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Francis Ledwidge

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Title: The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge
      with Introductions by Lord Dunsany

Author: Francis Ledwidge

Release Date: November 28, 2016 [EBook #53621]

Language: English

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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 Æolus 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 æons 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 Ægean 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._





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