THE SONG OF CREDE, DAUGHTER OF GUARE

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Eleanor Hull

(In the battle of Aidne, Crede, the daughter of King Guare of Aidne, beheld Dinertach of the HyFidgenti, who had come to the help of Guare, with seventeen wounds upon his breast. Then she fell in love with him. He died and was buried in the cemetery of Colman's Church.)

These are the arrows that murder sleep
 At every hour in the night's black deep;
 Pangs of Love through the long day ache,
 All for the dead Dinertach's sake.
Great love of a hero from Roiny's plain
 Has pierced me through with immortal pain,
 Blasted my beauty and left me to blanch
 A riven bloom on a restless branch.
Never was song like Dinertach's speech
 But holy strains that to Heaven's gate reach;
 A front of flame without boast or pride,
 Yet a firm, fond mate for a fair maid's side.
A growing girl—I was timid of tongue,
 And never trysted with gallants young,
 But since I have won into passionate age,
 Fierce love-longings my heart engage.
I have every bounty that life could hold,
 With Guare, arch-monarch of Aidne cold,
 But, fallen away from my haughty folk,
 In Irluachair's field my heart lies broke.
There is chanting in glorious Aidne's meadow,
 Under St. Colman's Church's shadow;
 A hero flame sinks into the tomb—
 Dinertach, alas my love and my doom!
Chaste Christ! that now at my life's last breath
 I should tryst with Sorrow and mate with Death!
 At every hour of the night's black deep,
 These are the arrows that murder sleep.
Alfred Perceval Graves.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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