Читать книгу Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets - Various - Страница 31

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By Eleanor Rogers Cox

Forth in shining phalanx marching from the shrouding mists of time,

Bright the sunlight on their foreheads, bright upon their golden mail,

Lords of beauty, lords of valor, lords of Earth’s unconquered prime,

Come the gods, the kings, the heroes of the Gael.

Lugh, the splendor of whose shining lit the forest and the fen,

He whose smile at first illuming all the shadow-haunted space

Of the vast, primeval ranges, death-engirdled, shunned of men,

Over virgin seas to Erin led our race.

Mananaan, great lord of Ocean—he whose fair domain outspread

Wheresoever tides foam-flowered to the moon’s high mandate move,

Aengus, clothed in youth immortal, on immortal ardors fed,

Who of old in golden Brugh reigned lord of Love.

And his name a knightly pennon on the ramparts of the world,

And his fame a fire unfailing on Time’s utmost purple height,

Erin’s peerless gage of courage to the vaunting ages hurled—

Sunward evermore Cuchulain holds his flight.

They are coming with the silver speech of Erin on their lips;

The speech that once of all the mighty Celtic race made kin,

They are coming with the laughter that has known no age-eclipse,

They are coming with the songs beloved of Finn.

Yea, with gifts regenerating to all men of women born—

Flame of courage that shall fade not, flame of truth that shall not fail,

To the music of a thousand harps they’re marching through the Morn,

Deathless gods and kings and heroes of the Gael!