One blind hound only lies apart On the sun-smitten grass; He holds deep commune with his heart: The moments pass and pass; The blind hound with a mournful din Lifts slow his wintry head; The servants bear the body in; The hounds wail for the dead. THE WANDERINGS OF USHEEN "_Give me the world if Thou wilt, but grant me an asylum for my affections._" TULKA. TO EDWIN J. ELLIS BOOK I S. PATRIC You who are bent, and bald, and blind, With a heavy heart and a wandering mind, Have known three centuries, poets sing, Of dalliance with a demon thing. USHEEN Sad to remember, sick with years, The swift innumerable spears, The horsemen with their floating hair, And bowls of barley, honey, and wine, And feet of maidens dancing in tune, And the white body that lay by mine; But the tale, though words be lighter than air, Must live to be old like the wandering moon. Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there, When we followed a deer with our baying hounds, With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair, And passing the Firbolgs' burial mounds, Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill Where passionate Maive is stony still; And found on the dove-gray edge of the sea A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode On a horse with bridle of findrinny; And like a sunset were her lips, A stormy sunset on doomed ships; A citron colour gloomed in her hair, But down to her feet white vesture flowed, And with the glimmering crimson glowed Of many a figured embroidery; And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell That wavered like the summer streams, As her soft bosom rose and fell. S. PATRIC You are still wrecked among heathen dreams. USHEEN "Why do you wind no horn?" she said. "And every hero droop his head? "The hornless deer is not more sad "That many a peaceful moment had, "More sleek than any granary mouse, "In his own leafy forest house "Among the waving fields of fern: "The hunting of heroes should be glad." "O pleasant woman," answered Finn, "We think on Oscar's pencilled urn, "And on the heroes lying slain, On Gavra's raven-covered plain; "But where are your noble kith and kin, "And from what country do you ride?" "My father and my mother are "Aengus and Adene, my own name "Niam, and my country far "Beyond the tumbling of this tide." "What dream came with you that you came "Through bitter tide on foam wet feet? "Did your companion wander away "From where the birds of Aengus wing?" She said, with laughter tender and sweet: "I have not yet, war-weary king, "Been spoken of with any one; "Yet now I choose, for these four feet "Ran through the foam and ran to this "That I might have your son to kiss." "Were there no better than my son "That you through all that foam should run?"