Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh

Lifted the curtain of her sleeping-room,

A thousand years ago you held high ralk

To middle night, they dug into the hill.

With holy shadows. Her high heart was glad,

And yet had been great-bodied and great-limbed,

Queen of high Cruachan.

Sudden and laughing.

She could have called over the rim of the world

She had been beautiful in that old way

We shadows, while they uproot his earthy housc,

Why do you praise another, praising her,

I helped your fathers when they built these walls,

The parted lips replied, "I seek your help,

But Soft beauty and indolent desire.

With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.

That happier breath had moved, her husband turned

nothing,

Had paced from door to fire and fire to door.

Who had been the lover of her middle life.

Nor the cold North has troubled?

Though now in her old age, in her young age

About whose face birds wagged their fiery wings,

Who stood amid a silence by the thorn

Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?

For all their beautys like a hollow dream,

A king of the Great Plain would speak with you.

Help them that wander with hand clas99lｉb•neｔping hand,

With equal courage in that whirling rout;

And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all

Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old,

And with glad voice Maeve answered him, "What king

In owing them the bride-bed that gives peace.

Have I not bid you tell of that great queen

And when the uproar ran along the grass

The porter slept, although he sat upright

He replied,

With bodies made out of soft fire. The one,

A murmur of soft words and meeting lips.

A latticed window. His glance went up at time

Might be accomplished, Bunching the curtain up

Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.

Whatever womans lover had hit her fancy,

About my threshold to counsel and to help?

Could but awaken sadly upon lips

She followed with light footfall in the midst,

MAEVE the great queen was pacing to and fro,

Or fell into unhappiness, Ive said,

As if there were no tale but your own tale

The children of the Maines out of sleep,

Until two lovers came out of the air

Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud,

And of that famous Fergus, Nessas husband,

With long white bodies came out of the air

Had come as in the old ti九九藏书mes to counsel her,

At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,

To some stringed instrument none there had seen,

But our of the dark air over her head there came

Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,

She told them of the many-changing ones;

Fashioned to be the mother of strong children;

Who has been buried some two thousand years?

Then Maeve: "O Aengus, Master of all lovers,

A certain poet in outlandish clothes

She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,

But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot,

In comfortable sleep; all living slept

But with the burning, live, unshaken voice

For you have been, O Aengus of the birds,

And shook him wide awake, and bid him say

Of the far-wandering shadows has come to me,

Friend of these many years, you too had stood

Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say

As though one listened there, and his voice sank

Because Earth, crazy for its broken power,

Of those that, it may be, can never age.

Or let its meaning mix into the strings.

Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed

For I am Aengus, and I am crossed in love.

That work too difficult f九_九_藏_书_网or mortal hands

"She will grow old and die, and she has wept!

Till it died out where an old thorn-tree stood.

It was before the time of the great war

Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,

He said, "High Queen of Cruachan and Magh Ai,

O unquiet heart,

In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,

And set them digging under Buals hill.

Who of the wandering many-changing ones

They had vanished,

When night was at its deepest, a wild goose

"I obey your will

One that the generations had long waited

Suddenly Ailell spoke out of his sleep,

For you, although youve not her wandering heart,

Came to the threshold of the painted house

With still and stony limbs and open eyes.

Was that, the air being heavy and the dogs

And with a groan, as if the mortal breath

A wall behind his back, over his head

"How may a mortal whose life gutters out

"I am from those rivers and I bid you call

Face downward, tossing in a troubled sleep;

He could remember when he had had fine dreams.

With speedy feet and a most thankful heart:

That no god troubled now, and, wondering

Outrun the measure.

And shed had lucky eyes and high heart,

To九-九-藏-书-网 Maeve and to Maeves household, owing all

Will overthrow his shadows and carry off

But that great queen, who more than half the night

Id tell of that great queen

Remembering that she too had seemed divine

Till Maeve called out, "These are but common men.

Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,

He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed

Mirrored in streams that neither hail nor rain

Thats all but gone; for the proud heart is gone,

Talked1 of his country and its people, sang

Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,

And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,

And not with his own voice or a mans voice,

Casts up a Show and the winds answer it

Said, "Aengus and his sweetheart give their thanks

Cried from the porters lodge, and with long clamour

But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power

And thought of days when hed had a straight body,

More still than they had been for a good month,

Their haughty images that cannot wither,

Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds

In any ancient book but tells of you;

Shook the ale-horns and shields upon their hooks;

For there is no high story about queens

Broke from his parted l九*九*藏*书*网ips and broke again,

Our giver of good counsel and good luck.

O when will you grow weary?

The Maines children have not dropped their spades

The Maines" children dropped their spades, and stood

Half crazy with the thought, She too has wept!

And when Id write it out anew, the words,

And wondering who of the many-changing Sidhe

Until the pillared dark began to stir

To that small chamber by the outer gate.

Or on the benches underneath the walls,

As in the old days when they would come and go

With quaking joints and terror-stricken faces,

To many thousand eyes, and to her own

And all that night, and all through the next day

And when Ive heard how they grew old and died,

Over the White-Horned Bull and the Brown Bull.

Had filled the house with Druid heaviness;

With the first kings of many-pillared Cruachan.

Maeve waited, and when that ear-piercing noise

She turned away; he turned again to sleep

At middle night great cats with silver claws,

Have all that greatness, and not hers alone,

Caer, his blue-eyed daughter that I love.

And I would have your help in my great need,

She laid a hand on either of his shoulders,

What matters were afoot among the Sidhe,