The sun has risen: on lip and brow, He greets me--I feel it--with golden wand: Ah, bright-faced Norna! I see thee now: Where first I saw thee I see thee stand! From the trellis the girl looked down on me: Her maidens stood near; it was late in spring; The grey priest laughed, as she cried in glee, 'Good Bard, a song in my honour sing.' I sang her praise in a loud-voiced hymn, To God who had fashioned her face and limb, For the praise of the clan, and the land's behoof: So she flung me a flower from the trellis roof. Ere long I saw her the hill descending, O'er the lake the May morning rose moist and slow, She prayed me, her smile with the sweet voice blending, To teach her all that a woman should know. Panting she stood; she was out of breath; The wave of her little breast was shaking; From eyes still childish, and dark as death, Came womanhood's dawn through a dew-cloud breaking. Norna was never long time the same; By a spirit so strong was her slight form moulded, The curves swelled out from the flower-like frame In joy; in grief to a bud she folded: As she listened, her eyes grew bright and large, Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge. So I taught her the hymn of Patrick the Apostle, And the marvels of Bridget and Columbkille; Ere long she sang like the lark or the throstle, Sang the deeds of the servants of God's high will: I told her of Brendan, who found afar Another world 'neath the western star; Of our three great bishops in Lindisfarne isle; Of St. Fursey the wondrous, Fiacre without guile; Of Sedulius, hymn-maker when hymns were rare; Of Scotus the subtle, who clove a hair Into sixty parts, and had marge to spare. To her brother I spake of Oisin and Fionn, And they wept at the death of great Oisin's son. I taught the heart of the boy to revel In tales of old greatness that never tire; And the virgin's, up-springing from earth's low level, To wed with heaven like the altar fire. I taught her all that a woman should know, And that none should teach her worse lore, I gave her A dagger keen, and taught her the blow That subdues the knave to discreet behaviour. A sand-stone there on my knee she set, And sharpened its point--I can see her yet I held back her hair and she sharpen'd the edge, While the wind piped low through the reeds and sedge. She died in the convent on Ina's height:-- I saw her the day that she took the veil: As slender she stood as the Paschal light, As tall and slender and bright and pale! I saw her: and dropped as dead: bereaven Is earth when her holy ones leave her for heaven. Her brother fell in the fight at Begh, May they plead for me both on my dying day!