The Old Age Of Queen Maeve
A certai in outlandish clothes
Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,
Talked1 of his try and its people, sang
To some stringed instrument here had seen,
A wall behind his back, over his head
A latticed window. His glance went up at time
As though one listehere, and his voice sank
Or let its meaning mix into the strings.
MAEVE the great queen ag to and fro,
Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,
In her high house at Crua; the loh,
Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed
Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,
Or on the benches underh the walls,
In fortable sleep; all living slept
But that great queen, who more than half the night
Had paced from door to fire and fire to door.
Though now in her old age, in her young age
She had beeiful in that old way
Thats all but gone; for the proud heart is gone,
And the fool heart of the ting-house fears all
But Soft beauty and i desire.
She could have called over the rim of the world
Whatever womans lover had hit her fancy,
A had bee-bodied and great-limbed,
Fashioo be the mother of strong children;
And shed had lucky eyes and high heart,
And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,
At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,
Sudden and laughing.
O u heart,
Why do you praise another, praising her,
As if there were no tale but your own tale
Worth knitting to a measure of sweet sound?
Have I not bid you tell of that great queen
Who has been buried some two thousand years?
When night was at its deepest, a wild goose
Cried from the porters lodge, and with long clamour
Shook the ale-horns and shields upon their hooks;
But the horse-boys slept on, as though some power
Had filled the house with Druid heaviness;
And w who of the many-ging Sidhe
Had e as in the old times to sel her,
Maeve walked, yet with slow footfall, being old,
To that small chamber by the ate.
The porter slept, although he sat upright
With still and stony limbs and open eyes.
Maeve waited, and when that ear-pierg noise
Broke from his parted lips and broke again,
She laid a hand oher of his shoulders,
And shook him wide awake, and bid him say
Who of the wandering many-ging ones
Had troubled his sleep. But all he had to say
Was that, the air being heavy and the dogs
More still than they had been food month,
He had fallen asleep, and, though he had dreamed
nothing,
He could remember when he had had fine dreams.
It was before the time of the great war
Over the White-Horned Bull and the Brown Bull.
She turned away; he turned again to sleep
That no god troubled now, and, w
What matters were afoot among the Sidhe,
Maeve walked through that great hall, and with a sigh
Lifted the curtain of her sleeping-room,
Remembering that she too had seemed divine
To many thousand eyes, and to her own
Ohat the geions had long waited
That work too difficult for mortal hands
Might be aplished, Bung the curtain up
She saw her husband Ailell sleeping there,
And thought of days when hed had a straight body,
And of that famous Fergus, Nessas husband,
Who had been the lover