THE GREY ROCK
 
 Poets with whom I learned my trade.
 Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,
 Here's an old story I've remade,
 Imagining 'twould better please
 Your cars than stories now in fashion,
 Though you may think I waste my breath
 Pretending that there can be passion
 That has more life in it than death,
 And though at bottling of your wine
 Old wholesome Goban had no say;
 The moral's yours because it's mine.
 When cups went round at close of day –
 Is not that how good stories run? –
 The gods were sitting at the board
 In their great house at Slievenamon.
 They sang a drowsy song, Or snored,
 For all were full of wine and meat.
 The smoky torches made a glare
 On metal Goban 'd hammered at,
 On old deep silver rolling there
 Or on somc still unemptied cup
 That he, when frenzy stirred his thews,
 Had hammered out on mountain top
 To hold the sacred stuff he brews
 That only gods may buy of him.
 Now from that juice that made them wise
 All those had lifted up the dim
 Imaginations of their eyes,
 For one that was like woman made
 Before their sleepy eyelids ran
 And trembling with her passion said,
 "Come out and dig for a dead man,
 Who's burrowing Somewhere in the ground
 And mock him to his face and then
 Hollo him on with horse and hound,
 For he is the worst of all dead men.'
 <1We should be dazed and terror-struck,
 If we but saw in dreams that room,
 Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck
 That empticd all our days to come.
 I knew a woman none could please,
 Because she dreamed when but a child
 Of men and women made like these;
 And after, when her blood ran wild,
 Had ravelled her own story out,
 And said, "In two or in three years
 I needs must marry some poor lout,'
 And having said it, burst in tears.
 Since, tavern comrades, you have died,
 Maybe your images have stood,
 Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,
 Before that roomful or as good.
 You had to face your ends when young –
 'Twas wine or women, or some curse –
 But never made a poorer song
 That you might have a heavier purse,>1
 Nor gave loud service to a cause
 That you might have a troop of friends,
 You kept the Muses' sterner laws,
 And unrepenting faced your ends,
 And therefore earned the right – and yet
 Dowson and Johnson most I praise – 
 To troop with those the world's forgot,
 And copy their proud steady gaze.
 "The Danish troop was driven out
 Between the dawn and dusk,' she said;
 "Although the event was long in doubt.
 Although the King of Ireland's dead
 And half the kings, before sundown
 All was accomplished.
 "When this day
 Murrough, the King of Ireland's son,
 Foot after foot was giving way,
 He and his best troops back to back
 Had perished there, but the Danes ran,
 Stricken with panic from the attack,
 The shouting of an unseen man;
 And being thankful Murrough found,
 Led by a footsole dipped in blood
 That had made prints upon the ground,
 Where by old thorn-trees that man stood;
 And though when he gazed here and there,
 He had but gazed on thorn-trees, spoke,
 ""Who is the friend that seems but air
 And yet could give so fine a stroke?''
 Thereon a young man met his eye,
 Who said, ""Because she held me in
 Her love, and would not have me die,
 Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,
 And pushing it into my shirt,
 Promised that for a pin's sake
 No man should see to do me hurt;
 But there it's gone; I will not take
 The fortune that had been my shame
 Seeing, King's son, what wounds you have.  –
 'Twas roundly spoke, but when night came
 He had betrayed me to his grave,
 For he and the King's son were dead.
 I'd promised him two hundred years,
 And when for all I'd done or said –
 And these immortal eyes shed tears –
 He claimed his country's need was most,
 I'd saved his life, yet for the sake
 Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.
 What does he cate if my heart break?
 I call for spade and horse and hound
 That we may harry him.' Thereon
 She cast herself upon the ground
 And rent her clothes and made her moan:
 "Why are they faithless when their might
 Is from the holy shades that rove
 The grey rock and the windy light?
 Why should the faithfullest heart most love
 The bitter sweetness of false faces?
 Why must the lasting love what passes,
 Why are the gods by men betrayed?'
 But thereon every god stood up
 With a slow smile and without sound,
 And Stretching forth his arm and cup
 To where she moaned upon the ground,
 Suddenly drenched her to the skin;
 And she with Goban's wine adrip,
 No more remembering what had been.
 Stared at the gods with laughing lip.
 I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,
 To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot,
 And thc world's altered since you died,
 And I am in no good repute
 With the loud host before the sea,
 That think sword-strokes were better meant
 Than lover's music – let that be,
 So that the wandering foot's content.