Preface To Diarmid's Story

A poem by John Campbell

Best beloved of ancient stories
Are our Diarmid's woes to me.
Like a mist, by breezes broken,
So this tale of olden glories
Floats in fragments, as a token
Of the song of Ireland's sea.

Through long centuries repeated
Lived the legend told in Erse,
But a change comes swift or slowly
Fades the language, and defeated
Flies the faith, once counted holy,
Old-world ways, and oral verse.

Not from men of note or learning
May we gather now these tales,
Heard beneath the cotter's rafter,
Or where smithy sparks are burning,
Or at sea, when hushed the laughter
Of the breeze on hull and sails.

Then with Ossian's rhythmic Measure
Comes upon the fancy's sight,
One with golden locks; resplendent,
Great and strong with eyes of azure,
And, again in the ascendant,
Magic reasserts her might.

Nought can wound him, sword or arrow,
Only powerless are the spells
Where on the footsole implanted
There is hid a birth-mark narrow,
But this hero's brow enchanted
Every woman's love compels.

Woe to him, that she whose glances
Won the king on Denmark's shore,
Evil, beautiful, imperious,
Born where wheel the grisly dances
Through the glen of ghosts mysterious,
Love's first passion for him bore.

For she saw his forehead bending
O'er the snarling dogs at strife
At the wedding-feast of greeting;
And at dusk unto him wending,
"Come," she said, "let this our meeting
Pledge my soul to thee for life."

"If, O queen, we go together,
Not with friends, nor yet alone
Must thou be, nor sheltered ever,
Housed, nor braving wind and weather;
If on horse or foot, then never
Can thy love to me be known!"

Flight were shield and fence far surer
Gainst a wily woman's ways
Than the wit of man; for seated
Ere the dawn, his fair allurer
At his open door repeated
All his words, with longing gaze.

"Go with me, O Diarmid; see me
Not on horse, or foot; with friends,
Nor alone; not night or morning
Reigns: O come; thou wilt not flee me?
Never lived a warrior scorning
Every joy that loving lends!"

Then at last by her caresses
Into flight and guilt beguiled,
Diarmid loathed his life, abiding
In the caves' or woods' recesses,
Like a thief or coward hiding,
To his fate unreconciled.

Thus the mightiest magician
Warped the true and loyal heart,
And he fled with her, forsaking.
Friends and kinsfolk, while contrition
Gnawed into his life's days, making
Sad his journey, hard his part.

He, a fugitive, whose valiance
Made the Feinne fair Erin's boast!
Where the red cascade descended,
Lovely Grinie's evil dalliance
Held him thrall as though were ended
Noble warring with the host.

He a slave! whose oaths had ever
Bade him "champion the oppressed,"
Pledged him to "confound the clever,
Aid the losing man's endeavour,
Be the first in fight, and never
Heedless of the king's behest"

Once upon a rock, tree-shrouded,
Hungry they had climbed to eat
Where the scarlet berries clustered:
Suddenly below them crowded
Dogs and huntsmen, 'til were mustered
All the Feinne beneath their feet.

Fionn, then, their grim commander,
Dreaming not his wife was near,
Had a giant chess-board graven
On the sod, and played; and under
The green leaves which gave him haven
Diarmid watched the game in fear.

Oscar lost, with Fionn playing,
Until Diarmid, from on high
Dropped the scarlet seeds to guide him,
Thus his presence there betraying:
And the friends of Fionn eyed him,
Shouting, "Thou shalt surely die!"

But all Diarmid's comrades for him
Fought, each venturing his life:
And amid the dread commotion
Fled the twain, until before him
To the peaceful sands of ocean
Ran a woodland stream of strife.

Dwelling on its banks he made him
There the wooden bowls that none
Fashioned with the dirk so deftly.
But the chattering stream betrayed him:
From the secret forest swiftly
Flashed white shavings in the sun.

Then the king cried, "Grinie's lover
Near us hath his lurking place!
Sound the hunting horns around him!
See if from the thickets' cover
By the ancient vows that bound him
He shall come to join the chase!"

* * * * *

How the queen bore his upbraiding;
How his death in hunting came,
Tell the verses here translated:
Lights are they, in transit fading,
Scattered sparks, oblivion fated,
Memories from a mighty flame!