“Pity dawn’d on savage faces, when for love of captive Crunn, Macha, in the ransom-races, girt her gravid loins, to run ’Gainst the fleet Ultonian horses; and, when Deirdra on the road Headlong dash’d her ’mid the corses, brimming eyelids overflow’d. “Light of manhood’s generous ardour, under brows relaxing shone, When, mid-ford, on Uladh’s border, young Cuchullin stood alone, Maev and all her hosts withstanding:— ‘Now, for love of knightly play, Yield the youth his soul’s demanding; let the hosts their marchings stay, “’Till the death he craves be given; and, upon his burial stone Champion-praises duly graven, make his name and glory known; For, in speech-containing token, age to ages never gave Salutation better spoken, than, “Behold a hero’s grave.”’ “What, another and another, and he still or combat calls? Ah, the lot on thee, his brother sworn in arms, Ferdia, falls; And the hall with wild applauses sobb’d like woman ere they wist, When the champions in the pauses of the deadly combat kiss’d. “Now, for love of land and cattle, while Cuchullin in the fords Stays the march of Connaught’s battle, ride and rouse the Northern Lords; Swift as angry eagles wing them toward the plunder’d eyrie’s call, Thronging from Dun Dealga bring them, bring them from the Red Branch hall! “Heard ye not the tramp of armies? Hark! amid the sudden gloom, ’Twas the stroke of Conall’s war-mace sounded through the startled room; And, while still the hall grew darker, king and courtier chill’d with dread, Heard the rattling of the war-car of Cuchullin overhead. “Half in wonder, half in terror, loth to stay and loth to fly, Seem’d to each beglamour’d hearer shades of kings went thronging by: But the troubled joy of wonder merged at last in mastering fear, As they heard through pealing thunder, ‘FERGUS SON OF ROY IS HERE!’ “Brazen-sandall’d, vapour-shrouded, moving in an icy blast, Through the doorway terror-crowded, up the tables Fergus pass’d:— ‘Stay thy hand, oh harper, pardon! cease the wild unearthly lay! Murgen, bear thy sire his guerdon.’ Murgen sat, a shape of clay. “ ‘Bear him on his bier beside me: never more in halls of Gort Shall a niggard king deride me: slaves, of Sanchan make their sport! But because the maiden’s yearnings needs must also be condoled, Hers shall be the dear-bought earnings, hers the twin-bright cups of gold.’ “ ‘Cups,’ she cried, ‘of bitter drinking, fling them far as arm can throw!’ Let them in the ocean sinking, out of sight and memory go! Let the joinings of the rhythm, let the links of sense and sound Of the _Tain-Bo_ perish with them, lost as though they’d ne’er been found!’ “So it comes, the lay, recover’d once at such a deadly cost, Ere one full recital suffer’d, once again is all but lost: For, the maiden’s malediction still with many a blemish-stain Clings in coarser garb of fiction round the fragments that remain.” *The Phantom Chariot of Cuchulain*