NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names And then away, away, like whirling flames; And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound, The youth and lady and the deer and hound; ‘Gaze no more on the phantoms,’ Niamh said, And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head And her bright body, sang of faery and man Before God was or my old line began; Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold; And how those lovers never turn their eyes Upon the life that fades and flickers and dies, But love and kiss on dim shores far away Rolled round with music of the sighing spray: But sang no more, as when, like a brown bee That has drunk full, she crossed the misty sea With me in her white arms a hundred years Before this day; for now the fall of tears Troubled her song. I do not know if days Or hours passed by, yet hold the morning rays Shone many times among the glimmering flowers Wove in her flower-like hair, before dark towers Rose in the darkness, and the white surf gleamed About them; and the horse of faery screamed And shivered, knowing the Isle of many Fears, Nor ceased until white Niamh stroked his ears And named him by sweet names. A foaming tide Whitened afar with surge, fan-formed and wide, Burst from a great door marred by many a blow From mace and sword and pole-axe, long ago When gods and giants warred. We rode between The seaweed-covered pillars, and the green And surging phosphorus alone gave light On our dark pathway, till a countless flight Of moonlit steps glimmered; and left and right Dark statues glimmered over the pale tide Upon dark thrones. Between the lids of one The imaged meteors had flashed and run And had disported in the stilly jet, And the fixed stars had dawned and shone and set, Since God made Time and Death and Sleep: the other Stretched his long arm to where, a misty smother, The stream churned, churned, and churned—his lips apart, As though he told his never slumbering heart Of every foamdrop on its misty way: Tying the horse to his vast foot that lay Half in the unvesselled sea, we climbed the stairs And climbed so long, I thought the last steps were Hung from the morning star; when these mild words Fanned the delighted air like wings of birds: ‘My brothers spring out of their beds at morn, A-murmur like young partridge: with loud horn They chase the noon-tide deer; And when the dew-drowned stars hang in the air Look to long fishing-lines, or point and pare A larch-wood hunting spear. ‘O sigh, O fluttering sigh, be kind to me; Flutter along the froth lips of the sea, And shores the froth lips wet: And stay a little while, and bid them weep: Ah, touch their blue veined eyelids if they sleep, And shake their coverlet.