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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SILK O' THE KINE; A TALE OF THE ISLES by ALFRED NOYES

Poet Analysis

First Line: EILIDH, EILIDH, SILK O' THE KINE
Last Line: "TWO STRONG SWIMMERS WERE THEY."
I

EILIDH, Eilidh, Silk o' the Kine;
Happy is he whose hand shall twine
Thy warm wild beauty of shadow and shine.

Like the glossy waves of a golden sea,
Eilidh, thy deep hair covers thee;
Oh, Eilidh, Eilidh, a deep, deep sea,
A golden sea,
A deep, deep sea.

II

Heather-drowsy, heather-drowsy, lapped in the sunlight together,
Eilidh and Isla lay one day in the golden summer weather.
For the silken sea of her golden hair and its billows of
shadow and shine
Had Sorch the Singer named her, Eilidh -- Silk o' the Kine;
And the laughing lovers were cradled in clouds of purple and gold,
As round their couch in the heather it rippled and
glistened and rolled.
And the honey-sweet air was wild with the warble of birds
and the whisper of rills;
And the wind blew soft and sweet with the scent of the
bloom of a thousand hills;
And a myriad twinkling smiles awoke in the dreamy blue of the bay,
For, far and far above them, Eilidh and Isla lay;
And her hand lay warm in his clasping hand; two young
lovers were they:
Two young lovers were they.

III

Many a floating butterfly and yellow-banded bee,
Wondering and blundering across the blissful hours,
Paused o'er Eilidh's fragrant hair as it tumbled soft and free,
Dreaming and gleaming, a glossy golden sea
That rolled a happy kiss-deep among the heather-flowers.
Her eyes were deeper than the skies that arch the sunny South;
The gipsy sun had kissed her cheek and a rose had kissed her mouth;
Her breast was like a blossoming wave that curves in a sea of bliss,
As she leaned her golden head far back and turned her closing eyes
Brimmed with the joy of life and love to the cloudless azure skies,
And the rosy golden apple of her throat to his following kiss.
And she laughed the low sweet laugh of love and thought of
the crimson fray
That raged on the soft blue waters beyond the dreaming bay;
She laughed the low sweet laugh of love that kept her lover bound
Safe to her breast as round his breast her white arms clung and wound.
She had prayed him and stayed him, with the sword at his side;
And her laugh had conquered all the calls of glory and pride:
For her own love and her true love she held him safely there;
It was only one away to them, but all the world to her.
She had pleaded; she would die with him; they were so young to die;
She had pleaded; she had conquered, with one last low broken cry:
So now she leaned her head far back with the perfect laugh of love;
And the blossoms murmured round her and the skies grew dim above:
Her arm was round her true love's neck and her hand was in his hand;
And her heart against his heart that day in the silent summer-land.
And the sun sank down to the waiting smiles that wrinkled
the blue of the bay;
And a shadow covered the warm sweet hill where Eilidh and Isla lay;
But her hand lay warm in his clasping hand: two young
lovers were they:
Two young lovers were they.

IV

The sun sank down and the darkness covered the torn red ships,
As over the dark blue sea they ploughed triumphantly home;
And the warriors lay and panted with the battlesurf on their lips;
And the moon slunk out above them in a menacing cloud of eclipse;
And a mutter of distant thunder crept o'er the wandering foam.

Then the King stood up in the blood-stained prow of the
Raven and said,
"Who saved my life in the battle? He shall take to-night for his own
The Flower of the island women, a maiden, a queen to his bed;
With a sword, if they will, between them; but he shall not lie alone.
Who saved my life in the battle?" And the warriors with one breath
Answered: "Cormic Achanna; he saved the life of the King!"
When he slipped in the bloody grapple and screamed at the
feet of death
Achanna stood over the body and cleared a terrible ring,
Wheeling his battle-axe round him and shouting his own death-song;
For he deemed that fight was his last; but the red blood
splashed in his face
And the laughing madness was on him: there was no hell so strong
As the joy of the last great battle to the gloom of his ancient race.

"Who is the Flower of our women?" And Sorch the Singer rose
And touched his harp and sang as the ships went over the sea:
"Every star in the deep dim skies and every wind that blows
Has heard the name of Eilidh and the song it made for me;
Oh, fair as the fairest rose on earth her flowersweet face shall be,
This night of nights, oh star of the battle, this night of
nights for thee;
This night of nights for thee."

V

Eilidh, Eilidh, Silk o' the Kine,
Happy is he whose hand shall twine
Thy warm wild beauty of shadow and shine.
Eilidh, thy deep hair covers thee,
Like the glossy waves of a golden sea;
Oh, Eilidh, Eilidh, the sea is deep
That holds thy gold in its emerald keep.

This was the song that Sorch the Singer
Made one day as he saw her linger
Bathing in the dazzled sea
And looking backward wistfully
Over its infinite mystery;
With the cool white foam in the noonday heat
Murmuring sweetness over the sweet
Golden light of her golden feet,
And her deep hair shimmering down to her knee.

For once in the warm blue summer weather
He lay with his harp in the deep sweet heather,
And watched her white limbs glimmer and gleam
Out, far out, through the sea's eternal dream,
Swimming, with one bright arm like a wild sunbeam
Flashing and cleaving the warm wild emerald tide
That trembled and murmured and sobbed at her naked side,
And folded and moulded her beauty in sun-soft gold,
And swooned at her sweetness, and swiftly revived into cold
Clear currents of emerald rapture, again and again
Scattered a glory of kisses around her that broke into
rainbows and rain,
As over and under her blossoming breasts they rippled and
glistened and rolled.

VI

Eilidh, Eilidh, Silk o' the Kine,
Happy is he whose hand shall twine
Thy glossy beauty of shadow and shine.
Eilidh, thy deep hair covers thee
Like the warm wild waves of a golden sea;
Oh, Eilidh, Eilidh, a deep, deep sea,
A golden sea,
A deep, deep sea.

The King stood up in the crimson glow that gloomed in the
feasting hall,
"Achanna, to-night our island Rose, our Rose of the World is thine:"
And the smoky red of the rolling fire danced on the painted wall;
As she came through the midst of them, trembling, Eilidh,
Silk o' the Kine:
She came -- oh, white as a star when the moon is all in eclipse,
Through the broad-flung oak-rough limbs of the warriors
waiting the feast,
With the blackening blood on their hands and a mutter of
song on their lips,
And the hell still hot in their eyes, though the heavy
panting had ceased.

And the King laughed out: "Oh, Eilidh, go to Achanna thy lord,
Gladden his heart with thy beauty, take his hand in thine own;
To-night if he will you shall lay between you a two-edged sword,
But when the drinking is over he shall not lie alone."

And she stared in the face of the King as if in a dream she had heard
The voice of Isla her lover vainly trying to speak;
And her red lips curved and struggled like the wings of a
wounded bird, --
"Oh King, I am plighted," she whispered, and the rose awoke
in her cheek.

"Plighted!" he answered her roughly, with a thunder-cloud
on his brow,
For what was a maiden troth to him but a kiss of the flying hours?
"Plighted, Eilidh, Silk o' the Kine -- by God! you are plighted now
By more than the babble of lovers asleep on a bank of flowers."

"Plighted," she answered slowly. "Oh King, my love is my own,
And none can take it from me, not life, nor death, nor doom;
I am plighted, oh King," her low voice broke in a slow deep moan,
"I am plighted, oh King, plighted, by the child that moves
in my womb."

Then the King arose in his fury, and he saw that her girdle
was wried, --
"By God! you shall die together or tell me your lover's name:
His child shall be born in your anguish and clutch at your
writhen side;
Mother and child, you shall burn together, one torch in one
shrieking flame.
Tell me the name of the man!" The King's voice rang through the hall;
Then all was hushed, and never a whisper broke through the gloom
From the hard red lips of Eilidh where she stood before them all,
Proud and peerless and silent, awaiting the word of doom.
"Tell me the name of the man!" and the great doors opened wide,
And through the sprawling limbs of the feasters a light foot sped;
And suddenly Eilidh laughed out loud, for Isla was there at her side,
And her hand lay warm in his clasping hand; and she lifted
her beautiful head
High in the triumph of love that knows there is nothing to fear,
Now, in life or death, in earth or heaven or hell,
When the coil of the world is conquered and the very God draws near,
And touches the eyes of the soul with light, and whispers
"All is well."
And all was well with Isla; for now in the world's despite
The ache of remorse was over, and all the glory and pride
Of the earthly battle had vanished in the dawn of the boundless night,
And he stood with his love in the shadow of death as a
bridegroom with a bride.
Then all the crimson glow of the hall was hushed once more,
And Eilidh looked into Isla's face as they waited the word of death,
And only they heard, far off, on the desolate rockbound shore,
The sea like a peaceful sleeper drawing a slow deep breath;
Till as a tiger snarls with his foot on the bleeding prey
Slowly the savage lips of the King curled back and hissed:
"To-night you are ready to die; but to-night you shall go your way,
And dream of the death that is ready to feed on the mouth
you have kissed.
To-night you shall go to your lover and feed your love to the fill:
You shall play with his bleeding heart at dawn before he
burns at the stake;
Then Gloom Achanna shall take you for a night or a moon, if he will;
Go!" and the hall was hushed once more till they heard the
great sea break
Like a distant host of ransomed souls rushing away into peace,
Rushing away from the body of death in the last supreme release,
As Eilidh and Isla, hand in hand, passed through the silent hall,
Hand in hand through the gaping doors and into the starry light.
But Gloom Achanna envied Isla the love of that last brief night,
For he knew by the glory of Eilidh's eyes that love had conquered all.

VI

Never a boat could leave that isle for its watchful midnight guard;
But, when with isles of rose and green the golden east was barred,
A trembling herdsman came to the King at the dreadful break of day,
And said that, passing the hut in the heather where Eilidh
and Isla lay,
He thought to see them clasped and kissed in the waves of
her golden hair,
But the door was wide to the wind and the sea; and only
death was there.
For their couch of tawny fawn-skins was smoking wet and red;
And Gloom Achanna was huddled across it, haggard and warm and dead,
With the coverlet of the lovers for his reeking purple pall,
And the dagger of Eilidh deep in his heart, and the red sun over all.

Then Sorch the Singer came to the King as he stared in empty amaze
And said, "Oh King, as I watched the sun break through the
first gold haze,
I saw those lovers pass to the shore, hand in clasping hand;
And they cast their raiment from them there on the golden sand;
And they waded up to their golden knees in the clear green
waves, and there,
Clothed with the sun and the warm soft wind and Eilidh's golden hair,
Isla broke his sword and watched it heavily shimmering down
Through the lustrous emerald gleam to the seaflower forests
of dim deep brown.
And they kissed each other, once, on the mouth, and then,
as I stood in the heather,
I saw them, Eilidh and Isla, they swam out in the sunlight together:
Out, far out, through the golden glory that dazzled the
green of the bay:
Two strong swimmers were they, oh King, that swam out in
the sunlight together;
Whether they went to life or death, two strong swimmers were they:
Two strong swimmers were they."



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