Incipit Brechva’s Ballad of the House of Hendra, and of his deep sleep there on Hallowmas Night, and of his strange awaking.
In yon town, he sang,—there Hendra
Waits my feet,
In renownèd Merlin’s town where
Clare’s white castle keeps the street.
There, within that house of heroes,
I drew breath;
And ’tis there my feet must bear me,
For the darker grace of death.
There that last year’s night I journeyed,—
Hallowmas!
When the dead of Earth, unburied,
In the darkness rise and pass.
Then in Hendra (all his harp cried
At the stroke),
Twelve moons gone, there came upon me
Sleep like death. At length I woke:
I awoke to utter darkness,
Still and deep,
With the walls around me fallen
Of the sombre halls of sleep:
With my hall of dreams downfallen,
Dark I lay,
Like one houseless, though about me
Hendra stood, more fast than they:
But what broke my sleep asunder,—
Light or sound?
There was shown no sound, where only
Night, and shadow’s heart, were found.
III.
Anon he hears a voice in the night, and rising from sleep, looks out upon the sleeping town.