Page:Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry - Meyer.djvu/27

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At sunrise there comes
A fair man illumining level lands:
He rides upon the white sea-washed plain,
He stirs the ocean till it is blood.

A host comes across the clear sea,
They exhibit their rowing to the land:
Then they row to the shining stone
From which arises music a hundredfold.

It sings a strain unto the host
Through ages long, it is never weary:
Its music swells with choruses of hundreds—
They expect neither decay nor death.

Many-shaped Evna by the sea,
Whether it be near, whether it be far—
In which are thousands of many-hued women,
Which the clear sea encircles.

If one has heard the voice of the music,
The chorus of little birds from the Land of Peace,
A band of women comes from a height
To the plain of sport in which he is.

There comes happiness with health
To the land against which laughter peals:
Into the Land of Peace at every season
Comes everlasting joy.

Through the ever-fair weather
Silver is showered on the lands,
A pure-white cliff over the range of the sea
Receives from the sun its heat.

There are thrice fifty distant isles
In the ocean to the west of us:
Larger than Erin twice
Is each of them, or thrice.


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