# In the Seven Woods/Baile and Aillinn

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BAILE AND AILLINN
Argument. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the Master of Love, wishing them to be happy in his own land among the dead, told to each a story of the others death, so that their hearts were broken and they died.
I hardly hear the curlew cry, Nor the grey rush when wind is high, Before my thoughts begin to run On the heir of Ulad, Buan's son, Baile who had the honey mouth,
And that mild woman of the south,
Aillinn, who was King Lugaid's heir. Their love was never drowned in care Of this or that thing, nor grew cold Because their bodies had grown old; Being forbid to marry on earth
About the time when Christ was born, When the long wars for the White Horn And the Brown Bull had not yet come, Young Baile Honey-Mouth, whom some Called rather Baile Little-Land, Rode out of Emain with a band Of harpers and young men, and they Imagined, as they struck the way To many pastured Muirthemne, That all things fell out happily And there,for all that fools had said, Baile and Aillinn would be wed.
They found an old man running there, He had ragged long grass-yellow hair; He had knees that stuck out of his hose; He had puddle water in his shoes; He had half a cloak to keep him dry; Although he had a squirrel's eye.
O wandering birds and rushy beds You put such folly in our heads With all this crying in the wind No common love is to our mind, And our poor Kate or Nan is less Than any whose unhappiness Awoke the harp strings long ago. Yet they that know all things but know That all life had to give us is A child's laughter, a woman's kiss. Who was it put so great a scorn In the grey reeds that night and morn Are trodden and broken by the herds, And in the light bodies of birds That north wind tumbles to and fro And pinches among hail and snow?
That runner said 'I am from the south; I run to Baile Honey-Mouth To tell him how the girl Aillinn Rode from the country of her kin And old and young men rode with her: For all that country had been astir If anybody half as fair Had chosen a husband anywhere But where it could see her every day. When they had ridden a little way ​An old man caught the horse's head With 'You must home again and wed With somebody in your own land'. A young man cried and kissed her hand 'O lady, wed with one of us;' And when no face grew piteous For any gentle thing she spake She fell and died of the heart-break'.
Because a lover's heart's worn out Being tumbled and blown about By its own blind imagining, And will believe that anything That is bad enough to be true, is true, Baile's heart was broken in two; And he being laid upon green boughs Was carried to the goodly house Where the Hound of Ulad sat before The brazen pillars of his door; His face bowed low to weep the end Of the harper's daughter and her friend; For although years had passed away He always wept them on that day, For on that day they had been betrayed; And now that Honey-Mouth is laid Under a cairn of sleepy stone Before his eyes, he has tears for none, ​Although he is carrying stone, but two For whom the cairn's but heaped anew.
We hold because our memory is So full of that thing and of this That out of sight is out of mind. But the grey rush under the wind And the grey bird with crooked bill Have such long memories that they still Remember Deirdre and her man, And when we walk with Kate or Nan About the windy water side Our heart can hear the voices chide. How could we be so soon content Who know the way that Naoise went? And they have news of Deirdre's eyes Who being lovely was so wise Ah wise, my heart knows well how wise.
Now had that old gaunt crafty one, Gathering his cloak about him, run Where Aillinn rode with waiting maids Who amid leafy lights and shades Dreamed of the hands that would unlace Their bodices in some dim place When they had come to the marriage bed; And harpers pondering with bowed head ​A music that had thought enough Of the ebb of all things to make love Grow gentle without sorrowings; And leather-coated men with slings Who peered about on every side; And amid leafy light he cried, 'He is well out of wind and wave, They have heaped the stones above his grave In Muirthemne and over it In changeless Ogham letters writ Baile that was of Rury's seed. But the gods long ago decreed No waiting maid should ever spread Baile and Aillinn's marriage bed, For they should clip and clip again Where wild bees hive on the Great Plain. Therefore it is but little news That put this hurry in my shoes.'
And hurrying to the south he came To that high hill the herdsmen name The Hill Seat of Leighin, because Some god or king had made the laws That held the land together there, In old times among the clouds of the air.
That old man climbed; the day grew dim; ​Two swans came flying up to him Linked by a gold chain each to each And with low murmuring laughing speech Alighted on the windy grass. They knew him: his changed body was Tall, proud and ruddy, and light wings Were hovering over the harp strings That Etain, Midhir's wife, had wove In the hid place, being crazed by love.
What shall I call them? fish that swim Scale rubbing scale where light is dim By a broad water-lily leaf; Or mice in the one wheaten sheaf Forgotten at the threshing place; Or birds lost in the one clear space Of morning light in a dim sky; Or it may be, the eyelids of one eye Or the door pillars of one house, Or two sweet blossoming apple boughs That have one shadow on the ground; Or the two strings that made one sound Where that wise harper's finger ran; For this young girl and this young man Have happiness without an end Because they have made so good a friend.
​They know all wonders, for they pass The towery gates of Gorias And Findrias and Falias And long-forgotten Murias, Among the giant kings whose hoard Cauldron and spear and stone and sword Was robbed before Earth gave the wheat; Wandering from broken street to street They come where some huge watcher is And tremble with their love and kiss.
They know undying things, for they Wander where earth withers away, Though nothing troubles the great streams But light from the pale stars, and gleams From the holy orchards, where there is none But fruit that is of precious stone, Or apples of the sun and moon.
What were our praise to them: they eat Quiet's wild heart, like daily meat, Who when night thickens are afloat On dappled skins in a glass boat Far out under a windless sky, While over them birds of Aengus fly, And over the tiller and the prow And waving white wings to and fro ​Awaken wanderings of light air To stir their coverlet and their hair.
And poets found, old writers say, A yew tree where his body lay, But a wild apple hid the grass With its sweet blossom where hers was; And being in good heart, because A better time had come again After the deaths of many men, And that long fighting at the ford, They wrote on tablets of thin board, Made of the apple and the yew, All the love stories that they knew.
Let rush and bird cry out their fill Of the harper's daughter if they will, Beloved, I am not afraid of her She is not wiser nor lovelier, And you are more high of heart than she For all her wanderings over-sea; But I'd have bird and rush forget Those other two, for never yet Has lover lived but longed to wive Like them that are no more alive.