Page:Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry - Meyer.djvu/31

 THE TRYST AFTER DEATH

Fothad Canann, the leader of a Connaught warrior-band, had carried off the wife of Alill of Munster with her consent. The outraged husband pursued them and a fierce battle was fought, in which Fothad and Alill fell by each other's hand. The lovers had engaged to meet in the evening after the battle. Faithful to his word, the spirit of the slain warrior kept the tryst and thus addressed his paramour:

Hush, woman, do not speak to me! My thoughts
 * are not with thee.

My thoughts are still in the encounter at
 * Feic.

My bloody corpse lies by the side of the Slope of
 * two Brinks;

My head all unwashed is among warrior-bands in
 * fierce slaughter.

It is blindness for any one making a tryst to set
 * aside the tryst with Death:

The tryst that we made at Claragh has been kept
 * by me in pale death.

It was destined for me,—unhappy journey! at
 * Feic my grave had been marked out;

It was ordained for me—O sorrowful fight! to
 * fall by warriors of another land.

'Tis not I alone who in the fulness of desires has
 * gone astray to meet a woman—

No reproach to thee, though it was for thy sake—
 * wretched is our last meeting!

Had we known it would be thus, it had not been
 * hard to desist.