If in my song the heart of love

Looks from another maiden's eyes,

Where on the hills of Morven move

The kings too proud for Paradise;

Though to your ears the autumn brings

No sounds of crying, you will know

The murmur of immortal things

In this dark tale of long ago.

If in the silence of the nights

The song of Angus calls no more,

If all the sea is ringed with lights

And no waves moaning on the shore.

Though Balor, sleeping on the hills,

Forgets the dew in his drenched hair.

You will remember ancient ills,

Pitying another Alastair.

Are the gods forgotten in Morven of the hinds,

The beauty that slew men, the golden eyes that shone,

The gods that would be walking on the rocks of the winds,

That little men would die for the love of looking on?

Are the gods forgotten in Morven of the stags,

The old gods, the fair gods, that were too high for love,

The white feet pressing on the grasses of the crags,

The black hair hidden in the black clouds above?

The gods are forgotten in Morven of the glens.

The sun shines clearly, and gentle is the day.

Like snow in summer corries, like mist upon the bens,

The lovely gods of darkness are vanished away.

Yet I thought I heard

A man of peace and he at sorrowing.

God's pity on the people of the hills,

For they have lost the changing love of men,

And won their fear.

My mother used to say

That when a man would walk the darkened hills,

The men of peace would take his soul from him

And use it for their pleasure. As they did,

My mother said, in the old misty times,

Before the word of God came into Alba.

Poor fallen gods, that were the lords of men,

God's peace upon you. Make your peace with Him.

Lose your sad pride to win His ready grace,

And stand upon the golden floor of Heaven

With other song than this. And yet, who knows,

May be your pride is of more worth to you

Than all the melodies of Paradise,

And these sad songs of yours more beautiful

Than any you could sing with happier lips.

Perhaps our Lord's sweet face might make you dumb.

Summer is gone at last, and autumn leaves are falling,

And through the naked trees the wind is breathing low.

Let us arise and go, for the old gods are calling,

The beautiful cruel gods we loved so long ago.

Let us arise and go, for far beyond the city

We hear the old gods singing the years from which we came,

The merry heartless years that knew not pain or pity,

The happy lustful years that knew not fear or shame.

The bitter music calls, and we must follow after

Back through the gentler years to the old time again,

To wake their lovely mirth, to move the gods to laughter,

This is the end of man, the full reward of pain.

The golden eyes aglow, the silver laughter ringing,

Shall we not suffer pain for lovely things as these?

Let us arise and go, for the old gods are singing,

The beautiful cruel gods that mock our miseries.

Ian make an end.

Though all the beaten fairies of the air

Rise against heaven, we can cast them down,

But it were better save them with a kiss.

Whoe'er you be that sing to us this morn,

Whether your dwelling be below the hills

Or in the mazy fastness of the air,

Draw near in peace. For I have learned too well

The lesson of Christ's love, to hate the sad

Discrownèd gods that are His enemies.

Christ's love? Then even here men pray to Christ,

The pitiful intruder; even here

In Western Morven of the windy rocks,

Where once the old gods would be wandering

Along the outer fringes of the world,

The loving god is master.

Ay and you,

With love and pity shining from your eyes,

Can you not mind upon your fathers' swords,

Anger and hate and pride and cruelty?

The bitter gods, the beautiful white gods,

That will be walking on the darkened cliffs,

Lior the haunter of the roaring tides.

Whose emerald eyes the drowning sailors see

For one sweet instant, and are swallowed up.

And Balor panoplied in shining rain.

And armoured with the lightnings of the hills

That fire our hearts to war. And chief of all,

Angus the white-foot conqueror of men.

The mist that would destroy the moon with love

If she could hold him, the eternal mist

That wanders still within our quiet hearts,

Stirring the bitter love we may not sate

Save with his own white beauty. These are they

That were your father's gods in the old days.

The gods are fallen. On the misty crags

They walk and sorrow for the olden times.

And on the surf-beat rocks the whole night through

Lior is moaning for his vanished loves,

For we have girdled all the seas with flame,

And our new night is gentle as the day.

And the apostles' swords have pierced the rain

That armoured Balor, and the angels' hands

Have rent the fiery lightnings from his grasp,

And war is dying, dying in our hearts.

And the white feet of Angus walk the hill,

But with him go no beautiful young men,

And the young maidens bide within the house.

And you may be, that walk the city ways,

Dream that the gods are mighty yet. But we

In Western Morven, by the winter fires,

Hear all night long above the talk of men

Our broken masters wailing on the hills.

I do remember clamorous desires,

And lusts awaking in the frozen night,

White maidens dancing underneath the moon,

And the long roll and tumble of the waves.

Ian, remember greater things than these,

The little baby god new-born on earth,

With soft lips sucking at his mother's breast.

The sword of night has severed the gentle chains that bound you,

The lovely gods of darkness rise in your heart anew.

Beautiful gods and mighty, in dreams they stand around you,

Kneel down in dreams and worship as once you used to do.

White maidens dancing underneath the moon,

And the fierce glow of battle on the hills,

And red, wet blood upon the slayer's hands.

Oh, Ian, wake and see the face of Christ.

The worn sad face, the pitiful sweet eyes,

And the feet torn and bloody from the stones.

Dream on, dream on my brother, forget the man of sorrow.

The way-worn feet and bloody, the eyes too dim with tears.

Dream of the lords of beauty, for you shall see to-morrow

The older day returning and the forgotten years.

The slow tides calling, calling on the beach,

And all the little waves of night afire,

And the cool emerald depths of Lior's eyes,

That none may look upon and live again.

Oh beautiful cool depths to drown my life,--

I have remembered Lior, and the moon

Is full again and there is mist abroad,

And Angus singing clear upon the hills.

Oh young men follow Angus of the Birds,

Young maidens dance with him below the moon.

You will grow old and hear his song no more.

Oh, follow Angus now while you are young.--

Angus has passed me by, but Balor's fires

Burn fiercely in my bosom as of old,

The lust of slaying, and the bitter blood,

And the cold smile upon the foeman's face.

Oh Ian, Ian, will you not remember

The poor feet that the nails were driven through,

The piercèd hands and the spear-riven side,

And the heroic brow false-crowned with thorns?

The night is ending. With the day will come

The memory that dreamers may forget,

But I will yet dream on a little while,

Before day claims me for its own again,

And the soft fetters close about my soul.

Am I awake, and you that bade me dream

Bid me remember in the eye of day?

Is there an end of the new heaven and hell,

And all save earth and the immortal isle,

They used to tell of in the olden times?

1 have been dreaming, as I dream alone

In the dim nights; but after them the day

Brings back to me anew the face of Christ.

I am afraid of this new dawn that brings

No Christ, but memories of older things.

Have you forgotten too, and do you bow,

Pale lily of Morven, to the beaten god,

Who should be following the mist of love

Over the hills beneath a summer moon?

Mairi the days of memory are on us,

For I have heard the coronach for Christ

Wail up the corries of the windy hills,

And high and clear above them Angus sang.

But the apostles' souls fled crying, crying

Over the hills across the boundless sea.

I heard the noise of their lament grow faint,

As the waves stilled it; and on the hills of Morven,

Among the unseen secrets of the world,

Christ that we knelt to once is lying dead.

I have forgotten all things save the song

Of Angus that I cannot follow now,

And the fierce music of the lords of war,

When fighting heroes meet in the glad ring

Of sword on sword and cries of wounded men.

Mairi put meat and drink before the stranger.

I must be going with the sheep again.

My sorrow on the people of the hills,

My sorrow on the heart that could forget,

My sorrow on you, stranger, who have cast

A misty spell before my father's eyes,

So that the face of Christ grows dark to him.

Oh beautiful in sorrow still weep on,

Shrouding your face within a veil of tears.

Weep, for your grief will roll away the years

That have drawn long forgetfulness between us.

Hear me, forgetting for a little while

That I am he who woke the gods again.

Think I am Alastair, who would awake

The drowsy loveliness that sleeps too long.

Oh wait,

For in my heart remembrance is awake

Of the old time when we went hand in hand,

Following the harp a thousand years ago.

And I will make a song of memory,

That shall call love to your dim eyes again.

I cannot tell if it be memory

That burns me so, or if the heart of love

Looks out from eyes I never saw till now.

The memory of a thousand years is on us,

The darkened years since our young souls, new-made,

Looked out through other eyes on other lands.

For you and I spoke with a hundred tongues,

And saw a hundred lives passing us by,

Before we came to Morven of the stags.

They have fled by like the light winds that blow

Swift shadows o'er a waveless loch. But we,

Like the loch water, bide the same for ever,

Since first the gods fashioned our souls of mist,

That at the end will take them back again.

The gods are dead, or if they have I care not,

For over my poor heart they have no power.

Here in the changing world we stand alone,

Ourselves for ever. I am Mairi Bain,

And you are Alastair, my love. Forget

The gods that haunted you, for they were dreams,

And I hold truth for you in these two hands.

Oh draw me close and help me to forget,

As though there were no gods in all the world.

All the delight of living, all the beauty

That lingers in the depths of mountain pools

Is in your eyes, and on your dewy lips

The joy of lying in the grass at morning,

Before the sun is risen in the sky.

I dreamed I saw you seven years ago.

You brought me heather-honey and blue flowers,

And wild raspberries picked in an upland glen.

I will bring you gold from the fairy houses,

That are below the hills. I will forget

All, and grow old and happy, loving you.

We will not care now for the flying shadows,

For we have come into the heart of the world.

We had our fill of slaying and wild joy

When Balor gave us victory in Appin.

Uisdean was fighting like a great hero

Of those that were the guard of Fionnagal.

Uisdean is lying cold upon the hills

And in the houses they are wailing him,

And the wife dumb with sorrow.

It was fine

Ta hear the way the Appin men were crying,

And though Bean-Uisdean will be sorrowing,

The gods love slaying and the clash of swords.

Oh praise the gods that have renewed the world,

Until our old desires are young again.

The sun is growing weary, and draws on

The fairy-haunted stillness of the night,

That is the end of all my wandering.

For you have heard the voices that were crying

Through the long years of your forgetfulness,

And known the end of prisoning.

But I

Bid you farewell, for the last chain of all

Must be destroyed, and the last honour paid.

The gods are calling for the sacrifice,

And on the hills the fairy harps are playing,

That I must follow at the end of all.

Here at the altar of the king of love

I give myself the first-fruits of his fires

To die to-night upon the sacred tree.

We will fulfil the sacrifice hereafter.

And tread behind you in the way of death.

The servant of the gods will go his way,

That ends beyond the sight of human eyes

In the immortal island of the west.

Let the gods awake, for memory has woken,

The little men that loved us remember us again,

The chains that were wrought of the love of Christ are broken,

And little men come back to our beauty and their pain.

Let the gods awake, for the hearts of men are waking

The little hearts that warmed us when we were a-cold.

The old time is back again, the old day is breaking--

What is man's forgetting to us who wax not old?

Let the gods awake, for the old fires are burning,

And little men remember the words they used to pray.

In all the lands of Morven our lovers are returning,

The gentle chains that bound them are vanished away.

Who will be calling, who will be calling

The master of waters to waken again?

In my ears is the noise of the waves that are falling,

And over my head is the sound of the rain.

Who will be crying, who will be crying

To Lior the watcher, the emerald-eyed?

Is there a story that men will be dying

For me, as their fathers, my lovers, have died?

Who will be singing, who will be singing

Of waking to me who awaken no more?

For men have forgot me, and no winds are bringing

The lives for my drowning they brought me before.

Awake my waters, for men are returning

From the new god to the lord of the tide.

On the rocks of drowning no watch-fires are burning.

For men have remembered the emerald-eyed.

Awake my waters. The north wind is blowing,

And seaward the sailors are toiling in vain,

We are the lords of their coming and going,

Men have remembered the sea-god again.

I will sleep still, for my trumpet of thunder,

The master of fear, has been silent for long.

The rain-clouds that armed me are riven asunder,

I will sleep still for the new god is strong.

I will sleep on, for his angels have reft me

Of lightnings that burned in my servants of yore.

War is gone from me, I only have left me

Sleep that is good at the ending of war.

I will sleep on, for men are forgetting

Balor that strode on the heads of the slain.

Anger is dead, and the old day is setting;

My servants will turn to me never again.

I will rise up in the castles of singing,

The houses of feasting my trumpet shall hear.

The winds of the hills will come back with me bringing

The rouser of battle, the master of fear.

I will rise up where the arrows are hailing,

In the hearts of the dying I will lie down.

In the houses of Morven new widows are wailing,

For men have remembered my ancient renown.

Now the gods are wakened, now the world is old,

Now the lightnings flash above the rain,

Now the hymns are chanted, and the stories told,

For the ancient faith has come again.

Now the world remembers, love is passed away,

Pity buried with forgotten things.

High among the mountains, low along the bay

Men are praying to the older kings.

Now the smoke of burning scents the western winds,

Now the victim bleeds upon the sod.

The gods are remembered in Morven of the hinds,

And men have forgotten God.

I see them all about me cold and still,

The cruel, lovely faces. From the sea

I hear the voices of a thousand sorrows

Crying the coronach along the beach

For them that will be drowned in years to come.

And in the houses there is wailing too,

And moaning of strong fighters on the hill,

And maidens weeping their virginity,

And old men sorrowing for lost desires.

And the gods sit for ever cold and still,

Mocking the sorrows of the heart of men

With cruel, lovely faces.

I remember

Alastair's face and I am brave again,

And all the fairies of the lower air

Powerless as autumn leaves before the wind

Against the burning purpose of my heart.

I wish that I might live the summer through,

Milking the cattle in the upland glens,

And singing songs before the shelling door,

Careless and happy as I used to be.

Eilidh will miss my hand at milking-time,

But you will tell them to be soft with her.