his inspiration. The stories from the three great national cycles of romance had been made accessible in the years just preceding; and the poetic imagination seems to have been charmed by their quaint manner as well as stimulated by their vigour. Hence we find in this poem one or two familiar epic devices which have apparently been adopted as a means to catch the tone of the old story, and to convey a sense of its antiquity. There is, for instance, the trick of repetition that we know so well, a whole phrase recurring, either word for word or varied very slightly, at certain intervals through the poem. Thus we have the phrase which appears in the passage quoted above, and which is several times repeated in other places—
—the King whose name
May not be named till First and Last are one.
Thus, too, we find the frequent use of simile of an involved and elaborate order. Mr Cousins reveals himself as poet and artist in this device alone. Imagination and mastery of technique are alike implied in fancies so beautifully wrought. The opening lines of the passage we have given supply an example, and another may be taken from "Etain the Beloved." It is simpler than most, but it illustrates very aptly the grace of idea and expression which is characteristic of this poet. The scene is an assembly of the people before King Eochaidh; and the chief bard is presenting their urgent petition to him—
He ceased, and all the faces of the crowd
Shone with the light that kindles when the boon
Of speech has eased the heart; as when a cloud
Falls from the labouring shoulder of the moon,
And all the world stands smiling silver-browed.
In the same poem of Etain we may note the free use of description and the rich colour and profuse detail which mark romantic work of this kind. The story of Etain has a mythological association. She was the beloved wife of Mider, one of the ancient gods; but she seems to have been driven out of the hierarchy and to have become incarnate in the form of a young girl of great beauty. King Eochaidh, not knowing of her divine origin, wooed her and made her queen. But Mider followed her to earth and won her back from her human lover. There is an exquisite stanza in which the King sends to seek for his bride, and tells how they will find her—
"She shall be found in some most quiet place
Where Beauty sits all day beside her knee
And looks with happy envy on her face;
Where Virtue blushes, her own guilt to see,
And Grace learns new, sweet meanings from her grace;
Where all that ever was or will be wise
Pales at the burning wisdom of her eyes."