MIDIR THE PROUD INVITES QUEEN ETAIN TO FAIRYLAND[1]
Come with me, Etain, O come away, To that Oversea Land of mine! Where music haunts the happy day, And rivers run with wine. Careless we live, and young and gay, And none saith ‘mine’ or ‘thine.’
Golden curls on the proud young head, And pearls in the tender mouth-- Manhood, womanhood, white and red, And love that grows not loth When all the world’s desires are dead, And all the dreams of youth.
Away from the cloud of Adam’s sin! Away from grief and care! This flowery land thou dwellest in Seems rude to us and bare, For the naked strand of the Happy Land Is twenty times as fair.
Come, Etain, come to thine ancient home, And let these mortals be, Whose world is a glimmer of rainbow foam On the breast of a boundless Sea! We shall watch it go, as we watch’d it come, From the Kingdom of Faëry.
[1] This poem is based on an Irish original in “The Courtship of Etain.” See Leahy’s _Heroic Romances of Ireland_, vol. i., p. 26.
She walks as she were moving Some mystic dance to tread, So falls her gliding footstep, So leans her list’ning head; For once to fairy harping She danced upon the hill, And through her brain and bosom The music pulses still.
Her eyes are bright and tearless, But wide with yearning pain: She longs for nothing earthly, But oh, to hear again The sound that held her breathless Upon her moonlit path-- The golden fairy music That filled the lonely rath!
Her lips have felt strange kisses And drunk the wine of death, Nor earthly love nor laughter Shall stir their tender breath. She’s dead to all things living Since that November Eve, And when They call her earthward, No living thing will grieve.
Where glows the Irish hearth with peat There lives a subtle spell-- The faint blue smoke, the gentle heat The moorland odours tell
Of white roads winding by the edge Of bare untamèd land, Where dry stone wall or ragged hedge Runs wide on either hand
To cottage lights that lure you in From rainy Western skies; And by the friendly glow within Of simple talk, and wise,
And tales of magic, love or arms From days when princes met To listen to the lay that charms The Connacht peasant yet.
There Honour shines through passions dire, There beauty blends with mirth-- Wild hearts, ye never did aspire Wholly for things of earth!