I run to Baile Honey-Mouth,
To tell him how the girl Aillinn

Rode from the country of her kin,
And old and young men rode with her:

For all that country had been astir
If anybody half as fair

Had chosen a husband anywhere
But where it could see her every day.

When they had ridden a little way
An old man caught the horse's head

With: ""You must home again, and wed
With somebody in your own land.''

A young man cried and kissed her hand,
""O lady, wed with one of us'';

And when no face grew piteous
For any gentle thing she spake,

She fell and died of the heart-break.'
Because a lover's heart s worn out,

Being tumbled and blown about
By its own blind imagining,

And will believe that anything
That is bad enough to be true, is true,

Baile's heart was broken in two;
And he, being laid upon green boughs,

Was carried to the goodly house
Where the Hound of Uladh sat before

The brazen pillars of his door,
His face bowed low to weep the end

Of the harper's daughter and her friend
For athough years had passed away

He always wept them on that day,
For on that day they had been betrayed;

And now that Honey-Mouth is laid
Under a cairn of sleepy stone

Before his eyes, he has tears for none,
Although he is carrying stone, but two

For whom the cairn's but heaped anew.
We hold, because our memory is

Sofull of that thing and of this,
That out of sight is out of mind.

But the grey rush under the wind
And the grey bird with crooked bill

rave such long memories that they still
Remember Deirdre and her man;

And when we walk with Kate or Nan
About the windy water-side,

Our hearts can Fear the voices chide.
How could we be so soon content,

Who know the way that Naoise went?
And they have news of Deirdre's eyes,

Who being lovely was so wise --
Ah! wise, my heart knows well how wise.>1

Now had that old gaunt crafty one,
Gathering his cloak about him, mn

Where Aillinn rode with waiting-maids,
Who amid leafy lights and shades

Dreamed of the hands that would unlace
Their bodices in some dim place

When they had come to the matriage-bed,
And harpers, pacing with high head

As though their music were enough
To make the savage heart of love

Grow gentle without sorrowing,
Imagining and pondering

Heaven knows what calamity;
"Another's hurried off,' cried he,

"From heat and cold and wind and wave;
They have heaped the stones above his grave

In Muirthemne, and over it
In changeless Ogham letters writ --

Baile, that was of Rury's seed.
But the gods long ago decreed

No waiting-maid should ever spread
Baile and Aillinn's marriage-bed,

For they should clip and clip again
Where wild bees hive on the Great Plain.

Therefore it is but little news
That put this hurry in my shoes.'

Then seeing that he scarce had spoke
Before her love-worn heart had broke.

He ran and laughed until he came
To that high hill the herdsmen name

The Hill Seat of Laighen, because
Some god or king had made the laws

That held the land together there,
In old times among the clouds of the air.

That old man climbed; the day grew dim;
Two swans came flying up to him,

Linked by a gold chain each to each,
And with low murmuring laughing speech

Alighted on the windy grass.
They knew him: his changed body was

Tall, proud and ruddy, and light wings
Were hovering over the harp-strings

That Edain, Midhir's wife, had wove
In the hid place, being crazed by love.

What shall I call them? fish that swim,
Scale rubbing scale where light is dim

By a broad water-lily leaf;
Or mice in the one wheaten sheaf

Forgotten at the threshing-place;
Or birds lost in the one clear space

Of morning light in a dim sky;
Or, it may be, the eyelids of one eye,

Or the door-pillars of one house,
Or two sweet blossoming apple-boughs

That have one shadow on the ground;
Or the two strings that made one sound

Where that wise harper's finger ran.
For this young girl and this young man

Have happiness without an end,
Because they have made so good a friend.

They know all wonders, for they pass
The towery gates of Gorias,

And Findrias and Falias,
And long-forgotten Murias,

Among the giant kings whose hoard,
Cauldron and spear and stone and sword,

Was robbed before earth gave the wheat;
Wandering from broken street to street

They come where some huge watcher is,
And tremble with their love and kiss.

They know undying things, for they
Wander where earth withers away,

Though nothing troubles the great streams
But light from the pale stars, and gleams

From the holy orchards, where there is none
But fruit that is of precious stone,

Or apples of the sun and moon.
What were our praise to them? They eat

Quiet's wild heart, like daily meat;
Who when night thickens are afloat

On dappled skins in a glass boat,
Far out under a windless sky;

While over them birds of Aengus fly,
And over the tiller and the prow,

And waving white wings to and fro
Awaken wanderings of light air

To stir their coverlet and their hair.
And poets found, old writers say,

A yew tree where his body lay;
But a wild apple hid the grass

With its sweet blossom where hers was,
And being in good heart, because

A better time had come again
After the deaths of many men,

And that long fighting at the ford,
They wrote on tablets of thin board,

Made of the apple and the yew,
All the love stories that they knew.

Let rush and hird cry out their fill
Of the harper's daughter if they will,

Beloved, I am not afraid of her.
She is not wiser nor lovelier,

And you are more high of heart than she,
For all her wanderings over-sea;

But I'd have bird and rush forget
Those other two; for never yet

Has lover lived, but longed to wive
Like them that are no more alive.

BEAUTIFUL LOFTY THlNGS
BEAUTIFUL lofty things: O'Leary's noble head;

My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd:
"This Land of Saints,' and then as the applause died out,

"Of plaster Saints'; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
Standish O'Grady supporting himself between the tables

Speaking to a drunkenaudience high nonsensical words;
Augusta Gregory seated at her great ormolu table,

Her eightieth winter approaching: "Yesterday he threatened my life.
I told him that nightly from six to seven I sat at this table,

The blinds drawn up'; Maud Gonne at Howth station waiting a train,
Pallas Athene in that straight back and arrogant head:

All the Olympians; a thing never known again.
THE BLACK TOWER

SAY that the men of the old black tower,
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,

Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,

That all are oath-bound men:
Those banners come not in.

i{There in the tomb stand the dead upright,}
i{But winds come up from the shore:}

i{They shake when the winds roar,}
i{Old bones upon the mountain shake.}

Those banners come to bribe or threaten,
Or whisper that a man's a fool

Who, when his own right king's forgotten,
Cares what king sets up his rule.

If he died long ago
Why do yopu dread us so?

i{There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight,}
i{But wind comes up from the shore:}

i{They shake when the winds roar,}
i{Old bones upon the mountain shake.}

The tower's old cook that must climb and clamber
Catching small birds in the dew of the morn

When we hale men lie stretched in slumber
Swears that he hears the king's great horn.

But he's a lying hound:
Stand we on guard oath-bound!

i{There in the tomb the dark grows blacker,}

• savage [´sævidʒ] a.野蛮的 n.蛮人 (初中英语单词)
• scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
• blossom [´blɔsəm] n.花；开花期 vi.开花 (初中英语单词)
• drunken [´drʌŋkən] a.喝醉的；常醉的 (初中英语单词)
• audience [´ɔ:diəns] n.听众；观众；接见 (初中英语单词)
• waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
• whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
• goodly [´gudli] a.适意的；漂亮的 (高中英语单词)
• sleepy [´sli:pi] a.困的，想睡的 (高中英语单词)
• crooked [´krukid] a.弯曲的；畸形的 (高中英语单词)
• hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
• seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
• applause [ə´plɔ:z] n.鼓掌；欢呼；称赞 (高中英语单词)
• plaster [´plɑ:stə] n.灰泥 vt.厚厚地涂抹 (高中英语单词)
• ridden [´ridn] ride 的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
• brazen [´breizən] a.黄铜制的；无耻的 (英语四级单词)
• mischievous [´mistʃivəs] a.有害的；淘气的 (英语四级单词)
• nightly [´naitli] a.&ad.每夜(的) (英语四级单词)
• crafty [´krɑ:fti] a.狡猾的 (英语六级单词)
• coverlet [´kʌvəlit] n.床罩，被单 (英语六级单词)
• arrogant [´ærəgənt] a.傲慢的；自大的 (英语六级单词)