Oisin and Niamh

I looked! I looked! All the moment long
her chains enchanted; forever I was changed.
Her eyes! Her eyes blinded Oisin's.
No hound or horse, no kinsman's hand
could steady my stand. The earth had stopped.
Banished and abandoned; all bonds were broke.
Now heedless of home, nothing held.
Her grace was my grave, my groan of love.
There was nothing now but the name of Niamh.
I craved her calls; at her bidding came.
She spoke her spells, then all was spinning.

We wandered waves far away;
the faery fathoms carried my fate
to the lovesick Land of Lasting Youth.
Long I lingered everlasting
in her clutch and clasp; I held her close
and Niamh nourished me. Full of need,
I wept for weakness and worshipped her
till time returned and I woke trembling
still stricken but restored somehow.
Renewed I knew all mysteries unknown.

The days of my desire abated like a dream:
I asked for air and my enchantress agreed
to test my troth, knowing me true.
And torn in two, still I tarried,
but yet the yearning for friends of yore
bid me banish myself from her bed
to endure a journey without her joy,
to find my family and former friends.
Enthralled and thrilled for three whole weeks,
I hankered for home, to quit her heaven
and voice my visions on fleeting visit
to my father Finn and the valiant Fianna.

She warned I went on one condition:
to stay astride the faery stallion,
and never know my native soil:
if falling foot should feel the land
her spell would spoil and splinter time.
I heard and heeded, eased her heart
with winning words and tender wishes.
She summoned the steed, white and strange,
to bare me back through blazing miles,
across the crimson crests of waves,
from wondrous West and faery ways,
East to the ends of Erin's shores.
Then I saw the surging cliffs and strands
washed by the waves of the white horse
who bore me bursting from the bright ocean.

I hastened to the high Hill of Allen
to my Father's fold, full of the past,
but strangeness struck me, I strained to feel
familiar forms, but all was foreign,
all was altered, all was absent.
Only wind in the wild whins
brushed through briars and barren mounds.
I cried and craned and called again
but none knew me, and I knew none.
My heart heaved for the house of my Father,
for the years of my youth, I yearned for home,
for the succour of certainty, for old security -
all gone and ghostly, grey and misty.

The wild white charger whinnied
reviving the veiled vision of Niamh.
Still struck with Faery strains
I searched in sorrow for sights of old,
to the lost shores of Lough Lena
from Ben Bulben to Shannon's banks
the world had waned; but still I wandered.
Men murmured their dismay to see me
burning on the bright bridle of the steed,
they felt afraid and feared to look.

In a far field I watched them file,
straining to heave a standing stone.
I showed the shattered strength of men -
for Finn and the Fianna I flung the stone,
hearing the hounds and hooves of old.
Their cheers and chants quickly changed -
they stared to see my saddle break
when down I dropped undoing time -
Niamh! Niamh! Never more!
Unhorsed from the high heaving stallion,
its faery form forever vanished.
In trembling tears for Tir na nOg
I shrunk and shrivelled to this feeble shadow.
Priest Patrick pity my song:
my land is lost, my light is gone.