_O wandering birds and rushy beds, You put such folly in our heads With all this crying in the wind; No common love is to our mind, And our poor Kate or Nan is less Than any whose unhappiness Awoke the harp-strings long ago. Yet they that know all things but know That all life had to give us is A child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss. Who was it put so great a scorn In the grey reeds that night and morn Are trodden and broken by the herds, And in the light bodies of birds That north wind tumbles to and fro And pinches among hail and snow?_ That runner said: ‘I am from the south; 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 Ulad 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 although 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 So full 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 Have 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 heart can hear 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._