Servants of the Sun;
And day by day his passion's famished flame
Nourished itself upon his wasting frame.

In vain the king's diviners daily strove
To find the spring of Ailill's gathering ill;
In vain Etain by stream and murmuring grove
Sought for the shadowy hand that held his will;
And when dark Balor cracked his whip, and drove
His winter herd across the bounds of day,
Ailill upon his couch in weakness lay.

So when a year had passed, and through the land
The king went forth on royal pilgrimage,
Unto Etain he gave his last command
That she, his brother's sickness to assuage,
Withhold no gift, but give with regal hand;
And should chill death blow out his flickering blaze,
His funeral-stone with honour she should raise.

  IV From day to day Etain with eager thought
Outran sick Ailill's fleetest-footed needs;
From sun and wind a subtle medicine caught,
And charmed swift healing from the fresh-strewn reeds
Upon his floor, which her own hands had brought
From ferny hollows, where cool waters laughed
That Ailill from her cup with gladness quaffed.

Yet with each dawn that came with growing power
There grew a cloudy thought in Ailill's mind
That gloomed the joy of health's returning hour,
And put a sigh in evening's gentle wind,
And touched with ill-timed frost life's opening flower,
And turned to poverty the proffered wealth
In hands that wrought his sickness and his health.

And she, in service, found a hidden way
To strange new meanings in the eyes of life;
And reached a joy beyond the shrill affray
Of horns and harps loud with the songs of strife
Or little triumphs of a passing day;
And grasped, in giving, life's most perfect gift—
Love that is raised by that which it doth lift.

So moved the twain through sunshine barred with gloom,
Finding in each twin solace and despair:
He, like a frail and gently tended bloom,
Grudged each day's health that took him past her care;
And she, o'ershadowed by approaching doom,
Watching his need of her grow less and less,
Sickened with grief her lips dare not express.

Tossed thus on hidden billows of the soul,
And swept by winds that warred against the will,
They drained the little draught in life's poor bowl,
And all unwitting wrought each other ill;
Until at last, stung past the heart's control,
Marking Etain's white brow and pensive eye,
Thus Ailill broke the silence with a cry.

"O bitter joy! O sorrow passing sweet!
O blossoming life that leads to love's pale death!
O gain that speeds to loss on laggard feet!
O living voice that kills the word it saith!
O cooling touch that kindles quenchless heat!
How shall I all my heart's dear burden speak,
Or how keep silence at thy paling cheek?

"I love thee, Queen Etain, but in such wise
As never man loved woman heretofore:
Not with the love that lives upon her eyes,
And counts her breast the summit and the shore
Of all desire, and with tempestuous sighs
Flings to the winds the spoils of reason's thrift
In barter for her body's utmost gift.

"My love, O queen, is that serener kind
Whose word outruns the lumbering wain of speech,
And springs in light from mind to answering mind;
And takes its bliss beyond the body's reach,
Thought mixed with thought, as sunlight with sweet wind;
And crowds the ways, where human sorrow pleads,
With generations of exalted deeds.

"Ah, then take back the life that thou hast spent
In vain, since thou dost slay and heal my heart;
And let quick death beat down my failing tent,
And its lone habitant be blown apart
Through the wide wastes of night's black firmament,
Where move the Powers in whose dread hands may be
The source and end of dreams and destiny.

"There past the chain of hours my faithful ghost
May through thy dreams move silently and dim;
And needing then the least, may serve thee most;
Or crying seaward from life's misty rim,
Call forth thy heart beyond its mortal coast:
Happy if in thy spirit's wakening sigh
My name one murmured moment live and die."

Thus Ailill spoke; and like a summer shower
His eager words, tingling on heart and brain,
Stirred many a leaf to life, and many a flower;
And sank beneath her spirit's thirsty plain,
Till hidden springs, touched with a strange new power,
Welled in her eyes with flash of sudden streams
From hills that crowned some far-off world of dreams.

Clear-visioned in her meditative eye
Rolled the great world, and lo! a silent moth
Shredded its mighty frame, till down the sky
It fluttered like a poor discarded cloth
From some dead face flung out by hands that die;
And thinned like vapours round the lips of day,
And like a breath passed utterly away.

And as it passed she knew that nevermore
Life would be life again; yet in her mind
Lurked the dim fear of one who leaves the shore,
And on the sightless hazard of the wind
Moves into doubt and darkness. O'er and o'er
She turned her thought, till softly on her ear
There broke a song a bard was chanting near.

Because the strong are fallen low,
Who deems that Strength himself is slain?
Through depth and height his arm shall go,
And he shall rear his house again,
Although the strong are fallen low.

Because the living all are dead,
Who deems that Life has found a grave?
Among the stars she lifts her head,
She dances lightly on the wave,
Although the living all are dead.

Because the beautiful has passed,
Was Beauty but a passing word?
Behold, the dust through chaos cast
With lovelier loveliness is stirred,
Although the beautiful has passed.

And if earth's lovers love amiss,
Who deems that Love has perished quite?
Lo, cloudy lips the mountains kiss,
And day is bosomed on the night,
Although earth's lovers love amiss.

Swiftly and silently her thought's faint wing
Sought between wind and wind a certain way;
For one was keen with glad awakening
In perfumed morn of some ecstatic day;
And one was loud with song, and quivering string,
And all life's pageantry and noisy breath
Wherewith men strive to drown the voice of death.

Then said Etain: "King Eochaidh in his might
Drew me to bonds of happiness; but thou
Art as a voice that calls across the night
To where some dawn blows freshly on the brow,
And love with love moves freely as the light,
Mingling in happy dreams their shadowy wings
Beyond these perishing substantial things.

"Ah, me, the pain in joy, the joy in grief!
Who tells the end when once has moved the foot?
Thy hand is on my life's new-opened leaf:
Who knows the hand may pluck its ripened fruit?
To thee—and past, the journey may be brief.
Yet I the king's behest shall all fulfil—
'Nothing withhold to heal my brother's ill.'

"So in the gaze of dawn and wondering flowers
We shall keep tryst by stream and whispering tree;
Perchance to win from life's controlling powers
The healing of thy