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diff --git a/old/53621-8.txt b/old/53621-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3a0895a..0000000 --- a/old/53621-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4612 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, by -Francis Ledwidge - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge - with Introductions by Lord Dunsany - -Author: Francis Ledwidge - -Release Date: November 28, 2016 [EBook #53621] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE POEMS--FRANCIS LEDWIDGE *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) -Images generously made available by the Internet Archive. - - - - - -THE COMPLETE POEMS - -OF - -FRANCIS LEDWIDGE - - -WITH INTRODUCTION - -BY LORD DUNSANY - - -HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED - -YORK STREET ST. JAMES'S - -LONDON S.W.1 - -MCMXIX - - - -TO - -MY MOTHER - -THE FIRST SINGER I KNEW - - - - -INTRODUCTION TO SONGS OF THE FIELDS - - -DUNSANY CASTLE, - -_June,_ 1914. - -If one who looked from a tower for a new star, watching for years the -same part of the sky, suddenly saw it (quite by chance while thinking -of other things), and knew it for the star for which he had hoped, how -many millions of men would never care? - -And the star might blaze over deserts and forests and seas, cheering -lost wanderers in desolate lands, or guiding dangerous quests; millions -would never know it. And a poet is no more than a star. If one has -arisen where I have so long looked for one, amongst the Irish peasants, -it can be little more than a secret that I shall share with those who -read this book because they care for poetry. - -I have looked for a poet amongst the Irish peasants because it seemed -to me that almost only amongst them there was in daily use a diction -worthy of poetry, as well a an imagination capable of dealing with the -great and simple things that are a poet's wares. Their thoughts are in -the spring-time, and all their metaphors fresh: in London no one makes -metaphors any more, but daily speech is strewn thickly with dead ones -that their users should write upon paper and give to their gardeners to -burn. - -In this same London, two years ago, where I was wasting June, I -received a letter one day from Mr. Ledwidge and a very old copy-book. -The letter asked whether there was any good in the verses that filled -the copy-book, the produce apparently of four or five years. It began -with a play in verse that no manager would dream of, there were -mistakes in grammar, in spelling of course, and worse--there were such -phrases as "'thwart the rolling foam," "waiting for my true love on -the lea," etc., which are vulgarly considered to be the appurtenances -of poetry; but out of these and many similar errors there arose -continually, like a mountain sheer out of marshes, that easy fluency of -shapely lines which is now so noticeable in all that he writes; that -and sudden glimpses of the fields that he seems at times to bring so -near to one that one exclaims, "Why, that is how Meath looks," or "It -is just like that along the Boyne in April," quite taken by surprise by -familiar things: for none of us knows, till the poets point them out, -how many beautiful things are close about us. - -Of pure poetry there are two kinds, that which mirrors the beauty of -the world in which our bodies are, and that which builds the more -mysterious kingdoms where geography ends and fairyland begins, with -gods and heroes at war, and the sirens singing still, and Alph going -down to the darkness from Xanadu. Mr. Ledwidge gives us the first -kind. When they have read through the profounder poets, and seen the -problem plays, and studied all the perplexities that puzzle man in the -cities, the small circle of readers that I predict for him will turn to -Ledwidge as to a mirror reflecting beautiful fields, as to a very still -lake rather on a very cloudless evening. - -There is scarcely a smile of Spring or a sigh of Autumn that is not -reflected here, scarcely a phase of the large benedictions of Summer; -even of Winter he gives us clear glimpses sometimes, albeit mournfully, -remembering Spring. - - "In the red west the twisted moon is low, - And on the bubbles there are half-lit stars, - Music and twilight: and the deep blue flow - Of water: and the watching fire of Mars. - The deep fish slipping through the moonlit bars - Make death a thing of sweet dreams,--" - -What a Summer's evening is here. - -And this is a Summer's night in a much longer poem that I have not -included in this selection, a summer's night seen by two lovers: - - "The large moon rose up queenly as a flower - Charmed by some Indian pipes. A hare went by, - A snipe above them circled in the sky." - -And elsewhere he writes, giving us the mood and picture of Autumn in a -single line: - - "And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown." - -With such simple scenes as this the book is full, giving nothing at all -to those that look for a "message," but bringing a feeling of quiet -from gleaming Irish evenings, a book to read between the Strand and -Piccadilly Circus amidst the thunder and hootings. - -To every poet is given the revelation of some living thing so intimate -that he speaks, when he speaks of it, as an ambassador speaking for his -sovereign; with Homer it was the heroes, with Ledwidge it is the small -birds that sing, but in particular especially the blackbird, whose -cause he champions against all other birds almost with a vehemence -such as that with which men discuss whether Mr. ----, M. P., or his -friend the Right Honourable ---- is really the greater ruffian. This -is how he speaks of the blackbird in one of his earliest poems; he was -sixteen when he wrote it, in a grocer's shop in Dublin, dreaming of -Slane, where he was born; and his dreams turned out to be too strong -for the grocery business, for he walked home one night, a distance of -thirty miles: - - "Above me smokes the little town - With its whitewashed walls and roofs of brown - And its octagon spire toned smoothly down - As the holy minds within. - And wondrous, impudently sweet, - Half of him passion, half conceit, - The blackbird calls adown the street, - Like the piper of Hamelin." - -Let us not call him the Burns of Ireland, you who may like this book, -nor even the Irish John Clare, though he is more like him, for poets -are all incomparable (it is only the versifiers that resemble the great -ones), but let us know him by his own individual song: he is the poet -of the blackbird. - -I hope that not too many will be attracted to this book on account -of the author being a peasant, lest he come to be praised by the -how-interesting! school; for know that neither in any class, nor in any -country, nor in any age, shall you predict the footfall of Pegasus, who -touches the earth where he pleaseth and is bridled by whom he will. - -DUNSANY. - -_June, 1914._ - - - -BASINGSTOKE CAMP. - -I wrote this preface in such a different June, that if I sent it out -with no addition it would make the book appear to have dropped a long -while since out of another world, a world that none of us remembers -now, in which there used to be leisure. - -Ledwidge came last October into the 5th Battalion of the Royal -Inniskilling Fusiliers, which is in one of the divisions of Kitchener's -first army, and soon earned a lance-corporal's stripe. - -All his future books lie on the knees of the gods. May They not be the -only readers. - -Any well-informed spy can probably tell you our movements, so of such -things I say nothing. - - DUNSANY, _Captain,_ - _5th R. Inniskilling Fusiliers._ -_June, 1915._ - - - - -INTRODUCTION TO SONGS OF PEACE - - -EBRINGTON BARRACKS, - -_September,_ 1916. - -In this selection that Corporal Ledwidge has asked me to make from his -poems I have included "A Dream of Artemis," though it was incomplete -and has been hurriedly finished Were it not included on that account -many lines of extraordinary beauty would remain unseen. He asked me if -I did not think that it ended too abruptly, but so many pleasant things -ended abruptly in the summer of 1914, when this poem was being written, -that the blame for that may rest on a meaner, though more, exalted, -head than that of the poet. - -In this poem, as in the other one that has a classical theme, "The -Departure of Proserpine," those who remember their classics may find -faults, but I read the "Dream of Artemis" merely as an expression of -things that the poet has seen and dreamed in Meath, including a most -beautiful description of a fox-hunt in the north of the county, in -which he has probably taken part on foot; and in "The Departure of -Proserpine," whether conscious or not, a crystallization in verse of -an autumnal mood induced by falling leaves and exile and the possible -nearness of death. - -The second poem in the book was written about a little boy who used -to drive cows for some farmer past the poet's door very early every -morning, whistling as he went, and who died just before the war. I -think that its beautiful and spontaneous simplicity would cost some of -our writers gallons of midnight oil. - -Of the next, "To a Distant One," who will not hope that when "Fame and -other little things are won" its clear and confident prophecy will be -happily fulfilled? - -Quite perfect, if my judgment is of any value, is the little poem on -page 175, "In the Mediterranean--Going to the War." - -Another beautiful thing is "Homecoming" on page 192. - - "The sheep are coming home in Greece, - Hark the bells on every hill, - Flock by flock and fleece by fleece." - -One feels that the Greeks are of some use, after all, to have -inspired--with the help of their sheep--so lovely a poem. - -"The Shadow People" on page 205 seems to me another perfect poem. -Written in Serbia and Egypt, it shows the poet still looking -steadfastly at those fields, though so far distant then, of which he -was surely born to be the singer. And this devotion to the fields of -Meath that, in nearly all his songs, from such far places brings his -spirit home, like the instinct that has been given to the swallows, -seems to be the key-note of the book. For this reason I have named it -_Songs of Peace,_ in spite of the circumstances under which they were -written. - -There follow poems at which some may wonder: "To Thomas McDonagh," "The -Blackbirds," "The Wedding Morning"; but rather than attribute curious -sympathies to this brave young Irish soldier I would ask his readers to -consider the irresistible attraction that a lost cause has for almost -any Irish-man. - -Once the swallow instinct appears again--in the poem called "The -Lure"--and a longing for the South, and again in the poem called -"Song": and then the Irish fields content him again, and we find him -on the last page but one in the book making a poem for a little place -called Faughan, because he finds that its hills and woods and streams -are unsung. Surely for this if there be, as many believed, gods lesser -than Those whose business is with destiny, thunder and war, small gods -that haunt the groves, seen only at times by few, and then indistinctly -at evening, surely from gratitude they will give him peace. - - DUNSANY - - - - -INTRODUCTION TO LAST SONGS - - -THE HINDENBERG LINE, - -_October 9th,_ 1917. - -Writing amidst rather too much noise and squalor to do justice at all -to the delicate rustic muse of Francis Ledwidge, I do not like to delay -his book any longer, nor to fail in a promise long ago made to him to -write this introduction. He has gone down in that vast maelstrom into -which poets do well to adventure and from which their country might -perhaps be wise to withhold them, but that is our Country's affair. He -has left behind him verses of great beauty, simple rural lyrics that -may be something of an anodyne for this stricken age. If ever an age -needed beautiful little songs our age needs them; and I know few songs -more peaceful and happy, or better suited to soothe the scars on the -mind of those who have looked on certain places, of which the prophecy -in the gospels seems no more than an ominous hint when it speaks of the -abomination of desolation. - -He told me once that it was on one particular occasion, when walking -at evening through the village of Slane in summer, that he heard a -blackbird sing. The notes, he said, were very beautiful, and it is -this blackbird that he tells of in three wonderful lines in his early -poem called "Behind the Closed Eye," and it is this song perhaps more -than anything else that has been the inspiration of his brief life. -Dynasties shook and the earth shook; and the war, not yet described by -any man, revelled and wallowed in destruction around him; and Francis -Ledwidge stayed true to his inspiration, as his homeward songs will -show. - -I had hoped he would have seen the fame he has well deserved; but it is -hard for a poet to live to see fame even in times of peace. In these -days it is harder than ever. - - DUNSANY. - - - - CONTENTS - - - SONGS OF THE FIELDS - - TO MY BEST FRIEND - BEHIND THE CLOSED EYE - BOUND TO THE MAST - To A LINNET IN A CAGE - A TWILIGHT IN MIDDLE MARCH - SPRING - DESIRE IN SPRING - A RAINY DAY IN APRIL - A SONG OF APRIL - THE BROKEN TRYST - THOUGHTS AT THE TRYSTING STILE - EVENING IN MAY - AN ATTEMPT AT A CITY SUNSET - WAITING - THE SINGER'S MUSE - INAMORATA - THE WIFE OF LLEW - THE HILLS - JUNE - IN MANCHESTER - Music ON WATER - To M. McG. - IN THE DUSK - THE DEATH OF AILILL - AUGUST - THE VISITATION OF PEACE - BEFORE THE TEARS - GOD'S REMEMBRANCE - AN OLD PAIN - THE LOST ONES - ALL-HALLOWS EVE - A MEMORY - A SONG - A FEAR - THE COMING POET - THE VISION ON THE BRINK - To LORD DUNSANY - ON AN OATEN STRAW - EVENING IN FEBRUARY - THE SISTER - BEFORE THE WAR OF COOLEY - LOW-MOON LAND - THE SORROW OF FINDEBAR - ON DREAM WATER - THE DEATH OF SUALTEM - THE MAID IN LOW-MOON LAND - THE DEATH OF LEAG, CUCHULAIN'S CHARIOTEER - THE PASSING OF CAOILTE - GROWING OLD - AFTER MY LAST SONG - - SONGS OF PEACE - - AT HOME - - A DREAM OF ARTEMIS - A LITTLE BOY IN THE MORNING - - IN BARRACKS - - TO A DISTANT ONE - THE PLACE - MAY - TO ELLISH OF THE FAIR HAIR - - IN CAMP - - CREWBAWN - EVENING IN ENGLAND - - AT SEA - - CROCKNAHARNA - IN THE MEDITERRANEAN--GOING TO THE WAR - THE GARDENER - - IN SERBIA - - AUTUMN EVENING IN SERBIA - NOCTURNE - SPRING AND AUTUMN - - IN GREECE - - THE DEPARTURE OF PROSERPINE - THE HOME-COMING OF THE SHEEP - WHEN LOVE AND BEAUTY WANDER AWAY - - IN HOSPITAL IN EGYPT - - MY MOTHER - SONG - To ONE DEAD - THE RESURRECTION - THE SHADOW PEOPLE - - IN BARRACKS - - AN OLD DESIRE - THOMAS McDONAGH - THE WEDDING MORNING - THE BLACKBIRDS - THE LURE - THRO' BOGAC BAN - FATE - EVENING CLOUDS - SONG - THE HERONS - IN THE SHADOWS - THE SHIPS OF ARCADY - AFTER - To ONE WEEPING - A DREAM DANCE - BY FAUGHAN - IN SEPTEMBER - - LAST SONGS - - To AN OLD QUILL OF LORD DUNSANY'S - To A SPARROW - OLD CLO' - YOUTH - THE LITTLE CHILDREN - AUTUMN - IRELAND - LADY FAIR - AT A POET'S GRAVE - AFTER COURT MARTIAL - A MOTHER'S SONG - AT CURRABWEE - SONG-TIME IS OVER - UNA BAWN - SPRING LOVE - SOLILOQUY - DAWN - CEOL SIDHE - THE RUSHES - THE DEAD KINGS - IN FRANCE - HAD I A GOLDEN POUND - FAIRIES - IN A CAFÉ - SPRING - PAN - WITH FLOWERS - THE FIND - A FAIRY HUNT - TO ONE WHO COMES NOW AND THEN - THE SYLPH - HOME - THE LANAWN SHEE - - - - - SONGS OF THE FIELDS - - - - - TO MY BEST FRIEND - - - I love the wet-lipped wind that stirs the hedge - And kisses the bent flowers that drooped for rain, - That stirs the poppy on the sun-burned ledge - And like a swan dies singing, without pain. - The golden bees go buzzing down to stain - The lilies' frills, and the blue harebell rings, - And the sweet blackbird in the rainbow sings. - - Deep in the meadows I would sing a song, - The shallow brook my tuning-fork, the birds - My masters; and the boughs they hop along - Shall mark my time: but there shall be no words - For lurking Echo's mock; an angel herds - Words that I may not know, within, for you, - Words for the faithful meet, the good and true. - - - - - BEHIND THE CLOSED EYE - - - I walk the old frequented ways - That wind around the tangled braes, - I live again the sunny days - Ere I the city knew. - - And scenes of old again are born, - The woodbine lassoing the thorn, - And drooping Ruth-like in the corn - The poppies weep the dew. - - Above me in their hundred schools - The magpies bend their young to rules, - And like an apron full of jewels - The dewy cobweb swings. - - And frisking in the stream below - The troutlets make the circles flow, - And the hungry crane doth watch them grow - As a smoker does his rings. - - Above me smokes the little town, - With its whitewashed walls and roofs of brown - And its octagon spire toned smoothly down - As the holy minds within. - - And wondrous impudently sweet, - Half of him passion, half conceit, - The blackbird calls adown the street - Like the piper of Hamelin. - - I hear him, and I feel the lure - Drawing me back to the homely moor, - I'll go and close the mountains' door - On the city's strife and din. - - - - - BOUND TO THE MAST - - - When mildly falls the deluge of the grass, - And meads begin to rise like Noah's flood, - And o'er the hedgerows flow, and onward pass, - Dribbling thro' many a wood; - When hawthorn trees their flags of truce unfurl, - And dykes are spitting violets to the breeze; - When meadow larks their jocund flight will curl - From Earth's to Heaven's leas; - - Ah! then the poet's dreams are most sublime, - A-sail on seas that know a heavenly calm, - And in his song you hear the river's rhyme, - And the first bleat of the lamb. - Then when the summer evenings fall serene, - Unto the country dance his songs repair, - And you may meet some maids with angel mien, - Bright eyes and twilight hair. - - When Autumn's crayon tones the green leaves sere, - And breezes honed on icebergs hurry past; - When meadow-tides have ebbed and woods grow drear, - And bow before the blast; - When briars make semicircles on the way; - When blackbirds hide their flutes and cower and die; - When swollen rivers lose themselves and stray - Beneath a murky sky; - - Then doth the poet's voice like cuckoo's break, - And round his verse the hungry lapwing grieves, - And melancholy in his dreary wake - The funeral of the leaves. - Then when the Autumn dies upon the plain, - Wound in the snow alike his right and wrong, - The poet sings,--albeit a sad strain,-- - Bound to the Mast of Song. - - - - - TO A LINNET IN A CAGE - - - When Spring is in the fields that stained your wing, - And the blue distance is alive with song, - And finny quiets of the gabbling spring - Rock lilies red and long, - At dewy daybreak, I will set you free - In ferny turnings of the woodbine lane, - Where faint-voiced echoes leave and cross in glee - The hilly swollen plain. - - In draughty houses you forget your tune, - The modulator of the changing hours. - You want the wide air of the moody noon. - And the slanting evening showers. - So I will loose you, and your song shall fall - When morn is white upon the dewy pane, - Across my eyelids, and my soul recall - From worlds of sleeping pain. - - - - - A TWILIGHT IN MIDDLE MARCH - - - Within the oak a throb of pigeon wings - Fell silent, and grey twilight hushed the fold, - And spiders' hammocks swung on half-oped things - That shook like foreigners upon our cold. - A gipsy lit a fire and made a sound - Of moving tins, and from an oblong moon - The river seemed to gush across the ground - To the cracked metre of a marching tune. - - And then three syllables of melody - Dropped from a blackbird's flute, and died apart - Far in the dewy dark. No more but three, - Yet sweeter music never touched a heart - Neath the blue domes of London. Flute and reed, - Suggesting feelings of the solitude - When will was all the Delphi I would heed, - Lost like a wind within a summer wood - From little knowledge where great sorrows brood. - - - - - SPRING - - - The dews drip roses on the meadows - Where the meek daisies dot the sward. - And Ćolus whispers through the shadows, - "Behold the handmaid of the Lord!" - The golden news the skylark waketh - And 'thwart the heavens his flight is curled; - Attend ye as the first note breaketh - And chrism droppeth on the world. - - The velvet dusk still haunts the stream - Where Pan makes music light and gay. - The mountain mist hath caught a beam - And slowly weeps itself away. - The young leaf bursts its chrysalis - And gem-like hangs upon the bough, - Where the mad throstle sings in bliss - O'er earth's rejuvenated brow. - - ENVOI - - Slowly fall, O golden sands, - Slowly fall and let me sing, - Wrapt in the ecstasy of youth, - The wild delights of Spring. - - - - - DESIRE IN SPRING - - - I love the cradle songs the mothers sing - In lonely places when the twilight drops, - The slow endearing melodies that bring - Sleep to the weeping lids; and, when she stops, - I love the roadside birds upon the tops - Of dusty hedges in a world of Spring. - - And when the sunny rain drips from the edge - Of midday wind, and meadows lean one way, - And a long whisper passes thro' the sedge, - Beside the broken water let me stay, - While these old airs upon my memory play. - And silent changes colour up the hedge. - - - - - A RAINY DAY IN APRIL - - - When the clouds shake their hyssops, and the rain - Like holy water falls upon the plain, - 'Tis sweet to gaze upon the springing grain - And see your harvest born. - - And sweet the little breeze of melody, - The blackbird puffs upon the budding tree, - While the wild poppy lights upon the lea - And blazes 'mid the corn. - - The skylark soars the freshening shower to hail, - And the meek daisy holds aloft her pail, - And Spring all radiant by the wayside pale, - Sets up her rock and reel. - - See how she weaves her mantle fold on fold, - Hemming the woods and carpeting the wold. - Her warp is of the green, her woof the gold, - The spinning world her wheel. - - By'n by above the hills a pilgrim moon - Will rise to light upon the midnight noon, - But still she plieth to the lonesome tune - Of the brown meadow rail. - - No heavy dreams upon her eyelids weigh, - Nor do her busy fingers ever stay; - She knows a fairy prince is on the way - To wake a sleeping beauty. - - To deck the pathway that his feet must tread, - To fringe the 'broidery of the roses' bed, - To show the Summer she but sleeps,--not dead, - This is her fixed duty. - - - ENVOI - - To-day while leaving my dear home behind, - My eyes with salty homesick teardrops blind, - The rain fell on me sorrowful and kind - Like angels' tears of pity. - - 'Twas then I heard the small birds' melodies, - And saw the poppies' bonfire on the leas, - As Spring came whispering thro' the leafing trees - Giving to me my ditty. - - - - - A SONG OF APRIL - - - The censer of the eglantine was moved - By little lane winds, and the watching faces - Of garden flowerets, which of old she loved, - Peep shyly outward from their silent places. - But when the sun arose the flowers grew bolder, - And site will be in white, I thought, and she - Will have a cuckoo on her either shoulder, - And woodbine twines and fragrant wings of pea. - - And I will meet her on the hills of South, - And I will lead her to a northern water, - My wild one, the sweet beautiful uncouth, - The eldest maiden of the Winter's daughter. - And down the rainbows of her noon shall slide - Lark music, and the little sunbeam people, - And nomad wings shall fill the river side, - And ground winds rocking in the lily's steeple. - - - - - THE BROKEN TRYST - - - The dropping words of larks, the sweetest tongue - That sings between the dusks, tell all of you; - The bursting white of Peace is all along - Wing-ways, and pearly droppings of the dew - Emberyl the cobwebs' greyness, and the blue - Of hiding violets, watching for your face, - Listen for you in every dusky place. - - You will not answer when I call your name, - But in the fog of blossom do you hide - To change my doubts into a red-faced shame - By'n by when you are laughing by my side? - Or will you never come, or have you died, - And I in anguish have forgotten all? - And shall the world now end and the heavens fall? - - - - - THOUGHTS AT THE TRYSTING STILE - - - Come, May, and hang a white flag on each thorn, - Make truce with earth and heaven; the April child - Now hides her sulky face deep in the morn - Of your new flowers by the water wild - And in the ripples of the rising grass, - And rushes bent to let the south wind pass - On with her tumult of swift nomad wings, - And broken domes of downy dandelion. - Only in spasms now the blackbird sings. - The hour is all a-dream. - Nets of woodbine - Throw woven shadows over dreaming flowers, - And dreaming, a bee-luring lily bends - Its tender bell where blue dyke-water cowers - Thro' briars, and folded ferns, and gripping ends - Of wild convolvulus. - The lark's sky-way - Is desolate. - I watch an apple-spray - Beckon across a wall as if it knew - I wait the calling of the orchard maid. - - Inly I feel that she will come in blue, - With yellow on her hair, and two curls strayed - Out of her comb's loose stocks, and I shall steal - Behind and lay my hands upon her eyes, - "Look not, but be my Psyche!" - And her peal - Of laughter will ring far, and as she tries - For freedom I will call her names of flowers - That climb up walls; then thro' the twilight hours - We'll talk about the loves of ancient queens, - And kisses like wasp-honey, false and sweet, - And how we are entangled in love's snares - Like wind-looped flowers. - - - - - EVENING IN MAY - - - There is nought tragic here, tho' night uplifts - A narrow curtain where the footlights burned, - But one long act where Love each bold heart sifts - And blushes in the dark, but has not spurned - The strong resolve of noon. The maiden's head - Is brown upon the shoulder of her youth, - Hearts are exchanged, long pent up words are said, - Blushes burn out at the long tale of truth. - - The blackbird blows his yellow flute so strong, - And rolls away the notes in careless glee, - It breaks the rhythm of the thrushes' song, - And puts red shame upon his rivalry. - The yellowhammers on the roof tiles beat - Sweet little dulcimers to broken time, - And here the robin with a heart replete - Has all in one short plagiarised rhyme. - - - - - AN ATTEMPT AT A CITY SUNSET - - (TO J. K. Q.) - - - There was a quiet glory in the sky - When thro' the gables sank the large red sun, - And toppling mounts of rugged cloud went by - Heavy with whiteness, and the moon had won - Her way above the woods, with her small star - Behind her like the cuckoo's little mother.... - It was the hour when visions from some far - Strange Eastern dreams like twilight bats take wing - Out of the ruin of memories. - O brother - Of high song, wand'ring where the Muses fling - Rich gifts as prodigal as winter rain, - Like stepping-stones within a swollen river - The hidden words are sounding in my brain, - Too wild for taming; and I must for ever - Think of the hills upon the wilderness, - And leave the city sunset to your song. - For there I am a stranger like the trees - That sigh upon the traffic all day long. - - - - - WAITING - - - A strange old woman on the wayside sate, - Looked far away and shook her head and sighed. - And when anon, close by, a rusty gate - Loud on the warm winds cried, - She lifted up her eyes and said, "You're late." - Then shook her head and sighed. - - And evening found her thus, and night in state - Walked thro' the starlight, and a heavy tide - Followed the yellow moon around her wait, - And morning walked in wide. - She lifted up her eyes and said, "You're late." - Then shook her head and sighed. - - - - - THE SINGER'S MUSE - - - I brought in these to make her kitchen sweet, - Haw blossoms and the roses of the lane. - Her heart seemed in her eyes so wild they beat - With welcome for the boughs of Spring again. - She never heard of Babylon or Troy, - She read no book, but once saw Dublin town; - Yet she made a poet of her servant boy - And from Parnassus earned the laurel crown. - - If Fame, the Gorgon, turns me into stone - Upon some city square, let someone place - Thorn blossoms and lane roses newly blown - Beside my feet, and underneath them trace: - "His heart was like a bookful of girls' song, - With little loves and mighty Care's alloy. - These did he bring his muse, and suffered long, - Her bashful singer and her servant boy." - - - - - INAMORATA - - - The bees were holding levees in the flowers, - Do you remember how each puff of wind - Made every wing a hum? My hand in yours - Was listening to your heart, but now - The glory is all faded, and I find - No more the olden mystery of the hours - When you were lovely and our hearts would bow - Each to the will of each, but one bright day - Is stretching like an isthmus in a bay - From the glad years that I have left behind. - - I look across the edge of things that were - And you are lovely in the April ways, - Holy and mute, the sigh of my despair.... - I hear once more the linnets' April tune - Beyond the rainbow's warp, as in the days - You brought me facefuls of your smiles to share - Some of your new-found wonders.... Oh when soon - I'm wandering the wide seas for other lands, - Sometimes remember me with folded hands, - And keep me happy in your pious prayer. - - - - - THE WIFE OF LLEW - - - And Gwydion said to Math, when it was Spring: - "Come now and let us make a wife for Llew." - And so they broke broad boughs yet moist with dew, - And in a shadow made a magic ring: - They took the violet and the meadow-sweet - To form her pretty face, and for her feet - They built a mound of daisies on a wing, - And for her voice they made a linnet sing - In the wide poppy blowing for her mouth. - And over all they chanted twenty hours. - And Llew came singing from the azure south - And bore away his wife of birds and flowers. - - - - - THE HILLS - - - The hills are crying from the fields to me, - And calling me with music from a choir - Of waters in their woods where I can see - The bloom unfolded on the whins like fire. - And, as the evening moon climbs ever higher - And blots away the shadows from the slope, - They cry to me like things devoid of hope. - - Pigeons are home. Day droops. The fields are cold. - Now a slow wind comes labouring up the sky - With a small cloud long steeped in sunset gold, - Like Jason with the precious fleece anigh - The harbour of Iolcos. Day's bright eye - Is filmed with the twilight, and the rill - Shines like a scimitar upon the hill. - - And moonbeams drooping thro' the coloured wood - Are full of little people winged white. - I'll wander thro' the moon-pale solitude - That calls across the intervening night - With river voices at their utmost height, - Sweet as rain-water in the blackbird's flute - That strikes the world in admiration mute. - - - - - JUNE - - - Broom out the floor now, lay the fender by, - And plant this bee-sucked bough of woodbine there, - And let the window down. The butterfly - Floats in upon the sunbeam, and the fair - Tanned face of June, the nomad gipsy, laughs - Above her widespread wares, the while she tells - The farmers' fortunes in the fields, and quaffs - The water from the spider-peopled wells. - - The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas, - And bobbing poppies flare like Elmor's light, - While siren-like the pollen-stainéd bees - Drone in the clover depths. And up the height - The cuckoo's voice is hoarse and broke with joy. - And on the lowland crops the crows make raid, - Nor fear the clappers of the farmer's boy, - Who sleeps, like drunken Noah, in the shade. - - And loop this red rose in that hazel ring - That snares your little ear, for June is short - And we must joy in it and dance and sing, - And from her bounty draw her rosy worth. - Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south, - The wind wheel north to gather in the snow, - Even the roses spilt on youth's red mouth - Will soon blow down the road all roses go. - - - - - IN MANCHESTER - - - There is a noise of feet that move in sin - Under the side-faced moon here where I stray, - Want by me like a Nemesis. The din - Of noon is in my ears, but far away - My thoughts are, where Peace shuts the black-birds' wings - And it is cherry time by all the springs. - - And this same moon floats like a trail of fire - Down the long Boyne, and darts white arrows thro' - The mill wood; her white skirt is on the weir, - She walks thro' crystal mazes of the dew, - And rests awhile upon the dewy slope - Where I will hope again the old, old hope. - - With wandering we are worn my muse and I, - And, if I sing, my song knows nought of mirth. - I often think my soul is an old lie - In sackcloth, it repents so much of birth. - But I will build it yet a cloister home - Near the peace of lakes when I have ceased to roam. - - - - - MUSIC ON WATER - - - Where does Remembrance weep when we forget? - From whither brings she back an old delight? - Why do we weep that once we laughed? and yet - Why are we sad that once our hearts were light? - I sometimes think the days that we made bright - Are damned within us, and we hear them yell, - Deep in the solitude of that wide hell, - Because we welcome in some new regret. - - I will remember with sad heart next year - This music and this water, but to-day - Let me be part of all this joy. My ear - Caught far-off music which I bid away, - The light of one fair face that fain would stay - Upon the heart's broad canvas, as the Face - On Mary's towel, lighting up the place. - Too sad for joy, too happy for a tear. - - Methinks I see the music like a light - Low on the bobbing water, and the fields - Yellow and brown alternate on the height, - Hanging in silence there like battered shields, - Lean forward heavy with their coloured yields - As if they paid it homage; and the strains, - Prisoners of Echo, up the sunburnt plains - Fade on the cross-cut to a future night. - - In the red West the twisted moon is low, - And on the bubbles there are half-lit stars: - Music and twilight and the deep blue flow - Of water: and the watching fire of Mars: - The deep fish slipping thro' the moonlit bars - Make Death a thing of sweet dreams, life a mock. - And the soul patient by the heart's loud clock - Watches the time, and thinks it wondrous slow. - - - - - TO M. McG. - - - (WHO CAME ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE ALL - GLOOMY AND CHEERED US WITH SAD MUSIC) - - - We were all sad and could not weep, - Because our sorrow had not tears: - You came a silent thing like Sleep, - And stole away our fears. - - Old memories knocking at each heart - Troubled us with the world's great lie: - You sat a little way apart - And made a fiddle cry, - - And April with her sunny showers - Came laughing up the fields again: - White wings went flashing thro' the hours - So lately full of pain. - - And rivers full of little lights - Came down the fields of waving green: - Our immemorial delights - Stole in on us unseen. - - For this may Good Luck let you loose - Upon her treasures many years, - And Peace unfurl her flag of truce - To any threat'ning fears. - - - - - IN THE DUSK - - - Day hangs its light between two dusks, my heart, - Always beyond the dark there is the blue. - Sometime we'll leave the dark, myself and you, - And revel in the light for evermore. - But the deep pain of you is aching smart, - And a long calling weighs upon you sore. - - Day hangs its light between two dusks, and song - Is there at the beginning and the end. - You, in the singing dusk, how could you wend - The songless way Contentment fleetly wings? - But in the dark your beauty shall be strong, - Tho' only one should listen how it sings. - - - - - THE DEATH OF AILILL - - - When there was heard no more the war's loud sound, - And only the rough corn-crake filled the hours, - And hill winds in the furze and drowsy flowers, - Maeve in her chamber with her white head bowed - On Ailill's heart was sobbing: "I have found - The way to love you now," she said, and he - Winked an old tear away and said: "The proud - Unyielding heart loves never." And then she: - "I love you now, tho' once when we were young - We walked apart like two who were estranged - Because I loved you not, now all is changed." - And he who loved her always called her name - And said: "You do not love me, 'tis your tongue - Talks in the dusk; you love the blazing gold - Won in the battles, and the soldier's fame. - You love the stories that are often told - By poets in the hall." Then Maeve arose - And sought her daughter Findebar: "O, child, - Go tell your father that my love went wild - With all my wars in youth, and say that now - I love him stronger than I hate my foes...." - And Findebar unto her father sped - And touched him gently on the rugged brow, - And knew by the cold touch that he was dead. - - - - - AUGUST - - - She'll come at dusky first of day, - White over yellow harvest's song. - Upon her dewy rainbow way - She shall be beautiful and strong. - The lidless eye of noon shall spray - Tan on her ankles in the hay, - Shall kiss her brown the whole day long. - - I'll know her in the windrows, tall - Above the crickets of the hay. - I'll know her when her odd eyes fall, - One May-blue, one November-grey. - I'll watch her from the red barn wall - Take down her rusty scythe, and call, - And I will follow her away. - - - - - THE VISITATION OF PEACE - - - I closed the book of verse where Sorrow wept - Above Love's broken fane where Hope once prayed, - And thought of old trysts broken and trysts kept - Only to chide my fondness. Then I strayed - Down a green coil of lanes where murmuring wings - Moved up and down like lights upon the sea, - Searching for calm amid untroubled things - Of wood and water. The industrious bee - Sang in his barn within the hollow beech, - And in a distant haggard a loud mill - Hummed like a war of hives. A whispered speech - Of corn and wind was on the yellow hill, - And tattered scarecrows nodded their assent - And waved their arms like orators. The brown - Nude beauty of the Autumn sweetly bent - Over the woods, across the little town. - - I sat in a retreating shade beside - The river, where it fell across a weir - Like a white mane, and in a flourish wide - Roars by an island field and thro' a tier - Of leaning sallies, like an avenue - When the moon's flambeau hunts the shadows out - And strikes the borders white across the dew. - Where little ringlets ended, the fleet trout - Fed on the water moths. A marsh hen crossed - On flying wings and swimming feet to where - Her mate was in the rushes forest, tossed - On the heaving dusk like swallows in the air. - - Beyond the river a walled rood of graves - Hung dead with all its hemlock wan and sere, - Save where the wall was broken and long waves - Of yellow grass flowed outward like a weir, - As if the dead were striving for more room - And their old places in the scheme of things; - For sometimes the thought comes that the brown tomb - Is not the end of all our labourings, - But we are born once more of wind and rain, - To sow the world with harvest young and strong, - That men may live by men 'til the stars wane, - And still sweet music fill the blackbird's song. - - But O for truths about the soul denied. - Shall I meet Keats in some wild isle of balm, - Dreaming beside a tarn where green and wide - Boughs of sweet cinnamon protect the calm - Of the dark water? And together walk - Thro' hills with dimples full of water where - White angels rest, and all the dead years talk - About the changes of the earth? Despair - Sometimes takes hold of me but yet I hope - To hope the old hope in the better times - When I am free to cast aside the rope - That binds me to all sadness 'till my rhymes - Cry like lost birds. But O, if I should die - Ere this millennium, and my hands be crossed - Under the flowers I loved, the passers-by - Shall scowl at me as one whose soul is lost. - - But a soft peace came to me when the West - Shut its red door and a thin streak of moon - Was twisted on the twilight's dusky breast. - It wrapped me up as sometimes a sweet tune - Heard for the first time wraps the scenes around, - That we may have their memories when some hand - Strikes it in other times and hopes unbound - Rising see clear the everlasting land. - - - - - BEFORE THE TEARS - - - You looked as sad as an eclipséd moon - Above the sheaves of harvest, and there lay - A light lisp on your tongue, and very soon - The petals of your deep blush fell away; - White smiles that come with an uneasy grace - From inner sorrow crossed your forehead fair, - When the wind passing took your scattered hair - And flung it like a brown shower in my face. - - Tear-fringéd winds that fill the heart's low sighs - And never break upon the bosom's pain, - But blow unto the windows of the eyes - Their misty promises of silver rain, - Around your loud heart ever rose and fell. - I thought 'twere better that the tears should come - And strike your every feeling wholly numb, - So thrust my hand in yours and shook fare-well. - - - - - GOD'S REMEMBRANCE - - - There came a whisper from the night to me - Like music of the sea, a mighty breath - From out the valley's dewy mouth, and Death - Shook his lean bones, and every coloured tree - Wept in the fog of morning. From the town - Of nests among the branches one old crow - With gaps upon his wings flew far away. - And, thinking of the golden summer glow, - I heard a blackbird whistle half his lay - Among the spinning leaves that slanted down. - - And I who am a thought of God's now long - Forgotten in His Mind, and desolate - With other dreams long over, as a gate - Singing upon the wind the anvil song, - Sang of the Spring when first He dreamt of me - In that old town all hills and signs that creak:-- - And He remembered me as something far - In old imaginations, something weak - With distance, like a little sparking star - Drowned in the lavender of evening sea. - - - - - AN OLD PAIN - - - What old, old pain is this that bleeds anew? - What old and wandering dream forgotten long - Hobbles back to my mind? With faces two, - Like Janus of old Rome, I look about, - And yet discover not what ancient wrong - Lies unrequited still. No speck of doubt - Upon to-morrow's promise. Yet a pain - Of some dumb thing is on me, and I feel - How men go mad, how faculties do reel - When these old querns turn round within the brain. - - 'Tis something to have known one day of joy, - Now to remember when the heart is low, - An antidote of thought that will destroy - The asp bite of Regret. Deep will I drink - By'n by the purple cups that overflow, - And fill the shattered heart's urn to the brink. - But some are dead who laughed! Some scattered are - Around the sultry breadth of foreign zones. - You, with the warm clay wrapt about your bones, - Are nearer to me than the live afar. - - My heart has grown as dry as an old crust, - Deep in book lumber and moth-eaten wood, - So long it has forgot the old love lust, - So long forgot the thing that made youth dear, - Two blue love lamps, a heart exceeding good, - And how, when first I heard that voice ring clear - Among the sering hedges of the plain, - I knew not which from which beyond the corn, - The laughter by the callow twisted thorn, - The jay-thrush whistling in the haws for rain. - - I hold the mind is the imprisoned soul, - And all our aspirations are its own - Struggles and strivings for a golden goal, - That wear us out like snow men at the thaw. - And we shall make our Heaven where we have sown - Our purple longings. Oh! can the loved dead draw - Anear us when we moan, or watching wait - Our coming in the woods where first we met, - The dead leaves falling on their wild hair wet, - Their hands upon the fastenings of the gate? - - This is the old, old pain come home once more, - Bent down with answers wild and very lame - For all my delving in old dog-eared lore - That drove the Sages mad. And boots the world - Aught for their wisdom? I have asked them, tame, - And watched the Earth by its own self be hurled - Atom by atom into nothingness, - Loll out of the deep canyons, drops of fixe, - And kindle on the hills its funeral pyre, - And all we learn but shows we know the less. - - - - - THE LOST ONES - - - Somewhere is music from the linnets, bills, - And thro' the sunny flowers the bee-wings drone, - And white bells of convolvulus on hills - Of quiet May make silent ringing, blown - Hither and thither by the wind of showers, - And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown; - And the brown breath of Autumn chills the flowers. - - But where are all the loves of long ago? - Oh, little twilight ship blown up the tide, - Where are the faces laughing in the glow - Of morning years, the lost ones scattered wide? - Give me your hand, Oh brother, let us go - Crying about the dark for those who died. - - - - - ALL-HALLOWS EVE - - - The dreadful hour is sighing for a moon - To light old lovers to the place of tryst, - And old footsteps from blessed acres soon - On old known pathways will be lightly prest; - And winds that went to eavesdrop since the noon, - Kinking[1] at some old tale told sweetly brief, - Will give a cowslick[2] to the yarrow leaf,[3] - And sling the round nut from the hazel down. - - And there will be old yarn balls,[4] and old spells - In broken lime-kilns, and old eyes will peer - For constant lovers in old spidery wells,[5] - And old embraces will grow newly dear. - And some may meet old lovers in old dells, - And some in doors ajar in towns light-lorn;-- - But two will meet beneath a gnarly thorn - Deep in the bosom of the windy fells. - - Then when the night slopes home and white-faced day - Yawns in the east there will be sad farewells; - And many feet will tap a lonely way - Back to the comfort of their chilly cells, - And eyes will backward turn and long to stay - Where love first found them in the clover bloom-- - But one will never seek the lonely tomb, - And two will linger at the tryst alway. - - -[Footnote 1: Provincially a kind of laughter.] - -[Footnote 2: A curl of hair thrown back from the forehead: used -metaphorically here, and itself a metaphor taken from the curl of a -cow's tongue.] - -[Footnote 3: Maidens on Hallows Eve pull leaves of yarrow, and, saying -over them certain words, put them under their pillows and so dream of -their true-loves.] - -[Footnote 4: They also throw balls of yarn (which must be black) over -their left shoulders into old lime-kilns, holding one end and then -winding it in till they feel it somehow caught, and expect to see in -the darkness the face of their lover.] - -[Footnote 5: Also they look for his face in old wells.] - - - - - A MEMORY - - - Low sounds of night that drip upon the ear, - The plumed lapwing's cry, the curlew's call, - Clear in the far dark heard, a sound as drear - As raindrops pelted from a nodding rush - To give a white wink once and broken fall - Into a deep dark pool: they pain the hush, - As if the fiery meteor's slanting lance - Had found their empty craws: they fill with sound - The silence, with the merry round, - The sounding mazes of a last year's dancer - - I thought to watch the stars come spark by spark - Out on the muffled night, and watch the moon - Go round the full, and turn upon the dark, - And sharpen towards the new, and waiting watch - The grand Kaleidoscope of midnight noon - Change colours on the dew, where high hills notch - The low and moony sky. But who dare cast - One brief hour's horoscope, whose tunéd ear - Makes every sound the music of last year? - Whose hopes are built up in the door of Past? - - No, not more silent does the spider stitch - A cobweb on the fern, nor fogdrops fall - On sheaves of harvest when the night is rich - With moonbeams, than the spirits of delight - Walk the dark passages of Memory's hall. - We feel them not, but in the wastes of night - We hear their low-voiced mediums, and we rise - To wrestle old Regrets, to see old faces, - To meet and part in old tryst-trodden places - With breaking heart, and emptying of eyes. - - I feel the warm hand on my shoulder light, - I hear the music of a voice that words - The slow time of the feet, I see the white - Arms slanting, and the dimples fold and fill.... - I hear wing-flutters of the early birds, - I see the tide of morning landward spill, - The cloaking maidens, hear the voice that tells - "You'd never know" and "Soon perhaps again," - With white teeth biting down the inly pain, - Then sounds of going away and sad farewells - - A year ago! It seems but yesterday. - Yesterday! And a hundred years! All one. - 'Tis laid a something finished, dark, away, - To gather mould upon the shelves of Time. - What matters hours or ćons when 'tis gone? - And yet the heart will dust it of its grime, - And hover round it in a silver spell, - Be lost in it and cry aloud in fear; - And like a lost soul in a pious ear, - Hammer in mine a never easy bell. - - - - - A SONG - - - My heart has flown on wings to you, away - In the lonely places where your footsteps lie - Full up of stars when the short showers of day - Have passed like ancient sorrows. I would fly - To your green solitude of woods to hear - You singing in the sounds of leaves and birds; - But I am sad below the depth of words - That nevermore we two shall draw anear. - - Had I but wealth of land and bleating flocks - And barnfuls of the yellow harvest yield, - And a large house with climbing hollyhocks - And servant maidens singing in the field, - You'd love me; but I own no roaming herds, - My only wealth is songs of love for you, - And now that you are lost I may pursue - A sad life deep below the depth of words. - - - - - A FEAR - - - I roamed the woods to-day and seemed to hear, - As Dante heard, the voice of suffering trees. - The twisted roots seemed bare contorted knees, - The bark was full of faces strange with fear. - - I hurried home still wrapt in that dark spell, - And all the night upon the world's great lie - I pondered, and a voice seemed whisp'ring nigh, - "You died long since, and all this thing is hell!" - - - - - THE COMING POET - - - "Is it far to the town?" said the poet, - As he stood 'neath the groaning vane, - And the warm lights shimmered silver - On the skirts of the windy rain. - "There are those who call me," he pleaded, - "And I'm wet and travel sore." - But nobody spoke from the shelter. - And he turned from the bolted door. - - And they wait in the town for the poet - With stones at the gates, and jeers, - But away on the wolds of distance - In the blue of a thousand years - He sleeps with the age that knows him, - In the clay of the unborn, dead, - Rest at his weary insteps, - Fame at his crumbled head. - - - - - THE VISION ON THE BRINK - - - To-night when you sit in the deep hours alone, - And from the sleeps you snatch wake quick and feel - You hear my step upon the threshold-stone, - My hand upon the doorway latchward steal, - Be sure 'tis but the white winds of the snow, - For I shall come no more - - And when the candle in the pane is wore, - And moonbeams down the hill long shadows throw, - When night's white eyes are in the chinky door, - Think of a long road in a valley low, - Think of a wanderer in the distance far, - Lost like a voice among the scattered hills. - - And when the moon has gone and ocean spills - Its waters backward from the trysting bar, - And in dark furrows of the night there tills - A jewelled plough, and many a falling star - Moves you to prayer, then will you think of me - On the long road that will not ever end. - - Jonah is hoarse in Nineveh--I'd lend - My voice to save the town--and hurriedly - Goes Abraham with murdering knife, and Ruth - Is weary in the corn.... Yet will I stay, - For one flower blooms upon the rocks of truth, - God is in all our hurry and delay. - - - - - TO LORD DUNSANY - - (ON HIS RETURN FROM EAST AFRICA) - - - For you I knit these lines, and on their ends - Hang little tossing bells to ring you home. - The music is all cracked, and Poesy tends - To richer blooms than mine; but you who roam - Thro' coloured gardens of the highest muse, - And leave the door ajar sometimes that we - May steal small breathing things of reds and blues - And things of white sucked empty by the bee, - Will listen to this bunch of bells from me. - - My cowslips ring you welcome to the land - Your muse brings honour to in many a tongue, - Not only that I long to clasp your hand, - But that you're missed by poets who have sung - And viewed with doubt the music of their verse - All the long winter, for you love to bring - The true note in and say the wise thing terse, - And show what birds go lame upon a wing, - And where the weeds among the flowers do spring. - - - - - ON AN OATEN STRAW - - - My harp is out of tune, and so I take - An oaten straw some shepherd dropped of old. - It is the hour when Beauty doth awake - With trembling limbs upon the dewy cold. - And shapes of green show where the woolly fold - Slept in the winding shelter of the brake. - - This I will pipe for you, how all the year - The one I love like Beauty takes her way. - Wrapped in the wind of winter she doth cheer - The loud woods like a sunbeam of the May. - This I will pipe for you the whole blue day - Seated with Pan upon the mossy weir. - - - - - EVENING IN FEBRUARY - - - The windy evening drops a grey - Old eyelid down across the sun, - The last crow leaves the ploughman's way - And happy lambs make no more fun. - - Wild parsley buds beside my feet, - A doubtful thrush makes hurried tune, - The steeple in the village street - Doth seem to pierce the twilight moon. - - I hear and see those changing charms, - For all--my thoughts are fixed upon - The hurry and the loud alarms - Before the fall of Babylon. - - - - - THE SISTER - - - I saw the little quiet town, - And the whitewashed gables on the hill, - And laughing children coming down - The laneway to the mill. - - Wind-blushes up their faces glowed, - And they were happy as could be, - The wobbling water never flowed - So merry and so free. - - One little maid withdrew aside - To pick a pebble from the sands. - Her golden hair was long and wide, - And there were dimples on her hands. - - And when I saw her large blue eyes, - What was the pain that went thro' me? - Why did I think on Southern skies - And ships upon the sea? - - - - - BEFORE THE WAR OF COOLEY - - At daybreak Maeve rose up from where she prayed - And took her prophetess across her door - To gaze upon her hosts. Tall spear and blade - Burnished for early battle dimly shook - The morning's colours, and then Maeve said: - "Look - And tell me how you see them now." - And then - The woman that was lean with knowledge said: - "There's crimson on them, and there's dripping red." - And a tall soldier galloped up the glen - With foam upon his boot, and halted there - Beside old Maeve. She said, "Not yet," and turned - Into her blazing dun, and knelt in prayer - One solemn hour, and once again she came - And sought her prophetess. With voice that mourned, - "How do you see them now?" she asked. - "All lame - And broken in the noon." And once again - The soldier stood before her. - "No, not yet." - Maeve answered his inquiring look and turned - Once more unto her prayer, and yet once more - "How do you see them now?" she asked. - "All wet - With storm rains, and all broken, and all tore - With midnight wolves." And when the soldier came - Maeve said, "It is the hour." There was a flash - Of trumpets in the dim, a silver flame - Of rising shields, loud words passed down the ranks, - And twenty feet they saw the lances leap. - They passed the dun with one short noisy dash. - And turning proud Maeve gave the wise one thanks, - And sought her chamber in the dun to weep. - - - - - LOW-MOON LAND - - - I often look when the moon is low - Thro' that other window on the wall, - At a land all beautiful under snow, - Blotted with shadows that come and go - When the winds rise up and fall. - And the form of a beautiful maid - In the white silence stands, - And beckons me with her hands. - - And when the cares of the day are laid, - Like sacred things, in the mart away, - I dream of the low-moon land and the maid - Who will not weary of waiting, or jade - Of calling to me for aye. - And I would go if I knew the sea - That lips the shore where the moon is low, - For a longing is on me that will not go. - - - - - THE SORROW OF FINDEBAR - - - "Why do you sorrow, child? There is loud cheer - In the wide halls, and poets red with wine - Tell of your eyebrows and your tresses long, - And pause to let your royal mother hear - The brown bull low amid her silken kine. - And you who are the harpstring and the song - Weep like a memory born of some old pain." - - And Findebar made answer, "I have slain - More than Cuculain's sword, for I have been - The promised meed of every warrior brave - In Tain Bo Cualigne wars, and I am sad - As is the red banshee that goes to keen - Above the wet dark of the deep brown grave, - For the warm loves that made my memory glad." - - And her old nurse bent down and took a wild - Curl from her eye and hung it on her ear, - And said, "The woman at the heavy quern, - Who weeps that she will never bring a child, - And sees her sadness in the coming year, - Will roll up all her beauty like a fern; - Not you, whose years stretch purple to the end." - - And Findebar, "Beside the broad blue bend - Of the slow river where the dark banks slope - Wide to the woods sleeps Ferdia apart. - I loved him, and then drove him for pride's sake - To early death, and now I have no hope, - For mine is Maeve's proud heart, Ailill's kind heart, - And that is why it pines and will not break." - - - - - ON DREAM WATER - - - And so, o'er many a league of sea - We sang of those we left behind. - Our ship split thro' the phosphor free, - Her white sails pregnant with the wind, - And I was wondering in my mind - How many would remember me. - - Then red-edged dawn expanded wide, - A stony foreland stretched away, - And bowed capes gathering round the tide - Kept many a little homely bay. - O joy of living there for aye, - O Soul so often tried! - - - - - THE DEATH OF SUALTEM - - - After the brown bull passed from Cooley's fields - And all Muirevne was a wail of pain, - Sualtem came at evening thro' the slain - And heard a noise like water rushing loud, - A thunder like the noise of mighty shields. - And in his dread he shouted: "Earth is bowed, - The heavens are split and stars make war with stars - And the sea runs in fear!" - For all his scars - He hastened to Dun Dealgan, and there found - It was his son, Cuculain, making moan. - His hair was red with blood, and he was wound - In wicker full of grass, and a cold stone - Was on his head. - "Cuculain, is it so?" - Sualtem said, and then, "My hair is snow, - My strength leaks thro' my wounds, but I will die - Avenging you." - And then Cuculain said: - "Not so, old father, but take horse and ride - To Emain Macha, and tell Connor this." - Sualtem from his red lips took a kiss, - And turned the stone upon Cuculain's head. - The Lia-Macha with a heavy sigh - Ran up and halted by his wounded side. - In Emain Macha to low lights and song - Connor was dreaming of the beauteous Maeve. - He saw her as at first, by Shannon's wave, - Her insteps in the water, mounds of white. - It was in Spring, and music loud and strong - Rocked all the coloured woods, and the blue height - Of heaven was round the lark, and in his heart - There was a pain of love. - Then with a start - He wakened as a loud voice from below - Shouted, "The land is robbed, the women shamed, - The children stolen, and Cuculain low!" - Then Connor rose, his war-worn soul inflamed, - And shouted down for Cathbad; then to greet - The messenger he hurried to the street. - And there he saw Sualtem shouting still - The message of Muirevne 'mid the sound - Of hurried Ducklings and uneasy horse. - At sight of him the Lia-Macha wheeled, - So that Sualtem fell upon his shield, - And his grey head came shouting to the ground. - They buried him by moonlight on the hill, - And all about him waves the heavy gorse. - - - - - THE MAID IN LOW-MOON LAND - - - I know not where she be, and yet - I see her waiting white and tall. - Her eyes are blue, her lips are wet, - And move as tho' they'd love to call. - I see her shadow on the wall - Before the changing moon has set. - - She stands there lovely and alone - And up her porch blue creepers swing. - The world she moves in is her own, - To sun and shade and hasty wing. - And I would wed her in the Spring, - But only I sit here and moan. - - - - - THE DEATH OF LEAG. CUCHULAIN'S CHARIOTEER - - - CONALL - - "I only heard the loud ebb on the sand, - The high ducks talking in the chilly sky. - The voices that you fancied floated by - Were wind notes, or the whisper on the trees. - But you are still so full of war's red din, - You hear impatient hoof-beats up the land - When the sea's changing, or a lisping breeze - Is playing on the waters of the linn." - - LEAG - - "I hear Cuchulain's voice, and Emer's voice, - The Lia Macha's neigh, the chariot's wheels, - Farther away a bell bough's drowsy peals; - And sleep lays heavy thumbs upon my eyes. - I hear Cuchulain sing above the chime - Of One Who comes to make the world rejoice, - And comes again to blot away the skies, - To wipe away the world and roll up Time." - - CONALL - - "In the dark ground forever mouth to mouth - They kiss thro' all the changes of the world, - The grey sea fogs above them are unfurled - At evening when the sea walks with the moon, - And peace is with them in the long cairn shut. - You loved him as the swallow loves the South, - And Love speaks with you since the evening put - Mist and white dews upon short shadowed noon." - - LEAG - - "Sleep lays his heavy thumbs upon my eyes, - Shuts out all sounds and shakes me at the wrists. - By Nanny water where the salty mists - Weep o'er Riangabra let me stand deep - Beside my father. Sleep lays heavy thumbs - Upon my eyebrows, and I hear the sighs - Of far loud waters, and a troop that comes - With boughs of bells----" - - CONALL - - "They come to you with sleep." - - - - - THE PASSING OF CAOILTE - - - 'Twas just before the truce sang thro' the din - Caoilte, the thin man, at the war's red end - Leaned from the crooked ranks and saw his friend - Fall in the farther fury; so when truce - Halted advancing spears the thin man came - And bending by pale Oscar called his name; - And then he knew of all who followed Finn, - He only felt the cool of Gavra's dews. - - And Caoilte, the thin man, went down the field - To where slow water moved among the whins, - And sat above a pool of twinkling fins - To court old memories of the Fenian men, - Of how Finn's laugh at Conan's tale of glee - Brought down the rowan's boughs on Knoc-naree, - And how he made swift comets with his shield - At moonlight in the Fomar's rivered glen. - - And Caoilte, the thin man, was weary now, - And nodding in short sleeps of half a dream: - There came a golden barge down middle stream, - And a tall maiden coloured like a bird - Pulled noiseless oars, but not a word she said. - And Caoilte, the thin man, raised up his head - And took her kiss upon his throbbing brow, - And where they went away what man has heard? - - - - - GROWING OLD - - - We'll fill a Provence bowl and pledge us deep - The memory of the far ones, and between - The soothing pipes, in heavy-lidded sleep, - Perhaps we'll dream the things that once have been. - 'Tis only noon and still too soon to die, - Yet we are growing old, my heart and I. - - A hundred books are ready in my head - To open out where Beauty bent a leaf. - What do we want with Beauty? We are wed - Like ancient Proserpine to dismal grief. - And we are changing with the hours that fly, - And growing odd and old, my heart and I. - - Across a bed of bells the river flows, - And roses dawn, but not for us; we want - The new thing ever as the old thing grows - Spectral and weary on the hills we haunt. - And that is why we feast, and that is why - We're growing odd and old, my heart and I. - - - - - AFTER MY LAST SONG - - - Where I shall rest when my last song is over - The air is smelling like a feast of wine; - And purple breakers of the windy clover - Shall roll to cool this burning brow of mine; - And there shall come to me, when day is told - The peace of sleep when I am grey and old. - - I'm wild for wandering to the far-off places - Since one forsook me whom I held most dear. - I want to see new wonders and new faces - Beyond East seas; but I will win back here - When my last song is sung, and veins are cold - As thawing snow, and I am grey and old. - - Oh paining eyes, but not with salty weeping, - My heart is like a sod in winter rain; - Ere you will see those baying waters leaping - Like hungry hounds once more, how many a pain - Shall heal; but when my last short song is trolled - You'll sleep here on wan cheeks grown thin and old. - - - - - SONGS OF PEACE AT HOME - - - A DREAM OF ARTEMIS - - - There was soft beauty on the linnet's tongue - To see the rainbow's coloured bands arch wide. - The thunder darted his red fangs among - South mountains, but the East was like a bride - Drest for the altar at her mother's door - Weeping between two loves. The fields were pied - With May's munificence of flowers, that wore - The fashion of the days when Eve was young, - God's kirtles, ere the first sweet summer died. - The blackbird in a thorn of waving white - Sang bouquets of small tunes that bid me turn - From twilight wanderings thro' some old delight - I heard in my far memory making mourn. - Such music fills me with a joy half pain, - And beats a track across my life I spurn - In sober moments. Ah, this wandering brain - Could play its hurdy-gurdy all the night - To vagrant joys of days beyond the bourn. - - I heard the river warble sweetly nigh - To meet the warm salt tide below the weir, - And saw a coloured line of cows pass by,-- - And then a voice said quickly, "Iris here!" - "What message now hath Hera?" then I woke, - An exile in Arcadia, and a spear - Flashed by me, and ten nymphs fleet-footed broke - Out of the coppice with a silver cry, - Into the bow of lights to disappear. - - For one blue minute then there was no sound - Save water-noise, slow round a rushy bend, - And bird-delight, and ripples on the ground - Of windy flowers that swelling would ascend - The coloured hill and break all beautiful - And, falling backwards, to the woods would send - The full tide of their love. What soft moons pull - Their moving fragrance? did I ask, and found - Sad Io in far Egypt met a friend.-- - It was my body thought so, far away - In the grey future, not the wild bird tied - That is the wandering soul. Behind the day - We may behold thee, soft one, hunted wide - By the loud gadfly; but the truant soul - Knows thee before thou lay by night's dark side, - Wed to the dimness; long before its dole - Was meted it, to be thus pound in clay-- - That daubs its whiteness and offends its pride. - - There were loud questions in the rainbow's end, - And hurried answers, and a sound of spears. - And through the yellow blaze I saw one bend - Down on a trembling white knee, and her tears - Fell down in globes of light, and her small mouth - Was filled up with a name unspoken. Years - Of waiting love, and all their long, long drought - Of kisses parched her lips, and did she spend - Her eyes blue candles searching thro' her fears. - "She hath loved Ganymede, the stolen boy." - Said one, and then another, "Let us sing - To Zeus that he may give her living joy - Above Olympus, where the cool hill-spring - Of Lethe bubbles up to bathe the heart - Sorrow's lean fingers bruised. There eagles wing - To eyries in the stars, and when they part - Their broad dark wings a wind is born to buoy - The bee home heavy in the far evening." - - - - HYMN TO ZEUS - - - "God, whose kindly hand doth sow - The rainbow showers on hill and lawn, - To make the young sweet grasses grow - And fill the udder of the fawn. - Whose light is life of leaf and flower, - And all the colours of the birds. - Whose song goes on from hour to hour - Upon the river's liquid words. - Reach out a golden beam of thine - And touch her pain. Your finger-tips - Do make the violets' blue eclipse - Like milk upon a daisy shine. - - God, who lights the little stars, - And over night the white dew spills. - Whose hand doth move the season's cars - And clouds that mock our pointed hills. - Whose bounty fills the cow-trod wold, - And fills with bread the warm brown sod. - Who brings us sleep, where we grow old - 'Til sleep and age together nod. - - Reach out a beam and touch the pain - A heart has oozed thro' all the years. - Your pity dries the morning's tears - And fills the world with joy again!" - The rainbow's lights were shut, and all the maids - Stood round the sad nymph in a snow-white ring, - She rising spoke, "A blue and soft light bathes - Me to the fingers. Lo, I upward swing!" - And round her fell a mantle of blue light. - "Watch for me on the forehead of evening." - And lifting beautiful went out of sight. - And all the flowers flowed backward from the glades, - An ebb of colours redolent of Spring. - - Beauty and Love are sisters of the heart, - Love has no voice, and Beauty whispered song. - Now in my own, drawn silently apart - Love looked, and Beauty sang. I felt a strong - Pulse on my wrist, a feeling like a pain - In my quick heart, for Love with gazes long - Was worshipping at Artemis, now lain - Among the heaving flowers ... I longed to dart - And fold her to my breast, nor saw the wrong. - She lay there, a tall beauty by her spear, - Her kirtle falling to her soft round knee. - Her hair was like the day when evening's near, - And her moist mouth might tempt the golden bee. - Smile's creases ran from dimples pink and deep, - And when she raised her arms I loved to see - The white mounds of her muscles. Gentle sleep - Threatened her far blue looks. The noisy weir - Fell into a low murmuring lullaby. - And then the flowers came back behind the heel - Of hunted Io: she, poor maid, had fear - Wide in her eyes looking half back to steal - A glimpse of the loud gadfly fiercely near. - In her right hand she held Planting light, - And in her left her train. Artemis here - Raised herself on her palms, and took a white - Horn from her side and blew a silver peal - Til three hounds from the coppice did appear. - - The white nine left the spaces of flowers, and now - Went calling thro' the wood the hunter's call. - Young echoes sleeping in the hollow bough - Took up the shouts and handed them to all - Their sisters of the crags, 'til all the day - Was filled with voices loud and musical. - I followed them across a tangled way - 'Til the red deer broke out and took the brow - Of a wide hill in bounces like a ball. - Beside swift Artemis I joined the chase; - We roused up kine and scattered fleecy flocks; - Crossed at a mill a swift and bubbly race; - Scaled in a wood of pine the knotty rocks; - Past a grey vision of a valley town; - Past swains at labour in their coloured frocks; - Once saw a boar upon a windy down; - Once heard a cradle in a lonely place, - And saw the red flash of a frightened fox. - - We passed a garden where three maids in blue - Were talking of a queen a long time dead. - We caught a green glimpse of the sea: then thro' - A town all hills; now round a wood we sped - And killed our quarry in his native lair. - Then Artemis spun round to me and said, - "Whence come you?" and I took her long damp hair - And made a ball of it, and said, "Where you - Are midnight's dreams of love." She dropped her head, - No word she spoke, but, panting in her side, - I heard her heart. The trees were all at peace, - And lifting slowly on the grey evetide - A large and lovely star. Then to release - Her hair, my hand dropped to her girded waist - And lay there shyly. "O my love, the lease - Of your existence is for ever: taste - No less with me the love of earth," I cried. - "Though for so short a while on lands and seas - Our mortal hearts know beauty, and overblow, - And we are dust upon some passing wind, - Dust and a memory. But for you the snow - That so long cloaks the mountains to the knees - Is no more than a morning. It doth go - And summer comes, and leaf upon the trees: - Still you are fair and young, and nothing find - In all man's story that seems long ago. - I have not loved on Earth the strife for gold, - Nor the great name that makes immortal man, - But all that struggle upward to behold - What still is left of Beauty undisgraced, - The snowdrop at the heel of winter cold - And shivering, and the wayward cuckoo chased - By lingering March, and, in the thunder's van - The poor lambs merry on the meagre wold, - By-ways and cast-off things that lie therein, - Old boots that trod the highways of the world, - The schoolboy's broken hoop, the battered bin - That heard the ragman's story, blackened places - Where gipsies camped and circuses made din, - Fast water and the melancholy traces - Of sea tides, and poor people madly whirled - Up, down, and through the black retreats of sin. - These things a god might love, and stooping bless - With benedictions of eternal song.-- - But I have not loved Artemis the less - For loving these, but deem it noble love - To sing of live or dead things in distress - And wake memorial memories above. - - Such is the soul that comes to plead with you - Oh, Artemis, to tend you in your needs. - At mornings I will bring you bells of dew - From honey places, and wild fish from, streams - Flowing in secret places. I will brew - Sweet wine of alder for your evening dreams, - And pipe you music in the dusky reeds - When the four distances give up their blue. - - And when the white procession of the stars - Crosses the night, and on their tattered wings, - Above the forest, cry the loud night-jars, - We'll hunt the stag upon the mountain-side, - Slipping like light between the shadow bars - 'Til burst of dawn makes every distance wide. - Oh, Artemis--what grief the silence brings! - I hear the rolling chariot of Mars!" - - - - - A LITTLE BOY IN THE MORNING - - He will not come, and still I wait. - He whistles at another gate - Where angels listen. Ah, I know - He will not come, yet if I go - How shall I know he did not pass - Barefooted in the flowery grass? - - The moon leans on one silver horn - Above the silhouettes of morn, - And from their nest sills finches whistle - Or stooping pluck the downy thistle. - How is the morn so gay and fair - Without his whistling in its air? - The world is calling, I must go. - How shall I know he did not pass - Barefooted in the shining grass? - - - - - IN BARRACKS - - - - - TO A DISTANT ONE - - - Through wild by-ways I come to you, my love, - Nor ask of those I meet the surest way, - What way I turn I cannot go astray - And miss you in my life. Though Fate may prove - A tardy guide she will not make delay - Leading me through strange seas and distant lands, - I'm coming still, though slowly, to your hands. - We'll meet one day. - - There is so much to do, so little done, - In my life's space that I perforce did leave - Love at the moonlit trysting-place to grieve - Till fame and other little things were won. - I have missed much that I shall not retrieve, - Far will I wander yet with much to do. - Much will I spurn before I yet meet you, - So fair I can't deceive. - - Your name is in the whisper of the woods - Like Beauty calling for a poet's song - To one whose harp had suffered many a wrong - In the lean hands of Pain. And when the broods - Of flower eyes waken all the streams along - In tender whiles, I feel most near to you:-- - Oh, when we meet there shall be sun and blue - Strong as the spring is strong. - - - - - THE PLACE - - - Blossoms as old as May I scatter here, - And a blue wave I lifted from the stream. - It shall not know when winter days are drear - Or March is hoarse with blowing. But a-dream - The laurel boughs shall hold a canopy - Peacefully over it the winter long, - Till all the birds are back from oversea, - And April rainbows win a blackbird's song. - - And when the war is over I shall take - My lute a-down to it and sing again - Songs of the whispering things amongst the brake, - And those I love shall know them by their strain. - Their airs shall be the blackbird's twilight song, - Their words shall be all flowers with fresh dews hoar.-- - But it is lonely now in winter long, - And, God! to hear the blackbird sing once more. - - - - - MAY - - - She leans across an orchard gate somewhere, - Bending from out the shadows to the light, - A dappled spray of blossom in her hair - Studded with dew-drops lovely from the night - She smiles to think how many hearts she'll smite - With beauty ere her robes fade from the lawn. - She hears the robin's cymbals with delight, - The skylark in the rosebush of the dawn. - - For her the cowslip rings its yellow bell, - For her the violets watch with wide blue eyes. - The wandering cuckoo doth its clear name tell - Thro' the white mist of blossoms where she lies - Painting a sunset for the western skies. - You'd know her by her smile and by her tear - And by the way the swift and martin flies, - Where she is south of these wild days and drear. - - - - - TO EILISH OF THE FAIR HAIR - - - I'd make my heart a harp to play for you - Love songs within the evening dim of day, - Were it not dumb with ache and with mildew - Of sorrow withered like a flower away. - It hears so many calls from homeland places, - So many sighs from all it will remember, - From the pale roads and woodlands where your face is - Like laughing sunlight running thro' December. - - But this it singeth loud above its pain, - To bring the greater ache: whate'er befall - The love that oft-times woke the sweeter strain - Shall turn to you always. And should you call - To pity it some day in those old places - Angels will covet the loud joy that fills it. - But thinking of the by-ways where your face is - Sunlight on other hearts--Ah! how it kills it. - - - - - IN CAMP - - - - - CREWBAWN - - - White clouds that change and pass, - And stars that shine awhile, - Dew water on the grass, - A fox upon a stile. - - A river broad and deep, - A slow boat on the waves, - My sad thoughts on the sleep - That hollows out the graves. - - - - - EVENING IN ENGLAND - - - From its blue vase the rose of evening drops. - Upon the streams its petals float away. - The hills all blue with distance hide their tops - In the dim silence falling on the grey. - A little wind said "Hush!" and shook a spray - Heavy with May's white crop of opening bloom, - A silent bat went dipping up the gloom. - - Night tells her rosary of stars full soon, - They drop from out her dark hand to her knees. - Upon a silhouette of woods the moon - Leans on one horn as if beseeching ease - From all her changes which have stirred the seas. - Across the ears of Toil Rest throws her veil, - I and a marsh bird only make a wail. - - - - - AT SEA - - - - - CROCKNAHARNA - - - On the heights of Crocknaharna, - (Oh, the lure of Crocknaharna) - On a morning fair and early - Of a dear remembered May, - There I heard a colleen singing - In the brown rocks and the grey. - She, the pearl of Crocknaharna, - Crocknaharna, Crocknaharna, - Wild with girls is Crocknaharna - Twenty hundred miles away. - - On the heights of Crocknaharna, - (Oh, thy sorrow Crocknaharna) - On an evening dim and misty - Of a cold November day, - There I heard a woman weeping - In the brown rocks and the grey. - Oh, the pearl of Crocknaharna - (Crocknaharna, Crocknaharna), - Black with grief is Crocknaharna - Twenty hundred miles away. - - - - - IN THE MEDITERRANEAN--GOING TO THE WAR - - - Lovely wings of gold and green - Flit about the sounds I hear, - On my window when I lean - To the shadows cool and clear. - - * * * * * - - Roaming, I am listening still, - Bending, listening overlong, - In my soul a steadier will, - In my heart a newer song. - - - - - THE GARDENER - - - Among the flowers, like flowers, her slow hands move - Easing a muffled bell or stooping low - To help sweet roses climb the stakes above, - Where pansies stare and seem to whisper "Lo!" - Like gaudy butterflies her sweet peas blow - Filling the garden with dim rustlings. Clear - On the sweet Book she reads how long ago - There was a garden to a woman dear. - - She makes her life one grand beatitude - Of Love and Peace, and with contented eyes - She sees not in the whole world mean or rude, - And her small lot she trebly multiplies. - And when the darkness muffles up the skies - Still to be happy is her sole desire, - She sings sweet songs about a great emprise, - And sees a garden blowing in the fire. - - - - - IN SERBIA - - - - - AUTUMN EVENING IN SERBIA - - - All the thin shadows - Have closed on the grass, - With the drone on their dark wings - The night beetles pass. - Folded her eyelids, - A maiden asleep, - Day sees in her chamber - The pallid moon peep. - - From the bend of the briar - The roses are torn, - And the folds of the wood tops - Are faded and worn. - A strange bird is singing - Sweet notes of the sun, - Tho' song time is over - And Autumn begun. - - - - - NOCTURNE - - - The rim of the moon - Is over the corn. - The beetle's drone - Is above the thorn. - Grey days come soon - And I am alone; - Can you hear my moan - Where you rest, Aroon? - - When the wild tree bore - The deep blue cherry, - In night's deep hall - Our love kissed merry. - But you come no more - Where its woodlands call, - And the grey days fall - On my grief, Astore! - - - - - SPRING AND AUTUMN - - - Green ripples singing down the corn, - With blossoms dumb the path I tread, - And in the music of the morn - One with wild roses on her head. - - Now the green ripples turn to gold - And all the paths are loud with rain, - I with desire am growing old - And full of winter pain. - - - - - IN GREECE - - - - - THE DEPARTURE OF PROSERPINE - - - Old mother Earth for me already grieves, - Her morns wake weeping and her noons are dim, - Silence has left her woods, and all the leaves - Dance in the windy shadows on the rim - Of the dull lake thro' which I soon shall pass - To my dark bridal bed - Down in the hollow chambers of the dead. - Will not the thunder hide me if I call, - Wrapt in the corner of some distant star - The gods have never known? - Alas! alas! - My voice has left with the last wing, my fall - Shall crush the flowery fields with gloom, as far - As swallows fly. - Would I might die - And in a solitude of roses lie - As the last bud's outblown. - Then nevermore Demeter would be heard - Wail in the blowing rain, but every shower - Would come bound up with rainbows to the birds - Wrapt in a dusty wing, and the dry flower - Hanging a shrivelled lip. - This weary change from light to darkness fills - My heart with twilight, and my brightest day - Dawns over thunder and in thunder spills - Its urn of gladness - With a sadness - Through which the slow dews drip - And the bat goes over on a thorny wing. - Is it a dream that once I used to sing - From Ćgean shores across her rocky isles, - Making the bells of Babylon to ring - Over the wiles - That lifted me from darkness to the Spring - And the King - Seeing his wine in blossom on the tree - Danced with the queen a merry roundelay, - And all the blue circumference of the day - Was loud with flying song.---- - --But let me pass along: - What brooks it the unfree to thus delay? - No secret turning leads from the gods' way. - - - - - THE HOMECOMING OF THE SHEEP - - - The sheep are coming home in Greece, - Hark the bells on every hill! - Flock by flock, and fleece by fleece, - Wandering wide a little piece - Thro' the evening red and still, - Stopping where the pathways cease, - Cropping with a hurried will. - - Thro' the cotton-bushes low - Merry boys with shouldered crooks - Close them in a single row, - Shout among them as they go - With one bell-ring o'er the brooks. - Such delight you never know - Reading it from gilded books. - - Before the early stars are bright - Cormorants and sea-gulls call, - And the moon comes large and white - Filling with a lovely light - The ferny curtained waterfall. - Then sleep wraps every bell up tight - And the climbing moon grows small. - - - - - WHEN LOVE AND BEAUTY WANDER AWAY - - - When Love and Beauty wander away, - And there's no more hearts to be sought and won, - When the old earth limps thro' the dreary day, - And the work of the Seasons cry undone: - Ah! what shall we do for a song to sing, - Who have known Beauty, and Love, and Spring? - - When Love and Beauty wander away, - And a pale fear lies on the cheeks of youth, - When there's no more goal to strive for and pray, - And we live at the end of the world's untruth: - Ah! what shall we do for a heart to prove, - Who have known Beauty, and Spring, and Love? - - - - - IN HOSPITAL IN EGYPT - - - - - MY MOTHER - - - God made my mother on an April day, - From sorrow and the mist along the sea, - Lost birds' and wanderers' songs and ocean spray - And the moon loved her wandering jealously. - - Beside the ocean's din she combed her hair, - Singing the nocturne of the passing ships, - Before her earthly lover found her there - And kissed away the music from her lips. - - She came unto the hills and saw the change - That brings the swallow and the geese in turns. - But there was not a grief she deeméd strange, - For there is that in her which always mourns. - - Kind heart she has for all on hill or wave - Whose hopes grew wings like ants to fly away. - I bless the God Who such a mother gave - This poor bird-hearted singer of a day. - - - - - SONG - - - Nothing but sweet music wakes - My Beloved, my Beloved. - Sleeping by the blue lakes, - My own Beloved! - - Song of lark and song of thrush, - My Beloved! my Beloved! - Sing in morning's rosy bush, - My own Beloved! - - When your eyes dawn blue and clear, - My Beloved! my Beloved! - You will find me waiting here, - My own Beloved! - - - - - TO ONE DEAD - - - A blackbird singing - On a moss upholstered stone, - Bluebells swinging, - Shadows wildly blown, - A song in the wood, - A ship on the sea. - The song was for you - And the ship was for me. - - A blackbird singing - I hear in my troubled mind, - Bluebells swinging - I see in a distant wind. - But sorrow and silence - Are the wood's threnody, - The silence for you - And the sorrow for me. - - - - - THE RESURRECTION - - - My true love still is all that's fair, - She is flower and blossom blowing free, - For all her silence lying there - She sings a spirit song to me. - - New lovers seek her in her bower, - The rain, the dew, the flying wind, - And tempt her out to be a flower, - Which throws a shadow on my mind. - - - - - THE SHADOW PEOPLE - - - Old lame Bridget doesn't hear - Fairy music in the grass - When the gloaming's on the mere - And the shadow people pass: - Never hears their slow grey feet - Coming from the village street - Just beyond the parson's wall, - Where the clover globes are sweet - And the mushroom's parasol - Opens in the moonlit rain. - Every night I hear them call - From their long and merry train. - Old lame Bridget says to me, - "It is just your fancy, child," - She cannot believe I see - Laughing faces in the wild, - Hands that twinkle in the sedge - Bowing at the water's edge - Where the finny minnows quiver, - Shaping on a blue wave's ledge - Bubble foam to sail the river. - And the sunny hands to me - Beckon ever, beckon ever. - Oh! I would be wild and free - And with the shadow people be. - - - - - IN BARRACKS - - - - - AN OLD DESIRE - - - I searched thro' memory's lumber-room - And there I found an old desire, - I took it gently from the gloom - To cherish by my scanty tire. - - And all the night a sweet-voiced one, - Sang of the place my loves abide, - Til Earth leaned over from the dawn - And hid the last star in her side. - - And often since, when most alone, - I ponder on my old desire, - But never hear the sweet-voiced one, - And there are ruins in my fire. - - - - - THOMAS McDONAGH - - - He shall not hear the bittern cry - In the wild sky, where he is lain, - Nor voices of the sweeter birds - Above the wailing of the rain. - - Nor shall he know when loud March blows - Thro' slanting snows her fanfare shrill, - Blowing to flame the golden cup - Of many an upset daffodil. - - But when the Dark Cow leaves the moor, - And pastures poor with greedy weeds, - Perhaps he'll hear her low at morn - Lifting her horn in pleasant meads. - - - - - THE WEDDING MORNING - - - Spread the feast, and let there be - Such music heard as best beseems - A king's son coming from the sea - To wed a maiden of the streams. - - Poets, pale for long ago, - Bring sweet sounds from rock and flood, - You by echo's accent know - Where the water is and wood. - - Harpers whom the moths of Time - Bent and wrinkled dusty brown, - Her chains are falling with a chime, - Sweet as bells in Heaven town. - - But, harpers, leave your harps aside, - And, poets, leave awhile your dreams. - The storm has come upon the tide - And Cathleen weeps among her streams. - - - - - THE BLACKBIRDS - - - I heard the Poor Old Woman say: - "At break of day the fowler came, - And took my blackbirds from their songs - Who loved me well thro shame and blame. - - No more from lovely distances - Their songs shall bless me mile by mile, - Nor to white Ashbourne call me down - To wear my crown another while. - - With bended flowers the angels mark - For the skylark the place they lie, - From there its little family - Shall dip their wings first in the sky. - - And when the first surprise of flight - Sweet songs excite, from the far dawn - Shall there come blackbirds loud with love, - Sweet echoes of the singers gone. - - But in the lonely hush of eve - Weeping I grieve the silent bills." - I heard the Poor Old Woman say - In Derry of the little hills. - - - - - THE LURE - - - I saw night leave her halos down - On Mitylene's dark mountain isle, - The silhouette of one fair town - Like broken shadows in a pile. - And in the farther dawn I heard - The music of a foreign bird. - - In fields of shady angles now - I stand and dream in the half dark: - The thrush is on the blossomed bough, - Above the echoes sings the lark, - And little rivers drop between - Hills fairer than dark Mitylene. - - Yet something calls me with no voice - And wakes sweet echoes in my mind; - In the fair country of my choice - Nor Peace nor Love again I find, - Nor anything of rest I know - When south-east winds are blowing low. - - - - - THRO' BOGAC BAN - - - I met the Silent Wandering Man, - Thro' Bogac Ban he made his way, - Humming a slow old Irish tune, - On Joseph Plunkett's wedding day. - - And all the little whispering things - That love the springs of Bogac Ban, - Spread some new rumour round the dark - And turned their faces from the dawn. - - - * * * * * - - My hand upon my harp I lay, - I cannot say what things I know; - To meet the Silent Wandering Man - Of Bogac Ban once more I go. - - - - - FATE - - - Lugh made a stir in the air - With his sword of cries, - And fairies thro' hidden ways - Came from the skies, - And their spells withered up the fair - And vanquished the wise. - - And old lame Balor came down - With his gorgon eye - Hidden behind its lid, - Old, withered and dry. - He looked on the wattle town, - And the town passed by. - - These things I know in my dreams, - The crying sword of Lugh, - And Balor's ancient eye - Searching me through, - Withering up my songs - And my pipe yet new. - - - - - EVENING CLOUDS - - - A little flock of clouds go down to rest - In some blue corner off the moon's highway, - With shepherd winds that shook them in the West - To borrowed shapes of earth, in bright array, - Perhaps to weave a rainbow's gay festoons - Around the lonesome isle which Brooke has made - A little England full of lovely noons, - Or dot it with his country's mountain shade. - - Ah, little wanderers, when you reach that isle - Tell him, with dripping dew, they have not failed, - What he loved most; for late I roamed awhile - Thro' English fields and down her rivers sailed; - And they remember him with beauty caught - From old desires of Oriental Spring - Heard in his heart with singing overwrought; - And still on Purley Common gooseboys sing. - - - - - SONG - - - The winds are scented with woods after rain, - And a raindrop shines in the daisy's eye. - Shall we follow the swallow again, again, - Ah! little yearning thing, you and I? - - You and I to the South again, - And heart! Oh, heart, how you shall sigh, - For the kind soft wind that follows the rain, - And the raindrop shed from the daisy's eye. - - - - - THE HERONS - - - As I was climbing Ardan Mor - From the shore of Sheelan lake, - I met the herons coming down - Before the water's wake. - - And they were talking in their flight - Of dreamy ways the herons go - When all the hills are withered up - Nor any waters flow. - - - - - IN THE SHADOWS - - - The silent music of the flowers - Wind-mingled shall not fail to cheer - The lonely hours - When I no more am here. - - Then in some shady willow place - Take up the book my heart has made, - And hide your face - Against my name which was a shade. - - - - - THE SHIPS OF ARCADY - - - Thro' the faintest filigree - Over the dim waters go - Little ships of Arcady - When the morning moon is low. - - I can hear the sailors' song - From the blue edge of the sea, - Passing like the lights along - Thro' the dusky filigree. - - Then where moon and waters meet - Sail by sail they pass away, - With little friendly winds replete - Blowing from the breaking day. - - And when the little ships have flown, - Dreaming still of Arcady - I look across the waves, alone - In the misty filigree. - - - - - AFTER - - - And in the after silences - Of flower-lit distances I'll be, - And who would find me travels far - In lands unsung of minstrelsy. - Strong winds shall cross my secret way, - And planet mountains hide my goal, - I shall go on from pass to pass, - By monstrous rocks, a lonely soul. - - - - - TO ONE WEEPING - - - Maiden, these are sacred tears, - Let me not disturb your grief! - Had I but your bosom's fears - I should weep, nor seek relief. - - My woe is a silent woe - 'Til I give it measured rhyme, - When the blackbird's flute is low - In my heart at singing time. - - - - - A DREAM DANCE - - - Maeve held a ball on the dún, - Cuculain and Eimer were there, - In the light of an old broken moon - I was dancing with Deirdre the fair. - - How loud was the laughter of Finn - As he blundered about thro' a reel, - Tripping up Caoilte the thin, - Or jostling the dreamy Aleel. - - And when the dance ceased for a song, - How sweet was the singing of Fand, - We could hear her far, wandering along, - My hand in that beautiful hand. - - - - - BY FAUGHAN - - - For hills and woods and streams unsung - I pipe above a rippled cove. - And here the weaver autumn hung - Between the hills a wind she wove - From sounds the hills remember yet - Of purple days and violet. - - The hills stand up to trip the sky, - Sea-misted, and along the tops - Wing after wing goes summer by, - And many a little roadway stops - And starts, and struggles to the sea, - Cutting them up in filigree. - - Twixt wind and silence Faughan flows, - In music broken over rocks, - Like mingled bells the poet knows - Ring in the fields of Eastern flocks. - And here this song for you I find - Between the silence and the wind. - - - - - IN SEPTEMBER - - - Still are the meadowlands, and still - Ripens the upland corn, - And over the brown gradual hill - The moon has dipped a horn. - - The voices of the dear unknown - With silent hearts now call, - My rose of youth is overblown - And trembles to the fall. - - My song forsakes me like the birds - That leave the rain and grey, - I hear the music of the words - My lute can never say. - - - - - LAST SONGS - - - - - TO AN OLD QUILL OF LORD DUNSANY'S - - - Before you leave my hands' abuses - To lie where many odd things meet you, - Neglected darkling of the Muses, - I, the last of singers, greet you. - - Snug in some white wing they found you, - On the Common bleak and muddy, - Noisy goslings gobbling round you - In the pools of sunset, ruddy. - - Have you sighed in wings untravelled - For the heights where others view the - Bluer widths of heaven, and marvelled - At the utmost top of Beauty? - - No! it cannot be; the soul you - Sigh with craves nor begs of us. - From such heights a poet stole you - From a wing of Pegasus. - - You have been where gods were sleeping - In the dawn of new creations, - Ere they woke to woman's weeping - At the broken thrones of nations. - - You have seen this old world shattered - By old gods it disappointed, - Lying up in darkness, battered - By wild comets, unanointed. - - But for Beauty unmolested - Have you still the sighing olden? - I know mountains heather-crested, - Waters white, and waters golden. - - There I'd keep you, in the lowly - Beauty-haunts of bird and poet, - Sailing in a wing, the holy - Silences of lakes below it. - - But I leave you by where no man - Finds you, when I too be gone - From the puddles on this common - Over the dark Rubicon. - - _Londonderry,_ - - _September 18th, 1916._ - - - - - TO A SPARROW - - - Because you have no fear to mingle - Wings with those of greater part, - So like me, with song I single - Your sweet impudence of heart. - - And when prouder feathers go where - Summer holds her leafy show, - You still come to us from nowhere - Like grey leaves across the snow. - - In back ways where odd and end go - To your meals you drop down sure, - Knowing every broken window - Of the hospitable poor. - - There is no bird half so harmless, - None so sweetly rude as you, - None so common and so charmless, - None of virtues nude as you. - - But for all your faults I love you, - For you linger with us still, - Though the wintry winds reprove you - And the snow is on the hill. - - _Londonderry,_ - - _September 20th, 1916._ - - - - - OLD CLO' - - - I was just coming in from the garden, - Or about to go fishing for eels, - And, smiling, I asked you to pardon - My boots very low at the heels. - And I thought that you never would go, - As you stood in the doorway ajar, - For my heart would keep saying, "Old Clo', - You're found out at last as you are." - - I was almost ashamed to acknowledge - That I was the quarry you sought, - For was I not bred in a college - And reared in a mansion, you thought. - And now in the latest style cut - With fortune more kinder I go - To welcome you half-ways. Ah! but - I was nearer the gods when "Old Clo'." - - - - - YOUTH - - - She paved the way with perfume sweet - Of flowers that moved like winds alight, - And never weary grew my feet - Wandering through the spring's delight. - - She dropped her sweet fife to her lips - And lured me with her melodies, - To where the great big wandering ships - Put out into the peaceful seas. - - But when the year grew chill and brown, - And all the wings of Summer flown, - Within the tumult of a town - She left me to grow old alone. - - - - - THE LITTLE CHILDREN - - - Hunger points a bony finger - To the workhouse on the hill, - But the little children linger - While there's flowers to gather still - For my sunny window sill. - - In my hands I take their faces, - Smiling to my smiles they run. - Would that I could take their places - Where the murky bye-ways shun - The benedictions of the sun. - - How they laugh and sing returning - Lightly on their secret way. - While I listen in my yearning - Their laughter fills the windy day - With gladness, youth and May. - - - - - AUTUMN - - - Now leafy winds are blowing cold, - And South by West the sun goes down, - A quiet huddles up the fold - In sheltered corners of the brown. - - Like scattered fire the wild fruit strews - The ground beneath the blowing tree, - And there the busy squirrel hews - His deep and secret granary. - - And when the night comes starry clear, - The lonely quail complains beside - The glistening waters on the mere - Where widowed Beauties yet abide. - - And I, too, make my own complaint - Upon a reed I plucked in June, - And love to hear it echoed faint - Upon another heart in tune. - - _Londonderry,_ - - _September 29th, 1916._ - - - - - IRELAND - - - I called you by sweet names by wood and linn, - You answered not because my voice was new, - And you were listening for the hounds of Finn - And the long hosts of Lugh. - - And so, I came unto a windy height - And cried my sorrow, but you heard no wind, - For you were listening to small ships in flight, - And the wail on hills behind. - - And then I left you, wandering the war - Armed with will, from distant goal to goal, - To find you at the last free as of yore, - Or die to save your soul. - - And then you called to us from far and near - To bring your crown from out the deeps of time, - It is my grief your voice I couldn't hear - In such a distant clime. - - - - - LADY FAIR - - - Lady fair, have we not met - In our lives elsewhere? - Darkling in my mind to-night - Faint fair faces dare - Memory's old unfaithfulness - To what was true and fair. - Long of memory is Regret, - But what Regret has taken flight - Through my memory's silences? - Lo! I turn it to the light. - 'Twas but a pleasure in distress, - Too faint and far off for redress. - But some light glancing in your hair - And in the liquid of your eyes - Seem to murmur old good-byes - In our lives elsewhere. - Have we not met, Lady fair? - - _Londonderry,_ - - _October 27th, 1916._ - - - - - AT A POET'S GRAVE - - - When I leave down this pipe my friend - And sleep with flowers I loved, apart, - My songs shall rise in wilding things - Whose roots are in my heart. - - And here where that sweet poet sleeps - I hear the songs he left unsung, - When winds are fluttering the flowers - And summer-bells are rung. - - _November, 1916._ - - - - - AFTER COURT MARTIAL - - - My mind is not my mind, therefore - I take no heed of what men say, - I lived ten thousand years before - God cursed the town of Nineveh. - - The Present is a dream I see - Of horror and loud sufferings, - At dawn a bird will waken me - Unto my place among the kings. - - And though men called me a vile name, - And all my dream companions gone, - 'Tis I the soldier bears the shame. - Not I the king of Babylon. - - - - - A MOTHER'S SONG - - - Little ships of whitest pearl - With sailors who were ancient kings, - Come over the sea when my little girl - Sings. - - And if my little girl should weep, - Little ships with torn sails - Go headlong down among the deep - Whales. - - _November, 1916._ - - - - - AT CURRABWEE - - - Every night at Currabwee - Little men with leather hats - Mend the boots of Faery - From the tough wings of the bats. - So my mother told to me, - And she is wise you will agree. - - Louder than a cricket's wing - All night long their hammer's glee - Times the merry songs they sing - Of Ireland glorious and free. - So I heard Joseph Plunkett say, - You know he heard them but last May. - - And when the night is very cold - They warm their hands against the light - Of stars that make the waters gold - Where they are labouring all the night. - So Pearse said, and he knew the truth, - Among the stars he spent his youth. - - And I, myself, have often heard - Their singing as the stars went by, - For am I not of those who reared - The banner of old Ireland high, - From Dublin town to Turkey's shores, - And where the Vardar loudly roars? - - _December, 1916._ - - - - - SONG-TIME IS OVER - - - I will come no more awhile, - O Song-time is over. - A fire is burning in my heart, - I was ever a rover. - - You will hear me no more awhile, - The birds are dumb, - And a voice in the distance calls - "Come," and "Come," - - _December 13th, 1916._ - - - - - UNA BAWN - - - Una Bawn, the days are long, - And the seas I cross are wide, - I must go when Ireland needs, - And you must bide. - - And should I not return to you - When the sails are on the tide, - 'Tis you will find the days so long, - Una Bawn, and I must bide. - - _December 13th, 1916._ - - - - - SPRING LOVE - - - I saw her coming through the flowery grass, - Round her swift ankles butterfly and bee - Blent loud and silent wings; I saw her pass - Where foam-bows shivered on the sunny sea. - - Then came the swallow crowding up the dawn, - And cuckoo-echoes filled the dewy South. - I left my love upon the hill, alone, - My last kiss burning on her lovely mouth. - - B.E.F.--_December 26th, 1916._ - - - - - SOLILOQUY - - - When I was young I had a care - Lest I should cheat me of my share - Of that which makes it sweet to strive - For life, and dying still survive, - A name in sunshine written higher - Than lark or poet dare aspire. - - But I grew weary doing well, - Besides, 'twas sweeter in that hell, - Down with the loud banditti people - Who robbed the orchards, climbed the steeple - For jackdaws' eggs and made the cock - Crow ere 'twas daylight on the clock. - I was so very bad the neighbours - Spoke of me at their daily labours. - - And now I'm drinking wine in France, - The helpless child of circumstance. - To-morrow will be loud with war, - How will I be accounted for? - - It is too late now to retrieve - A fallen dream, too late to grieve - A name unmade, but not too late - To thank the gods for what is great; - A keen-edged sword, a soldier's heart, - Is greater than a poet's art. - And greater than a poet's fame - A little grave that has no name. - - - - - DAWN - - - Quiet miles of golden sky, - And in my heart a sudden flower. - I want to clap my hands and cry - For Beauty in her secret bower. - - Quiet golden miles of dawn--Smiling - all the East along; - And in my heart nigh fully blown - A little rose-bud of a song. - - - - - CEOL SIDHE[1] - - - When May is here, and every morn - Is dappled with pied bells, - And dewdrops glance along the thorn - And wings flash in the dells, - I take my pipe and play a tune - Of dreams, a whispered melody, - For feet that dance beneath the moon - In fairy jollity. - - And when the pastoral hills are grey - And the dim stars are spread, - A scamper fills the grass like play - Of feet where fairies tread. - And many a little whispering thing - Is calling to the Shee. - The dewy bells of evening ring, - And all is melody. - - _France,_ - - _December 29th, 1916._ - -[Footnote 1: Fairy music.] - - - - - THE RUSHES - - - The rushes nod by the river - As the winds on the loud waves go, - And the things they nod of are many, - For it's many the secret they know. - - And I think they are wise as the fairies - Who lived ere the hills were high, - They nod so grave by the river - To everyone passing by. - - If they would tell me their secrets - I would go by a hidden way, - To the rath when the moon retiring - Dips dim horns into the gray. - - And a fairy-girl out of Leinster - In a long dance I should meet, - My heart to her heart beating, - My feet in rhyme with her feet. - - _France,_ - _January 6th, 1917._ - - - - - THE DEAD KINGS - - - All the dead kings came to me - At Rosnaree, where I was dreaming. - A few stars glimmered through the morn, - And down the thorn the dews were streaming. - - And every dead king had a story - Of ancient glory, sweetly told. - It was too early for the lark, - But the starry dark had tints of gold. - - I listened to the sorrows three - Of that Eirë passed into song. - A cock crowed near a hazel croft, - And up aloft dim larks winged strong. - - And I, too, told the kings a story - Of later glory, her fourth sorrow: - There was a sound like moving shields - In high green fields and the lowland furrow. - - And one said: "We who yet are kings - Have heard these things lamenting inly." - Sweet music flowed from many a bill - And on the hill the morn stood queenly. - - And one said: "Over is the singing, - And bell bough ringing, whence we come; - With heavy hearts we'll tread the shadows, - In honey meadows birds are dumb." - - And one said: "Since the poets perished - And all they cherished in the way, - Their thoughts unsung, like petal showers - Inflame the hours of blue and gray." - - And one said: "A loud tramp of men - We'll hear again at Rosnaree." - A bomb burst near me where I lay. - I woke, 'twas day in Picardy. - - _France,_ - _January 7th, 1917._ - - - - - IN FRANCE - - - The silence of maternal hills - Is round me in my evening dreams; - And round me music-making bills - And mingling waves of pastoral streams. - - Whatever way I turn I find - The path is old unto me still. - The hills of home are in my mind, - And there I wander as I will. - - _February 3rd, 1917._ - - - - - HAD I A GOLDEN POUND - - (AFTER THE IRISH) - - - Had I a golden pound to spend, - My love should mend and sew no more. - And I would buy her a little quern, - Easy to turn on the kitchen floor. - - And for her windows curtains white, - With birds in flight and flowers in bloom, - To face with pride the road to town, - And mellow down her sunlit room. - - And with the silver change we'd prove - The truth of Love to life's own end, - With hearts the years could but embolden, - Had I a golden pound to spend. - - _February 5th, 1917._ - - - - - FAIRIES - - - Maiden-poet, come with me - To the heaped up cairn of Maeve, - And there we'll dance a fairy dance - Upon a fairy's grave. - - In and out among the trees, - Filling all the night with sound, - The morning, strung upon her star, - Shall chase us round and round. - - What are we but fairies too, - Living but in dreams alone, - Or, at the most, but children still, - Innocent and overgrown? - - _February 6th,_ 1917. - - - - - IN A CAFÉ - - - Kiss the maid and pass her round, - Lips like hers were made for many. - Our loves are far from us to-night, - But these red lips are sweet as any. - - Let no empty glass be seen - Aloof from our good table's sparkle, - At the acme of our cheer - Here are francs to keep the circle. - - They are far who miss us most--Sip - and kiss--how well we love them, - Battling through the world to keep - Their hearts at peace, their God above them. - - _February 11th, 1917._ - - - - - SPRING - - - Once more the lark with song and speed - Cleaves through the dawn, his hurried bars - Fall, like the flute of Ganymede - Twirling and whistling from the stars. - - The primrose and the daffodil - Surprise the valleys, and wild thyme - Is sweet on every little hill, - When lambs come down at folding time. - - In every wild place now is heard - The magpie's noisy house, and through - The mingled tunes of many a bird - The ruffled wood-dove's gentle coo. - - Sweet by the river's noisy brink - The water-lily bursts her crown, - The kingfisher comes down to drink - Like rainbow jewels falling down. - - And when the blue and grey entwine - The daisy shuts her golden eye, - And peaces-wraps all those hills of mine - Safe in my dearest memory. - - _France,_ - _March 8th, 1917._ - - - - - PAN - - - He knows the safe ways and unsafe - And he will lead the lambs to fold, - Gathering them with his merry pipe, - The gentle and the overbold. - - He counts them over one by one, - And leads them back by cliff and steep, - To grassy hills where dawn is wide, - And they may run and skip and leap. - - And just because he loves the lambs - He settles them for rest at noon, - And plays them on his oaten pipe - The very wonder of a tune. - - _France,_ - _March 11th, 1917._ - - - - - WITH FLOWERS - - - These have more language than my song, - Take them and let them speak for me. - I whispered them a secret thing - Down the green lanes of Allary. - - You shall remember quiet ways - Watching them fade, and quiet eyes, - And two hearts given up to love, - A foolish and an overwise. - - _France,_ - _April, 1917._ - - - - - THE FIND - - - I took a reed and blew a tune, - And sweet it was and very clear - To be about a little thing - That only few hold dear. - - Three times the cuckoo named himself, - But nothing heard him on the hill, - Where I was piping like an elf - The air was very still. - - 'Tw'as all about a little thing - I made a mystery of sound, - I found it in a fairy ring - Upon a fairy mound. - - _June 2nd, 1917._ - - - - - A FAIRY HUNT - - - Who would hear the fairy horn - Calling all the hounds of Finn - Must be in a lark's nest born - When the moon is very thin. - - I who have the gift can hear - Hounds and horn and tally ho, - And the tongue of Bran as clear - As Christmas bells across the snow. - - And beside my secret place - Hurries by the fairy fox, - With the moonrise on his face, - Up and down the mossy rocks. - - Then the music of a horn - And the flash of scarlet men, - Thick as poppies in the corn - All across the dusky glen. - - Oh! the mad delight of chase! - Oh! the shouting and the cheer! - Many an owl doth leave his place - In the dusty tree to hear. - - - - - TO ONE WHO COMES NOW AND THEN - - - When you come in, it seems a brighter fire - Crackles upon the hearth invitingly, - The household routine which was wont to tire - Grows full of novelty. - - You sit upon our home-upholstered chair - And talk of matters wonderful and strange, - Of books, and travel, customs old which dare - The gods of Time and Change. - - Till we with inner word our care refute - Laughing that this our bosoms yet assails, - While there are maidens dancing to a flute - In Andalusian vales. - - And sometimes from my shelf of poems you take - And secret meanings to our hearts disclose, - As when the winds of June the mid bush shake - We see the hidden rose. - - And when the shadows muster, and each tree - A moment flutters, full of shutting wings, - You take the fiddle and mysteriously - Wake wonders on the strings. - - And in my garden, grey with misty flowers, - Low echoes fainter than a beetle's horn - Fill all the corners with it, like sweet showers - Of bells, in the owl's morn. - - Come often, friend, with welcome and surprise - We'll greet you from the sea or from the town; - Come when you like and from whatever skies - Above you smile or frown. - - _Belgium,_ - _July 22nd, 1917_. - - - - - THE SYLPH - - - I saw you and I named a flower - That lights with blue a woodland space, - I named a bird of the red hour - And a hidden fairy place. - - And then I saw you not, and knew - Dead leaves were whirling down the mist, - And something lost was crying through - An evening of amethyst. - - - - - HOME - - - A burst of sudden wings at dawn, - Faint voices in a dreamy noon, - Evenings of mist and murmurings, - And nights with rainbows of the moon. - - And through these things a wood-way dim, - And waters dim, and slow sheep seen - On uphill paths that wind away - Through summer sounds and harvest green. - - This is a song a robin sang - This morning on a broken tree, - It was about the little fields - That call across the world to me. - - _Belgium,_ - _July, 1917._ - - - - - THE LANAWN SHEE - - - Powdered and perfumed the full bee - Winged heavily across the clover, - And where the hills were dim with dew, - Purple and blue the west leaned over. - - A willow spray dipped in the stream, - Moving a gleam of silver ringing, - And by a finny creek a maid - Filled all the shade with softest singing. - - Listening, my heart and soul at strife, - On the edge of life I seemed to hover, - For I knew my love had come at last, - That my joy was past and my gladness over. - - I tiptoed gently tip and stooped - Above her looped and shining tresses, - And asked her of her kin and name, - And why she came from fairy places. - - She told me of a sunny coast - Beyond the most adventurous sailor, - Where she had spent a thousand years - Out of the fears that now assail her. - - And there, she told me, honey drops - Out of the tops of ash and willow, - And in the mellow shadow Sleep - Doth sweetly keep her poppy pillow. - - Nor Autumn with her brown line marks - The time of larks, the length of roses, - But song-time there is over never - Nor flower-time ever, ever closes. - - And wildly through uncurling ferns - Fast water turns down valleys singing, - Filling with scented winds the dales, - Setting the bells of sleep a-ringing. - - And when the thin moon lowly sinks, - Through cloudy chinks a silver glory - Lingers upon the left of night - Till dawn delights the meadows hoary. - - And by the lakes the skies are white, - (Oh, the delight!) when swans are coming, - Among the flowers sweet joy-bells peal, - And quick bees wheel in drowsy humming. - - The squirrel leaves her dusty house - And in the boughs makes fearless gambol, - And, falling down in fire-drops, red, - The fruit is shed from every bramble. - - Then, gathered all about the trees - Glad galaxies of youth are dancing, - Treading the perfume of the flowers, - Filling the hours with mazy glancing. - - And when the dance is done, the trees - Are left to Peace and the brown woodpecker, - And on the western slopes of sky - The day's blue eye begins to flicker. - - But at the sighing of the leaves, - When all earth grieves for lights departed - An ancient and a sad desire - Steals in to tire the human-hearted. - - No fairy aid can save them now - Nor turn their prow upon the ocean, - The hundred years that missed each heart - Above them start their wheels in motion. - - And so our loves are lost, she sighed, - And far and wide we seek new treasure, - For who on Time or Timeless hills - Can live the ills of loveless leisure? - - ("Fairer than Usna's youngest son, - O, my poor one, what flower-bed holds you? - Or, wrecked upon the shores of home, - What wave of foam with white enfolds you? - - "You rode with kings on hills of green, - And lovely queens have served you banquet, - Sweet wine from berries bruised they brought - And shyly sought the lips which drank it. - - "But in your dim grave of the sea - There shall not be a friend to love you. - And ever heedless of your loss - The earth ships cross the storms above you. - - "And still the chase goes on, and still - The wine shall spill, and vacant places - Be given over to the new - As love untrue keeps changing faces. - - "And I must wander with my song - Far from the young till Love returning, - Brings me the beautiful reward - Of some heart stirred by my long yearning.") - - Friend, have you heard a bird lament - When sleet is sent for April weather? - As beautiful she told her grief, - As down through leaf and flower I led her. - - And friend, could I remain unstirred - Without a word for such a sorrow? - Say, can the lark forget the cloud - When poppies shroud the seeded furrow? - - Like a poor widow whose late grief - Seeks for relief in lonely byeways, - The moon, companionless and dim, - Took her dull rim through starless highways. - - I was too weak with dreams to feel - Enchantment steal with guilt upon me, - She slipped, a flower upon the wind, - And laughed to find how she had won me. - - From hill to hill, from land to land, - Her lovely hand is beckoning for me, - I follow on through dangerous zones, - Cross dead men's bones and oceans stormy. - - Some day I know she'll wait at last - And lock me fast in white embraces, - And down mysterious ways of love - We two shall move to fairy places. - - _Belgium,_ - _July, 1917._ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, by -Francis Ledwidge - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE POEMS--FRANCIS LEDWIDGE *** - -***** This file should be named 53621-8.txt or 53621-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - 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