- The Wanderings of Oisin
"The Wanderings of Oisin" is an epic poem published by
William Butler Yeats in 1889. It was his first publication outside of magazines, and immediately won him a reputation as a significant poet.The poem is a dialogue between the aged Irish hero
Oisín (pronounced Usheen) andSt. Patrick , the man traditionally responsible for converting Ireland toChristianity . Most of the poem is spoken by Oisin, relating his three-hundred year sojourn in the isles ofFaerie .Oisin has not been a popular poem with critics influenced by
modernism , who dislike itspre-Raphaelite character. However,Harold Bloom defended this poem in his book-length study of Yeats, and concludes that it deserves reconsideration.tory
The fairy princess
Niamh fell in love with Oisin's poetry and begged him to join her in the immortal islands. For a hundred years he lived as one of theSidhe , hunting, dancing, and feasting. At the end of this time he found a spear washed up on the shore and grew sad, remembering his times with the Fenians. Niamh took him away to another island, where the ancient and abandoned castle of the sea-godManannan stood. Here they found another woman held captive by a demon, whom Oisin battled again and again for a hundred years, until it was finally defeated. They then went to an island where ancient giants who had grown tired of the world long ago were sleeping until its end, and Niamh and Oisin slept and dreamt with them for a hundred years. Oisin then desired to return to Ireland to see his comrades. Niamh lent him her horse warning him that he must not touch the ground, or he would never return. Back in Ireland, Oisin, still a young man, found his warrior companions dead, and the pagan faith of Ireland displaced by Patrick's Christianity. He then saw two men struggling to carry a large boulder (or a large sack of sand, depending on the version). He bent down to lift it with one hand and hurl it away for them, but his saddle girth broke and he fell to the ground, becoming three hundred years old on the instant.The poem is told in three parts, with the verse becoming more complex with each: the lines run four, five, and six metrical feet respectively:
Book I
"You who are bent, and bald, and blind
"With a heavy heart and a wandering mind"Book II
"Now, man of the croziers, shadows called our names,
"And then away, away, like whirling flames"Book III
"Fled foam underneath us and round us, a wandering and milky smoke
"As high as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide."External links
[http://worldebooklibrary.com/eBooks/WorldeBookLibrary.com/oisin.htm The Wanderings of Oisin] at the World eBook Library
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