human
Can you write me a poem about kettledrum?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about kettledrum:
  _All rights reserved_
_Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1912_
I swayed upon the gaudy stern
The butt end of a steering oar,
And everywhere that I could turn
Men ran upon the shore.
And though I would have hushed the crowd
There was no mother's son but said,
"What is the figure in a shroud
Upon a gaudy bed?"
And fishes bubbling to the brim
Cried out upon that thing beneath,
It had such dignity of limb,
By the sweet name of Death.
Though I'd my finger on my lip,
What could I but take up the song?
And fish and crowd and gaudy ship
Cried out the whole night long,
Crying amid the glittering sea,
Naming it with ecstatic breath,
Because it had such dignity
By the sweet name of Death.
If any man drew near
When I was young,
I thought, "He holds her dear,"
And shook with hate and fear.
But oh, 'twas bitter wrong
If he could pass her by
With an indifferent eye.
Whereon I wrote and wrought,
And now, being gray,
I dream that I have brought
To such a pitch my thought
That coming time can say,
"He shadowed in a glass
What thing her body was."
For she had fiery blood
When I was young,
And trod so sweetly proud
As 'twere upon a cloud,
A woman Homer sung,
That life and letters seem
But an heroic dream.
She lived in storm and strife.
Her soul had such desire
For what proud death may bring
That it could not endure
The common good of life,
But lived as 'twere a king
That packed his marriage day
With banneret and pennon,
Trumpet and kettledrum,
And the outrageous cannon,
To bundle Time away
That the night come.
I had this thought awhile ago,
"My darling cannot understand
What I have done, or what would do
In this blind bitter land."
And I grew weary of the sun
Until my thoughts cleared up again,
Remembering that the best I have done
Was done to make it plain;
That every year I have cried, "At length
My darling understands it all,
Because I have come into my strength,
And words obey my call."
That had she done so who can say
What would have shaken from the sieve?
I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live.
Now must I these three praise--
Three women that have wrought
What joy is in my days;
One that no passing thought,
Nor those unpassing cares,
No, not in these fifteen
Many times troubled years,
Could ever come between
Heart and delighted heart;
And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth's dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in ecstasy.
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How should I praise that one?
When day begins to break
I count my good and bad,
Being wakeful for her sake,
Remembering what she had,
What eagle look still shows,
While up from my heart's root
So great a sweetness flows
I shake from head to foot.
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
Some may have blamed you that you took away
The verses that could move them on the day
When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind
With lightning you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about but kings,
Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things
That were like memories of you--but now
We'll out, for the world lives as long ago;
And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit,
Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.
But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,
My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.
"Would it were anything but merely voice!"
The No King cried who after that was King,
Because he had not heard of anything
That balanced with a word is more than noise;
Yet Old Romance being kind, let him prevail
Somewhere or somehow that I have forgot,
Though he'd but cannon--Whereas we that had thought
To have lit upon as clean and sweet a tale
Have been defeated by that pledge you gave
In momentary anger long ago;
And I that have not your faith, how shall I know
That in the blinding light beyond the grave
We'll find so good a thing as that we have lost?
The hourly kindness, the day's common speech,
The habitual content of each with each
When neither soul nor body has been crossed.
Suddenly I saw the cold and rook delighting Heaven
That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,
And thereupon imagination and heart were driven
So wild, that every casual thought of that and this
Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season
With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;
And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,
Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,
Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,
Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent
Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken
By the injustice of the skies for punishment?
Ah, that Time could touch a form
That could show what Homer's age
Bred to be a hero's wage.
"Were not all her life but storm,
Would not painters paint a form
Of such noble lines" I said.
"Such a delicate high head,
So much sternness and such charm,
Till they had changed us to like strength?"
Ah, but peace that comes at length,
Came when Time had touched her form.
O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause,
Being for a woman's sake.
Enough if the work has seemed,
So did she your strength renew,
A dream that a lion had dreamed
Till the wilderness cried aloud,
A secret between you two,
Between the proud and the proud.
What, still you would have their praise!
But here's a haughtier text,
The labyrinth of her days
That her own strangeness perplexed;
And how what her dreaming gave
Earned slander, ingratitude,
From self-same dolt and knave;
Aye, and worse wrong than these.
Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.
The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood,
Nor on an Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
Where, where but here have Pride and Truth,
That long to give themselves for wage,
To shake their wicked sides at youth
Restraining reckless middle-age.
You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But where's the wild dog that has praised his fleas?
Once, when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
Round about Hell's gate, to stare
At great Juan riding by,
And like these to rail and sweat,
Maddened by that sinewy thigh.
"Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes."
"O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold."
"I would but find what's there to find,
Love or deceit."
"It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what's behind."
"But lest you are my enemy,
I must enquire."
"O no, my dear, let all that be,
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me?"
How should the world be luckier if this house,
Where passion and precision have been one
Time out of mind, became too ruinous
To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun?
And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow
Where wings have memory of wings, and all
That comes of the best knit to the best? Although
Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall,
How should their luck run high enough to reach
The gifts that govern men, and after these
To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech
Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?
_Imitated from Ronsard_
Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case.
When we are high and airy hundreds say
That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place,
While those same hundreds mock another day
Because we have made our art of common things,
So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look
All their lives through into some drift of wings.
You've dandled them and fed them from the book
And know them to the bone; impart to us--
We'll keep the secret--a new trick to please.
Is there a bridle for this Proteus
That turns and changes like his draughty seas?
Or is there none, most popular of men,
But when they mock us that we mock again?
These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye;
The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,
Till that be tumbled that was lifted high
And discord follow upon unison,
And all things at one common level lie.
And therefore, friend, if your great race were run
And these things came, so much the more thereby
Have you made greatness your companion,
Although it be for children that you sigh:
These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye.
Out yonder, where the race course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
Riders upon the swift horses,
The field that closes in behind:
We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for companions,
Before the merchant and the clerk
Breathed on the world with timid breath.
Sing on: sometime, and at some new moon,
We'll learn that sleeping is not death,
Hearing the whole earth change its tune,
Its flesh being wild, and it again
Crying aloud as the race course is,
And we find hearteners among men
That ride upon horses.
Sickness brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman's face, or worse--
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
I whispered, "I am too young,"
And then, "I am old enough,"
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love;
"Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,"
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
Oh love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
And the shadows eaten the moon;
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.
CUCHULAIN    LAEG, _Cuchulain's chariot-driver_
EMER         RED MAN, _A Spirit_
Horse Boys and Scullions, Black Men, etc.
_At the Abbey Theatre the house is orange red and the chairs and
tables and flagons black, with a slight purple tinge which is not
characters except the RED MAN and the Black Men are dressed in
various shades of green, one or two with touches of purple which
A cat-headed man out of Connaught go pacing and spitting by;
But that could not be.
You have dreamed it--there's nothing out there.
And then I danced on their graves and carried away their hoard.
Does anything stir on the sea?
Not even a fish or a gull:
I can see for a mile or two, now that the moon's at the full.
Ah--there--there is someone who calls us.
But from the landward side,
And we have nothing to fear that has not come up from the tide;
The rocks and the bushes cover whoever made that noise,
But the land will do us no harm.
It was like Cuchulain's voice.
But that's an impossible thing.
An impossible thing indeed.
For he will never come home, he has all that he could need
In that high windy Scotland--good luck in all that he does.
Here neighbour wars on neighbour and why there is no man knows,
And if a man is lucky all wish his luck away,
And take his good name from him between a day and a day.
I would he'd come for all that, and make his young wife know
That though she may be his wife, she has no right to go
Before your wife and my wife, as she would have gone last night
Had they not caught at her dress, and pulled her as was right;
And she makes light of us though our wives do all that they can.
She spreads her tail like a peacock and praises none but her man.
A man in a long green cloak that covers him up to the chin
Comes down through the rocks and hazels.
Cry out that he cannot come in.
No man on the ridge of the world must ever know that but us two.
Go away, go away, go away.
I will go when the night is through
And I have eaten and slept and drunk to my heart's delight.
A law has been made that none shall sleep in this house to-night.
Who made that law?
We made it, and who has so good a right?
Who else has to keep the house from the Shape-Changers till day?
Then I will unmake the law, so get you out of the way.
I thought that no living man could have pushed me from the door,
Nor could any living man do it but for the dip in the floor;
And had I been rightly ready there's no man living could do it,
Dip or no dip.
Go out--if you have your wits, go out,
A stone's throw further on you will find a big house where
Our wives will give you supper, and you'll sleep sounder there,
For it's a luckier house.
I'll eat and sleep where I will.
Go out or I will make you.
Not till I have drunk my fill.
But may some dog defend me for a cat of wonder's up.
Laegaire and Conall are here, the flagon full to the top,
And the cups--
The cups are dry as a bone.
Go into Scotland again, or where you will, but begone
From this unlucky country that was made when the devil spat.
I am losing patience, Conall--I find you stuffed with pride,
The flagon full to the brim, the front door standing wide;
You'd put me off with words, but the whole thing's plain enough,
You are waiting for some message to bring you to war or love
In that old secret country beyond the wool-white waves,
Or it may be down beneath them in foam-bewildered caves
Where nine forsaken sea queens fling shuttles to and fro;
But beyond them, or beneath them, whether you will or no,
I am going too.
Better tell it all out to the end;
He was born to luck in the cradle, his good luck may amend
The bad luck we were born to.
I'll lay the whole thing bare.
You saw the luck that he had when he pushed in past me there.
Does anything stir on the sea?
Not even a fish or a gull.
When a wide, high man came in with a red foxy cloak,
With half-shut foxy eyes and a great laughing mouth,
And he said when we bid him drink, that he had so great a drouth
He could drink the sea.
I thought he had come from one of you
Out of some Connaught rath, and would lap up milk and mew;
But if he so loved water I have the tale awry.
You would not be so merry if he were standing by,
For when we had sung or danced as he were our next of kin
He promised to show us a game, the best that ever had been;
"A head for a head," he said, "that is the game that I play."
How could he whip off a head when his own had been whipped away?
We told him it over and over, and that ale had fuddled his wit,
And there on the ground where it fell it went on laughing at me.
Till he took it up in his hands--
And splashed himself into the sea.
I have imagined as good when I've been as deep in the cup.
You never did.
And believed it.
Cuchulain, when will you stop
Boasting of your great deeds, and weighing yourself with us two,
And crying out to the world whatever we say or do,
That you've said or done a better?--Nor is it a drunkard's tale,
Swore we should keep it secret.
But twelve months upon the clock.
A twelvemonth from the first time.
And the jug full up to the brim:
For we had been put from our drinking by the very thought of him.
We stood as we're standing now.
The horns were as empty.
He ran up out of the sea with his head on his shoulders again.
Why, this is a tale worth telling.
And he called for his debt and his right,
What is there to be said
When a man with a right to get it has come to ask for your head?
If you had been sitting there you had been silent like us.
He would have followed after if we had run away.
Will he tell every mother's son that we have broken our word?
Whether he does or does not we'll drive him out with the sword,
And take his life in the bargain if he but dare to scoff.
Or a man that can pick it up and carry it out in his hand?
He is coming now, there's a splash and a rumble along the strand
As when he came last.
Come, and put all your backs to the door.
It is too late to shut it, for there he stands once more
And laughs like the sea.
Old herring--You whip off heads! Why, then
Whip off your own, for it seems you can clap it on again.
Or else go down in the sea, go down in the sea, I say,
Find that old juggler Manannan and whip his head away;
Or the Red Man of the Boyne, for they are of your own sort,
Or if the waves have vexed you and you would find a sport
Of a more Irish fashion, go fight without a rest
A caterwauling phantom among the winds of the west.
But what are you waiting for? into the water, I say!
If there's no sword can harm you, I've an older trick to play,
An old five-fingered trick to tumble you out of the place;
I am Sualtim's son Cuchulain--what, do you laugh in my face?
So you too think me in earnest in wagering poll for poll!
A drinking joke and a gibe and a juggler's feat, that is all,
To make the time go quickly--for I am the drinker's friend,
The kindest of all Shape-Changers from here to the world's end,
The best of all tipsy companions. And now I bring you a gift:
And wear upon his own head, and choose for yourselves the best.
There, I'm forgiven now--
Let the bravest take it up.
Laegaire is best;
Between water and hill,
He fought in the west
With cat heads, until
At the break of day
All fell by his sword,
And he carried away
Their hidden hoard.
Give it me, for what did you find in the bag
But the straw and the broken delf and the bits of dirty rag
You'd taken for good money?
No, no, but give it me.
The Helmet's mine or Laegaire's--you're the youngest of us three.
I did not take it to keep it--the Red Man gave it for one,
But I shall give it to all--to all of us three or to none;
That is as you look upon it--we will pass it to and fro,
And time and time about, drink out of it and so
Stroke into peace this cat that has come to take our lives.
Now it is purring again, and now I drink to your wives,
And I drink to Emer, my wife.
Why, what in God's name is that noise?
What else but the charioteers and the kitchen and stable boys
Shouting against each other, and the worst of all is your own,
That chariot-driver, Laeg, and they'll keep it up till the dawn,
There, do you hear them now? such hatred has each for each
They have taken the hunting horns to drown one other's speech
They carry great horns, ladles and the like_]
I am Laeg, Cuchulain's driver, and my master's cock of the yard.
Conall would scatter his feathers.
No use, they won't hear a word.
They'll keep it up till the dawn.
It is Laegaire that is the best,
For he fought with cats in Connaught while Conall took his rest
And drained his ale pot.
Laegaire--what does a man of his sort
Care for the like of us! He did it for his own sport.
It was all mere luck at the best.
But Conall, I say--
Let me speak.
Before your cock was born, my master was in the fight.
Conall has got it, the best man has got it, and I am his man.
Who was it started this quarrel?
It was Laeg done it all.
A high, wide, foxy man came where we sat in the hall,
Getting our supper ready, with a great voice like the wind,
And cried that there was a helmet, or something of the kind,
That was for the foremost man upon the ridge of the earth.
So I cried your name through the hall,
but they denied its worth,
Preferring Laegaire or Conall, and they cried to drown my voice;
But I have so strong a throat that I drowned all their noise
Till they took to the hunting horns and blew them into my face,
No, Conall is the best man here.
Give it to Laegaire that made the murderous cats pay dear.
It has been given to none: that our rivalry might cease,
We have turned that murderous cat into a cup of peace.
I drank the first; and then Conall; give it to Laegaire now,
That it may purr in his hand and all of our servants know
That since the ale went in, its claws went out of sight.
That's well--I will stop my shouting.
Cuchulain is in the right;
I am tired of this big horn that has made me hoarse as a rook.
Cuchulain, you drank the first.
By drinking the first he took
The whole of the honours himself.
Cuchulain, you drank the first.
If Laegaire drink from it now he claims to be last and worst.
Cuchulain and Conall have drunk.
He is lost if he taste a drop.
That juggler from the sea, that old red herring it is
Who has set us all by the ears--he brought the Helmet for this,
And because we would not quarrel he ran elsewhere to shout
That Conall and Laegaire wronged me, till all had fallen out.
Who knows where he is now or who he is spurring to fight?
So get you gone, and whatever may cry aloud in the night,
Or show itself in the air, be silent until morn.
Cuchulain is in the right--I am tired of this big horn.
Mine is the better to look at.
But mine is better born.
My man is the pithier man.
Old hurricane, well done!
You've set our wives to the game that they may egg us on;
We are to kill each other that you may sport with us.
No, I have the right of place for I married the better man.
My nails in your neck and shoulder.
And go before me if you can.
My husband fought in the West.
But what did he fight with there
But sidelong and spitting and helpless shadows of the dim air?
And what did he carry away but straw and broken delf?
Your own man made up that tale trembling alone by himself,
Drowning his terror.
I am Emer, it is I go first through the door.
No one shall walk before me, or praise any man before
My man has been praised.
Come, put an end to their quarrelling:
One is as fair as the other, and each one the wife of a king.
Break down the painted boards between the sill and the floor
That they come in together, each one at her own door.
Nothing that he has done,
His mind that is fire,
His body that is sun,
Have set my head higher
Than all the world's wives.
Himself on the wind
Is the gift that he gives,
Therefore womenkind,
When their eyes have met mine,
Grow cold and grow hot,
Troubled as with wine
By a secret thought,
Preyed upon, fed upon
By jealousy and desire.
I am moon to that sun,
I am steel to that fire,
spear from the door, and the three Women come in at the same
Cuchulain, put off this sloth and awake:
A share of your honour.
You lie, for your man would take from my man.
You say that, you double-face, and your own husband began.
Town land may rail at town land till all have gone to wrack,
The very straws may wrangle till they've thrown down the stack;
The very door-posts bicker till they've pulled in the door,
The very ale-jars jostle till the ale is on the floor,
But this shall help no further.
It was not for your head,
And so you would let none wear it, but fling it away instead.
But you shall answer for it, for you've robbed my man by this.
You have robbed us both, Cuchulain.
The greatest wrong there is
On the wide ridge of the world has been done to us two this day.
Who is for Cuchulain, I say?
Deafen her singing with horns!
Cry aloud! blow horns! make a noise!
Blow horns, clap hands, or shout, so that you smother her voice!
themselves. There is a deafening noise and a confused fight.
Coal-black, and headed like cats, they came up over the strand.
And I saw one stretch to a torch and cover it with his hand.
Another sooty fellow has plucked the moon from the air.
great sword_]
I demand the debt that's owing. Let some man kneel down there
That I may cut his head off, or all shall go to wrack.
So I will give him my head.
Little wife, little wife, be at rest.
Alive I have been far off in all lands under sun,
And been no faithful man; but when my story is done
My fame shall spring up and laugh, and set you high above all.
It is you, not your fame, that I love.
You are young, you are wise, you can call
Some kinder and comelier man that will sit at home in the house.
Live and be faithless still.
Would you stay the great barnacle-goose
I, too, on the grey wing's path.
Do you dare, do you dare, do you dare?
Bear children and sweep the house.
Wail, but keep from the road.
I have not come for your hurt, I'm the Rector of this land,
And with my spitting cat-heads, my frenzied moon-bred band,
Age after age I sift it, and choose for its championship
The man who hits my fancy.
And I choose the laughing lip
That shall not turn from laughing whatever rise or fall,
The heart that grows no bitterer although betrayed by all;
The hand that loves to scatter; the life like a gambler's throw;
And these things I make prosper, till a day come that I know,