Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CELTS, by MARGARET SACKVILLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CELTS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: And evermore we sought the fight but still
Last Line: By the chill breath of windy dreams at last.
Subject(s): Celts; War


"And always they went forth to battle but always they fell."

AND evermore we sought the fight but still
Some pale enchantment clouded all our will,
So that we faltered; even when the foe
Lay at our sudden onset, crushed and low,
As a flame dies, so passed our wrath away—
And fatal to us was the battle-day.

Yet we went willingly, for in our ears
With shrill reiteration, the blind years
Taunted us with our dreams—our dreams more vain
Than on bare hills the fruitless fall of rain;
Vain as the unaccomplished buds of spring
Which fade and fall, and know no blossoming.

Wherefore we, being weary of the days
Which dumbly passed and left no word of praise,
And ever as the good years waned to less,
Growing more weary of life's barrenness,
Strove with those dreams which bound our spirits fast,
Lest even death should prove a dream at last.

And eager in the fight we mingled; yet
Not as those strive, implacable, who forget
All save the need of the immediate hour,
The passing flash of momentary power—
To whom the past is nought, the future dumb,
And the old years mere memories burdensome.

We who are haunted by the ceaseless cry
Of ancient days which call perpetually
Holding us in oblivious chains, and see
Time's sure feet tread through slow eternity—
Pilgrims who wander forth, they know not where,
To the unknown threshold of some sepulchre—

Heard, the first flame of exultation cold,
Moan in the fight strange voices manifold—
Which wrought confusion in our breasts—and heard
Weak sounds as though forgotten ages stirred,
And we who vainly struggled stood revealed
Sad labourers toiling in a fatal field.

And those inevitable dreams returned
Which, for a little while, our souls had spurned—
Alas! how vainly spurned—and all things seemed
Part of some loveliness we once had dreamed,
And faint the battle grew, and cold and grey
As the sky fading at the fall of day.

So evermore we fought—and always fell;
Yet was there no man strong enough to quell
Our passionate, sad life of love and hate;
Tireless were we and foes insatiate.
Though one should slay us—weaponless and dim
We bade our dreams ride forth and conquer him.

Yet evermore we fell. As through the trees
Red autumn wails her pitiless melodies,
And with magnificent, cold pomp of death
Fires the last leaves and slays them with her breath,
So did we fall, vanquished and overcast
By the chill breath of windy dreams at last.





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