Chapter 2

[1]Provincially a kind of laughter.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[5]Also they look for his face in old wells.

A MEMORYLow 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 drearAs raindrops pelted from a nodding rushTo give a white wink once and broken fallInto a deep dark pool: they pain the hush,As if the fiery meteor's slanting lanceHad found their empty craws: they fill with soundThe silence, with the merry round,The sounding mazes of a last year's dancerI thought to watch the stars come spark by sparkOut on the muffled night, and watch the moonGo round the full, and turn upon the dark,And sharpen towards the new, and waiting watchThe grand Kaleidoscope of midnight noonChange colours on the dew, where high hills notchThe low and moony sky. But who dare castOne brief hour's horoscope, whose tunéd* earMakes every sound the music of last year?Whose hopes are built up in the door of Past?No, not more silent does the spider stitchA cobweb on the fern, nor fogdrops fallOn sheaves of harvest when the night is richWith moonbeams, than the spirits of delightWalk the dark passages of Memory's hall.We feel them not, but in the wastes of nightWe hear their low-voiced mediums, and we riseTo wrestle old Regrets, to see old faces,To meet and part in old tryst-trodden placesWith breaking heart, and emptying of eyes.I feel the warm hand on my shoulder light,I hear the music of a voice that wordsThe slow time of the feet, I see the whiteArms 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 farewellsA 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 SONGMy heart has flown on wings to you, awayIn the lonely places where your footsteps lieFull up of stars when the short showers of dayHave passed like ancient sorrows. I would flyTo your green solitude of woods to hearYou singing in the sounds of leaves and birds;But I am sad below the depth of wordsThat nevermore we two shall draw anear.Had I but wealth of land and bleating flocksAnd barnfuls of the yellow harvest yield,And a large house with climbing hollyhocksAnd 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 pursueA sad life deep below the depth of words.A FEARI 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 lieI 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 silverOn 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 poetWith stones at the gates, and jeers,But away on the wolds of distanceIn the blue of a thousand yearsHe 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 BRINKTo-night when you sit in the deep hours alone,And from the sleeps you snatch wake quick and feelYou 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 moreAnd 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 spillsIts waters backward from the trysting bar,And in dark furrows of the night there tillsA jewelled plough, and many a falling starMoves you to prayer, then will you think of meOn the long road that will not ever end.Jonah is hoarse in Nineveh—I'd lendMy voice to save the town—and hurriedlyGoes Abraham with murdering knife, and RuthIs 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 endsHang little tossing bells to ring you home.The music is all cracked, and Poesy tendsTo richer blooms than mine; but you who roamThro' coloured gardens of the highest muse,And leave the door ajar sometimes that weMay steal small breathing things of reds and bluesAnd things of white sucked empty by the bee,Will listen to this bunch of bells from me.My cowslips ring you welcome to the landYour 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 sungAnd viewed with doubt the music of their verseAll the long winter, for you love to bringThe 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 STRAWMy harp is out of tune, and so I takeAn oaten straw some shepherd dropped of old.It is the hour when Beauty doth awakeWith trembling limbs upon the dewy cold.And shapes of green show where the woolly foldSlept in the winding shelter of the brake.This I will pipe for you, how all the yearThe one I love like Beauty takes her way.Wrapped in the wind of winter she doth cheerThe loud woods like a sunbeam of the May.This I will pipe for you the whole blue daySeated with Pan upon the mossy weir.EVENING IN FEBRUARYThe windy evening drops a greyOld eyelid down across the sun,The last crow leaves the ploughman's wayAnd happy lambs make no more fun.Wild parsley buds beside my feet,A doubtful thrush makes hurried tune,The steeple in the village streetDoth seem to pierce the twilight moon.I hear and see those changing charms,For all—my thoughts are fixed uponThe hurry and the loud alarmsBefore the fall of Babylon.THE SISTERI saw the little quiet town,And the whitewashed gables on the hill,And laughing children coming downThe laneway to the mill.Wind-blushes up their faces glowed,And they were happy as could be,The wobbling water never flowedSo merry and so free.One little maid withdrew asideTo 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 skiesAnd ships upon the sea?BEFORE THE WAR OF COOLEYAt daybreak Maeve rose up from where she prayedAnd took her prophetess across her doorTo gaze upon her hosts. Tall spear and bladeBurnished for early battle dimly shookThe morning's colours, and then Maeve said:"LookAnd tell me how you see them now."And thenThe woman that was lean with knowledge said:"There's crimson on them, and there's dripping red."And a tall soldier galloped up the glenWith foam upon his boot, and halted thereBeside old Maeve. She said, "Not yet," and turnedInto her blazing dun, and knelt in prayerOne solemn hour, and once again she cameAnd sought her prophetess. With voice that mourned,"How do you see them now?" she asked."All lameAnd broken in the noon." And once againThe soldier stood before her."No, not yet."Maeve answered his inquiring look and turnedOnce more unto her prayer, and yet once more"How do you see them now?" she asked."All wetWith storm rains, and all broken, and all toreWith midnight wolves." And when the soldier cameMaeve said, "It is the hour." There was a flashOf trumpets in the dim, a silver flameOf 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 LANDI often look when the moon is lowThro' that other window on the wall,At a land all beautiful under snow,Blotted with shadows that come and goWhen the winds rise up and fall.And the form of a beautiful maidIn 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 maidWho will not weary of waiting, or jadeOf calling to me for aye.And I would go if I knew the seaThat 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 cheerIn the wide halls, and poets red with wineTell of your eyebrows and your tresses long,And pause to let your royal mother hearThe brown bull low amid her silken kine.And you who are the harpstring and the songWeep like a memory born of some old pain."And Findebar made answer, "I have slainMore than Cuculain's sword, for I have beenThe promised meed of every warrior braveIn Tain Bo Cualigne wars, and I am sadAs is the red banshee that goes to keenAbove 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 wildCurl 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 bendOf the slow river where the dark banks slopeWide to the woods sleeps Ferdia apart.I loved him, and then drove him for pride's sakeTo 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 WATERAnd so, o'er many a league of seaWe 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 mindHow many would remember me.Then red-edged dawn expanded wide,A stony foreland stretched away,And bowed capes gathering round the tideKept many a little homely bay.O joy of living there for aye,O Soul so often tried!THE DEATH OF SUALTEMAfter the brown bull passed from Cooley's fieldsAnd all Muirevne was a wail of pain,Sualtem came at evening thro' the slainAnd 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 starsAnd the sea runs in fear!"For all his scarsHe hastened to Dun Dealgan, and there foundIt was his son, Cuculain, making moan.His hair was red with blood, and he was woundIn wicker full of grass, and a cold stoneWas on his head."Cuculain, is it so?"Sualtem said, and then, "My hair is snow,My strength leaks thro' my wounds, but I will dieAvenging you."And then Cuculain said:"Not so, old father, but take horse and rideTo 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 sighRan up and halted by his wounded side.In Emain Macha to low lights and songConnor 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 strongRocked all the coloured woods, and the blue heightOf heaven was round the lark, and in his heartThere was a pain of love.Then with a startHe wakened as a loud voice from belowShouted, "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 greetThe messenger he hurried to the street.And there he saw Sualtem shouting stillThe message of Muirevne 'mid the soundOf 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 LANDI know not where she be, and yetI 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 wallBefore the changing moon has set.She stands there lovely and aloneAnd 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 CHARIOTEERCONALL"I only heard the loud ebb on the sand,The high ducks talking in the chilly sky.The voices that you fancied floated byWere 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 landWhen the sea's changing, or a lisping breezeIs 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 chimeOf 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 mouthThey kiss thro' all the changes of the world,The grey sea fogs above them are unfurledAt 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 putMist 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 mistsWeep o'er Riangabra let me stand deepBeside my father. Sleep lays heavy thumbsUpon my eyebrows, and I hear the sighsOf far loud waters, and a troop that comesWith boughs of bells——"CONALL"They come to you with sleep."THE PASSING OF CAOILTE'Twas just before the truce sang thro' the dinCaoilte, the thin man, at the war's red endLeaned from the crooked ranks and saw his friendFall in the farther fury; so when truceHalted advancing spears the thin man cameAnd 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 fieldTo where slow water moved among the whins,And sat above a pool of twinkling finsTo court old memories of the Fenian men,Of how Finn's laugh at Conan's tale of gleeBrought down the rowan's boughs on Knoc-naree,And how he made swift comets with his shieldAt 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 birdPulled noiseless oars, but not a word she said.And Caoilte, the thin man, raised up his headAnd took her kiss upon his throbbing brow,And where they went away what man has heard?GROWING OLDWe'll fill a Provence bowl and pledge us deepThe memory of the far ones, and betweenThe 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 headTo open out where Beauty bent a leaf.What do we want with Beauty? We are wedLike 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 wantThe new thing ever as the old thing growsSpectral and weary on the hills we haunt.And that is why we feast, and that is whyWe're growing odd and old, my heart and I.AFTER MY LAST SONGWhere I shall rest when my last song is overThe air is smelling like a feast of wine;And purple breakers of the windy cloverShall roll to cool this burning brow of mine;And there shall come to me, when day is toldThe peace of sleep when I am grey and old.I'm wild for wandering to the far-off placesSince one forsook me whom I held most dear.I want to see new wonders and new facesBeyond East seas; but I will win back hereWhen my last song is sung, and veins are coldAs 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 leapingLike hungry hounds once more, how many a painShall heal; but when my last short song is trolledYou'll sleep here on wan cheeks grown thin and old.SONGS OF PEACE AT HOMEA DREAM OF ARTEMISThere was soft beauty on the linnet's tongueTo see the rainbow's coloured bands arch wide.The thunder darted his red fangs amongSouth mountains, but the East was like a brideDrest for the altar at her mother's doorWeeping between two loves. The fields were piedWith May's munificence of flowers, that woreThe fashion of the days when Eve was young,God's kirtles, ere the first sweet summer died.The blackbird in a thorn of waving whiteSang bouquets of small tunes that bid me turnFrom twilight wanderings thro' some old delightI heard in my far memory making mourn.Such music fills me with a joy half pain,And beats a track across my life I spurnIn sober moments. Ah, this wandering brainCould play its hurdy-gurdy all the nightTo vagrant joys of days beyond the bourn.I heard the river warble sweetly nighTo 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 spearFlashed by me, and ten nymphs fleet-footed brokeOut of the coppice with a silver cry,Into the bow of lights to disappear.For one blue minute then there was no soundSave water-noise, slow round a rushy bend,And bird-delight, and ripples on the groundOf windy flowers that swelling would ascendThe coloured hill and break all beautifulAnd, falling backwards, to the woods would sendThe full tide of their love. What soft moons pullTheir moving fragrance? did I ask, and foundSad Io in far Egypt met a friend.—It was my body thought so, far awayIn the grey future, not the wild bird tiedThat is the wandering soul. Behind the dayWe may behold thee, soft one, hunted wideBy the loud gadfly; but the truant soulKnows thee before thou lay by night's dark side,Wed to the dimness; long before its doleWas 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 bendDown on a trembling white knee, and her tearsFell down in globes of light, and her small mouthWas filled up with a name unspoken. YearsOf waiting love, and all their long, long droughtOf kisses parched her lips, and did she spendHer eyes blue candles searching thro' her fears."She hath loved Ganymede, the stolen boy."Said one, and then another, "Let us singTo Zeus that he may give her living joyAbove Olympus, where the cool hill-springOf Lethe bubbles up to bathe the heartSorrow's lean fingers bruised. There eagles wingTo eyries in the stars, and when they partTheir broad dark wings a wind is born to buoyThe bee home heavy in the far evening."HYMN TO ZEUS"God, whose kindly hand doth sowThe rainbow showers on hill and lawn,To make the young sweet grasses growAnd 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 hourUpon the river's liquid words.Reach out a golden beam of thineAnd touch her pain. Your finger-tipsDo make the violets' blue eclipseLike 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 carsAnd 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 painA heart has oozed thro' all the years.Your pity dries the morning's tearsAnd fills the world with joy again!"The rainbow's lights were shut, and all the maidsStood round the sad nymph in a snow-white ring,She rising spoke, "A blue and soft light bathesMe 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 apartLove looked, and Beauty sang. I felt a strongPulse on my wrist, a feeling like a painIn my quick heart, for Love with gazes longWas worshipping at Artemis, now lainAmong the heaving flowers ... I longed to dartAnd 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 seeThe white mounds of her muscles. Gentle sleepThreatened her far blue looks. The noisy weirFell into a low murmuring lullaby.And then the flowers came back behind the heelOf hunted Io: she, poor maid, had fearWide in her eyes looking half back to stealA glimpse of the loud gadfly fiercely near.In her right hand she held Planting light,And in her left her train. Artemis hereRaised herself on her palms, and took a whiteHorn from her side and blew a silver pealTil three hounds from the coppice did appear.The white nine left the spaces of flowers, and nowWent calling thro' the wood the hunter's call.Young echoes sleeping in the hollow boughTook up the shouts and handed them to allTheir sisters of the crags, 'til all the dayWas filled with voices loud and musical.I followed them across a tangled way'Til the red deer broke out and took the browOf 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 blueWere 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 spedAnd killed our quarry in his native lair.Then Artemis spun round to me and said,"Whence come you?" and I took her long damp hairAnd made a ball of it, and said, "Where youAre 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 evetideA large and lovely star. Then to releaseHer hair, my hand dropped to her girded waistAnd lay there shyly. "O my love, the leaseOf your existence is for ever: tasteNo less with me the love of earth," I cried."Though for so short a while on lands and seasOur mortal hearts know beauty, and overblow,And we are dust upon some passing wind,Dust and a memory. But for you the snowThat so long cloaks the mountains to the kneesIs no more than a morning. It doth goAnd summer comes, and leaf upon the trees:Still you are fair and young, and nothing findIn 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 beholdWhat still is left of Beauty undisgraced,The snowdrop at the heel of winter coldAnd shivering, and the wayward cuckoo chasedBy lingering March, and, in the thunder's vanThe 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 binThat heard the ragman's story, blackened placesWhere gipsies camped and circuses made din,Fast water and the melancholy tracesOf sea tides, and poor people madly whirledUp, down, and through the black retreats of sin.These things a god might love, and stooping blessWith benedictions of eternal song.—But I have not loved Artemis the lessFor loving these, but deem it noble loveTo sing of live or dead things in distressAnd wake memorial memories above.Such is the soul that comes to plead with youOh, Artemis, to tend you in your needs.At mornings I will bring you bells of dewFrom honey places, and wild fish from, streamsFlowing in secret places. I will brewSweet wine of alder for your evening dreams,And pipe you music in the dusky reedsWhen the four distances give up their blue.And when the white procession of the starsCrosses 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 MORNINGHe will not come, and still I wait.He whistles at another gateWhere angels listen. Ah, I knowHe will not come, yet if I goHow shall I know he did not passBarefooted in the flowery grass?The moon leans on one silver hornAbove the silhouettes of morn,And from their nest sills finches whistleOr stooping pluck the downy thistle.How is the morn so gay and fairWithout his whistling in its air?The world is calling, I must go.How shall I know he did not passBarefooted in the shining grass?IN BARRACKSTO A DISTANT ONEThrough 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 astrayAnd miss you in my life. Though Fate may proveA tardy guide she will not make delayLeading 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 leaveLove at the moonlit trysting-place to grieveTill 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 woodsLike Beauty calling for a poet's songTo one whose harp had suffered many a wrongIn the lean hands of Pain. And when the broodsOf flower eyes waken all the streams alongIn tender whiles, I feel most near to you:—Oh, when we meet there shall be sun and blueStrong as the spring is strong.THE PLACEBlossoms as old as May I scatter here,And a blue wave I lifted from the stream.It shall not know when winter days are drearOr March is hoarse with blowing. But a-dreamThe laurel boughs shall hold a canopyPeacefully 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 takeMy lute a-down to it and sing againSongs 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.MAYShe leans across an orchard gate somewhere,Bending from out the shadows to the light,A dappled spray of blossom in her hairStudded with dew-drops lovely from the nightShe smiles to think how many hearts she'll smiteWith 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 tellThro' the white mist of blossoms where she liesPainting a sunset for the western skies.You'd know her by her smile and by her tearAnd by the way the swift and martin flies,Where she is south of these wild days and drear.TO EILISH OF THE FAIR HAIRI'd make my heart a harp to play for youLove songs within the evening dim of day,Were it not dumb with ache and with mildewOf 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 isLike laughing sunlight running thro' December.But this it singeth loud above its pain,To bring the greater ache: whate'er befallThe love that oft-times woke the sweeter strainShall turn to you always. And should you callTo pity it some day in those old placesAngels will covet the loud joy that fills it.But thinking of the by-ways where your face isSunlight on other hearts—Ah! how it kills it.IN CAMPCREWBAWNWhite 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 sleepThat hollows out the graves.EVENING IN ENGLANDFrom its blue vase the rose of evening drops.Upon the streams its petals float away.The hills all blue with distance hide their topsIn the dim silence falling on the grey.A little wind said "Hush!" and shook a sprayHeavy 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 moonLeans on one horn as if beseeching easeFrom 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 SEACROCKNAHARNAOn the heights of Crocknaharna,(Oh, the lure of Crocknaharna)On a morning fair and earlyOf a dear remembered May,There I heard a colleen singingIn the brown rocks and the grey.She, the pearl of Crocknaharna,Crocknaharna, Crocknaharna,Wild with girls is CrocknaharnaTwenty hundred miles away.On the heights of Crocknaharna,(Oh, thy sorrow Crocknaharna)On an evening dim and mistyOf a cold November day,There I heard a woman weepingIn the brown rocks and the grey.Oh, the pearl of Crocknaharna(Crocknaharna, Crocknaharna),Black with grief is CrocknaharnaTwenty hundred miles away.IN THE MEDITERRANEAN—GOING TO THE WARLovely wings of gold and greenFlit about the sounds I hear,On my window when I leanTo 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 GARDENERAmong the flowers, like flowers, her slow hands moveEasing a muffled bell or stooping lowTo help sweet roses climb the stakes above,Where pansies stare and seem to whisper "Lo!"Like gaudy butterflies her sweet peas blowFilling the garden with dim rustlings. ClearOn the sweet Book she reads how long agoThere was a garden to a woman dear.She makes her life one grand beatitudeOf Love and Peace, and with contented eyesShe sees not in the whole world mean or rude,And her small lot she trebly multiplies.And when the darkness muffles up the skiesStill to be happy is her sole desire,She sings sweet songs about a great emprise,And sees a garden blowing in the fire.IN SERBIAAUTUMN EVENING IN SERBIAAll the thin shadowsHave closed on the grass,With the drone on their dark wingsThe night beetles pass.Folded her eyelids,A maiden asleep,Day sees in her chamberThe pallid moon peep.From the bend of the briarThe roses are torn,And the folds of the wood topsAre faded and worn.A strange bird is singingSweet notes of the sun,Tho' song time is overAnd Autumn begun.NOCTURNEThe rim of the moonIs over the corn.The beetle's droneIs above the thorn.Grey days come soonAnd I am alone;Can you hear my moanWhere you rest, Aroon?When the wild tree boreThe deep blue cherry,In night's deep hallOur love kissed merry.But you come no moreWhere its woodlands call,And the grey days fallOn my grief, Astore!SPRING AND AUTUMNGreen ripples singing down the corn,With blossoms dumb the path I tread,And in the music of the mornOne with wild roses on her head.Now the green ripples turn to goldAnd all the paths are loud with rain,I with desire am growing oldAnd full of winter pain.IN GREECETHE DEPARTURE OF PROSERPINEOld mother Earth for me already grieves,Her morns wake weeping and her noons are dim,Silence has left her woods, and all the leavesDance in the windy shadows on the rimOf the dull lake thro' which I soon shall passTo my dark bridal bedDown in the hollow chambers of the dead.Will not the thunder hide me if I call,Wrapt in the corner of some distant starThe gods have never known?Alas! alas!My voice has left with the last wing, my fallShall crush the flowery fields with gloom, as farAs swallows fly.Would I might dieAnd in a solitude of roses lieAs the last bud's outblown.Then nevermore Demeter would be heardWail in the blowing rain, but every showerWould come bound up with rainbows to the birdsWrapt in a dusty wing, and the dry flowerHanging a shrivelled lip.This weary change from light to darkness fillsMy heart with twilight, and my brightest dayDawns over thunder and in thunder spillsIts urn of gladnessWith a sadnessThrough which the slow dews dripAnd the bat goes over on a thorny wing.Is it a dream that once I used to singFrom Ægean shores across her rocky isles,Making the bells of Babylon to ringOver the wilesThat lifted me from darkness to the SpringAnd the KingSeeing his wine in blossom on the treeDanced with the queen a merry roundelay,And all the blue circumference of the dayWas 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 SHEEPThe sheep are coming home in Greece,Hark the bells on every hill!Flock by flock, and fleece by fleece,Wandering wide a little pieceThro' the evening red and still,Stopping where the pathways cease,Cropping with a hurried will.Thro' the cotton-bushes lowMerry boys with shouldered crooksClose them in a single row,Shout among them as they goWith one bell-ring o'er the brooks.Such delight you never knowReading it from gilded books.Before the early stars are brightCormorants and sea-gulls call,And the moon comes large and whiteFilling with a lovely lightThe ferny curtained waterfall.Then sleep wraps every bell up tightAnd the climbing moon grows small.WHEN LOVE AND BEAUTY WANDER AWAYWhen 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 EGYPTMY MOTHERGod made my mother on an April day,From sorrow and the mist along the sea,Lost birds' and wanderers' songs and ocean sprayAnd 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 thereAnd kissed away the music from her lips.She came unto the hills and saw the changeThat 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 waveWhose hopes grew wings like ants to fly away.I bless the God Who such a mother gaveThis poor bird-hearted singer of a day.SONGNothing but sweet music wakesMy 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 DEADA blackbird singingOn a moss upholstered stone,Bluebells swinging,Shadows wildly blown,A song in the wood,A ship on the sea.The song was for youAnd the ship was for me.A blackbird singingI hear in my troubled mind,Bluebells swingingI see in a distant wind.But sorrow and silenceAre the wood's threnody,The silence for youAnd the sorrow for me.THE RESURRECTIONMy true love still is all that's fair,She is flower and blossom blowing free,For all her silence lying thereShe 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 PEOPLEOld lame Bridget doesn't hearFairy music in the grassWhen the gloaming's on the mereAnd the shadow people pass:Never hears their slow grey feetComing from the village streetJust beyond the parson's wall,Where the clover globes are sweetAnd the mushroom's parasolOpens in the moonlit rain.Every night I hear them callFrom their long and merry train.Old lame Bridget says to me,"It is just your fancy, child,"She cannot believe I seeLaughing faces in the wild,Hands that twinkle in the sedgeBowing at the water's edgeWhere the finny minnows quiver,Shaping on a blue wave's ledgeBubble foam to sail the river.And the sunny hands to meBeckon ever, beckon ever.Oh! I would be wild and freeAnd with the shadow people be.IN BARRACKSAN OLD DESIREI searched thro' memory's lumber-roomAnd there I found an old desire,I took it gently from the gloomTo 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 dawnAnd 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 McDONAGHHe shall not hear the bittern cryIn the wild sky, where he is lain,Nor voices of the sweeter birdsAbove the wailing of the rain.Nor shall he know when loud March blowsThro' slanting snows her fanfare shrill,Blowing to flame the golden cupOf 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 mornLifting her horn in pleasant meads.THE WEDDING MORNINGSpread the feast, and let there beSuch music heard as best beseemsA king's son coming from the seaTo wed a maiden of the streams.Poets, pale for long ago,Bring sweet sounds from rock and flood,You by echo's accent knowWhere the water is and wood.Harpers whom the moths of TimeBent 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 tideAnd Cathleen weeps among her streams.THE BLACKBIRDSI heard the Poor Old Woman say:"At break of day the fowler came,And took my blackbirds from their songsWho loved me well thro shame and blame.No more from lovely distancesTheir songs shall bless me mile by mile,Nor to white Ashbourne call me downTo wear my crown another while.With bended flowers the angels markFor the skylark the place they lie,From there its little familyShall dip their wings first in the sky.And when the first surprise of flightSweet songs excite, from the far dawnShall there come blackbirds loud with love,Sweet echoes of the singers gone.But in the lonely hush of eveWeeping I grieve the silent bills."I heard the Poor Old Woman sayIn Derry of the little hills.THE LUREI saw night leave her halos downOn Mitylene's dark mountain isle,The silhouette of one fair townLike broken shadows in a pile.And in the farther dawn I heardThe music of a foreign bird.In fields of shady angles nowI stand and dream in the half dark:The thrush is on the blossomed bough,Above the echoes sings the lark,And little rivers drop betweenHills fairer than dark Mitylene.Yet something calls me with no voiceAnd wakes sweet echoes in my mind;In the fair country of my choiceNor Peace nor Love again I find,Nor anything of rest I knowWhen south-east winds are blowing low.THRO' BOGAC BANI 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 thingsThat love the springs of Bogac Ban,Spread some new rumour round the darkAnd 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 ManOf Bogac Ban once more I go.FATELugh made a stir in the airWith his sword of cries,And fairies thro' hidden waysCame from the skies,And their spells withered up the fairAnd vanquished the wise.And old lame Balor came downWith his gorgon eyeHidden 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 eyeSearching me through,Withering up my songsAnd my pipe yet new.EVENING CLOUDSA little flock of clouds go down to restIn some blue corner off the moon's highway,With shepherd winds that shook them in the WestTo borrowed shapes of earth, in bright array,Perhaps to weave a rainbow's gay festoonsAround the lonesome isle which Brooke has madeA little England full of lovely noons,Or dot it with his country's mountain shade.Ah, little wanderers, when you reach that isleTell him, with dripping dew, they have not failed,What he loved most; for late I roamed awhileThro' English fields and down her rivers sailed;And they remember him with beauty caughtFrom old desires of Oriental SpringHeard in his heart with singing overwrought;And still on Purley Common gooseboys sing.SONGThe 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 HERONSAs I was climbing Ardan MorFrom the shore of Sheelan lake,I met the herons coming downBefore the water's wake.And they were talking in their flightOf dreamy ways the herons goWhen all the hills are withered upNor any waters flow.IN THE SHADOWSThe silent music of the flowersWind-mingled shall not fail to cheerThe lonely hoursWhen I no more am here.Then in some shady willow placeTake up the book my heart has made,And hide your faceAgainst my name which was a shade.THE SHIPS OF ARCADYThro' the faintest filigreeOver the dim waters goLittle ships of ArcadyWhen the morning moon is low.I can hear the sailors' songFrom the blue edge of the sea,Passing like the lights alongThro' the dusky filigree.Then where moon and waters meetSail by sail they pass away,With little friendly winds repleteBlowing from the breaking day.And when the little ships have flown,Dreaming still of ArcadyI look across the waves, aloneIn the misty filigree.AFTERAnd in the after silencesOf flower-lit distances I'll be,And who would find me travels farIn 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 WEEPINGMaiden, these are sacred tears,Let me not disturb your grief!Had I but your bosom's fearsI should weep, nor seek relief.My woe is a silent woe'Til I give it measured rhyme,When the blackbird's flute is lowIn my heart at singing time.A DREAM DANCEMaeve held a ball on the dún,Cuculain and Eimer were there,In the light of an old broken moonI was dancing with Deirdre the fair.How loud was the laughter of FinnAs 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 FAUGHANFor hills and woods and streams unsungI pipe above a rippled cove.And here the weaver autumn hungBetween the hills a wind she woveFrom sounds the hills remember yetOf purple days and violet.The hills stand up to trip the sky,Sea-misted, and along the topsWing after wing goes summer by,And many a little roadway stopsAnd 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 knowsRing in the fields of Eastern flocks.And here this song for you I findBetween the silence and the wind.IN SEPTEMBERStill are the meadowlands, and stillRipens the upland corn,And over the brown gradual hillThe moon has dipped a horn.The voices of the dear unknownWith silent hearts now call,My rose of youth is overblownAnd trembles to the fall.My song forsakes me like the birdsThat leave the rain and grey,I hear the music of the wordsMy lute can never say.LAST SONGSTO AN OLD QUILL OF LORD DUNSANY'SBefore you leave my hands' abusesTo 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 youIn the pools of sunset, ruddy.Have you sighed in wings untravelledFor the heights where others view theBluer widths of heaven, and marvelledAt the utmost top of Beauty?No! it cannot be; the soul youSigh with craves nor begs of us.From such heights a poet stole youFrom a wing of Pegasus.You have been where gods were sleepingIn the dawn of new creations,Ere they woke to woman's weepingAt the broken thrones of nations.You have seen this old world shatteredBy old gods it disappointed,Lying up in darkness, batteredBy wild comets, unanointed.But for Beauty unmolestedHave you still the sighing olden?I know mountains heather-crested,Waters white, and waters golden.There I'd keep you, in the lowlyBeauty-haunts of bird and poet,Sailing in a wing, the holySilences of lakes below it.But I leave you by where no manFinds you, when I too be goneFrom the puddles on this commonOver the dark Rubicon.Londonderry,September 18th, 1916.TO A SPARROWBecause you have no fear to mingleWings with those of greater part,So like me, with song I singleYour sweet impudence of heart.And when prouder feathers go whereSummer holds her leafy show,You still come to us from nowhereLike grey leaves across the snow.In back ways where odd and end goTo your meals you drop down sure,Knowing every broken windowOf 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 youAnd 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 pardonMy 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 acknowledgeThat I was the quarry you sought,For was I not bred in a collegeAnd reared in a mansion, you thought.And now in the latest style cutWith fortune more kinder I goTo welcome you half-ways. Ah! butI was nearer the gods when "Old Clo'."YOUTHShe paved the way with perfume sweetOf flowers that moved like winds alight,And never weary grew my feetWandering through the spring's delight.She dropped her sweet fife to her lipsAnd lured me with her melodies,To where the great big wandering shipsPut 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 townShe left me to grow old alone.THE LITTLE CHILDRENHunger points a bony fingerTo the workhouse on the hill,But the little children lingerWhile there's flowers to gather stillFor my sunny window sill.In my hands I take their faces,Smiling to my smiles they run.Would that I could take their placesWhere the murky bye-ways shunThe benedictions of the sun.How they laugh and sing returningLightly on their secret way.While I listen in my yearningTheir laughter fills the windy dayWith gladness, youth and May.AUTUMNNow leafy winds are blowing cold,And South by West the sun goes down,A quiet huddles up the foldIn sheltered corners of the brown.Like scattered fire the wild fruit strewsThe ground beneath the blowing tree,And there the busy squirrel hewsHis deep and secret granary.And when the night comes starry clear,The lonely quail complains besideThe glistening waters on the mereWhere widowed Beauties yet abide.And I, too, make my own complaintUpon a reed I plucked in June,And love to hear it echoed faintUpon another heart in tune.Londonderry,September 29th, 1916.IRELANDI 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 FinnAnd the long hosts of Lugh.And so, I came unto a windy heightAnd 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 warArmed 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 nearTo bring your crown from out the deeps of time,It is my grief your voice I couldn't hearIn such a distant clime.LADY FAIRLady fair, have we not metIn our lives elsewhere?Darkling in my mind to-nightFaint fair faces dareMemory's old unfaithfulnessTo what was true and fair.Long of memory is Regret,But what Regret has taken flightThrough 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 hairAnd in the liquid of your eyesSeem to murmur old good-byesIn our lives elsewhere.Have we not met, Lady fair?Londonderry,October 27th, 1916.AT A POET'S GRAVEWhen I leave down this pipe my friendAnd sleep with flowers I loved, apart,My songs shall rise in wilding thingsWhose roots are in my heart.And here where that sweet poet sleepsI hear the songs he left unsung,When winds are fluttering the flowersAnd summer-bells are rung.November, 1916.AFTER COURT MARTIALMy mind is not my mind, thereforeI take no heed of what men say,I lived ten thousand years beforeGod cursed the town of Nineveh.The Present is a dream I seeOf horror and loud sufferings,At dawn a bird will waken meUnto 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 SONGLittle ships of whitest pearlWith sailors who were ancient kings,Come over the sea when my little girlSings.And if my little girl should weep,Little ships with torn sailsGo headlong down among the deepWhales.November, 1916.AT CURRABWEEEvery night at CurrabweeLittle men with leather hatsMend the boots of FaeryFrom the tough wings of the bats.So my mother told to me,And she is wise you will agree.Louder than a cricket's wingAll night long their hammer's gleeTimes the merry songs they singOf Ireland glorious and free.So I heard Joseph Plunkett say,You know he heard them but last May.And when the night is very coldThey warm their hands against the lightOf stars that make the waters goldWhere 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 heardTheir singing as the stars went by,For am I not of those who rearedThe banner of old Ireland high,From Dublin town to Turkey's shores,And where the Vardar loudly roars?December, 1916.SONG-TIME IS OVERI 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 BAWNUna 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 youWhen the sails are on the tide,'Tis you will find the days so long,Una Bawn, and I must bide.December 13th, 1916.SPRING LOVEI saw her coming through the flowery grass,Round her swift ankles butterfly and beeBlent loud and silent wings; I saw her passWhere 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.SOLILOQUYWhen I was young I had a careLest I should cheat me of my shareOf that which makes it sweet to striveFor life, and dying still survive,A name in sunshine written higherThan lark or poet dare aspire.But I grew weary doing well,Besides, 'twas sweeter in that hell,Down with the loud banditti peopleWho robbed the orchards, climbed the steepleFor jackdaws' eggs and made the cockCrow ere 'twas daylight on the clock.I was so very bad the neighboursSpoke 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 retrieveA fallen dream, too late to grieveA name unmade, but not too lateTo 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 fameA little grave that has no name.DAWNQuiet miles of golden sky,And in my heart a sudden flower.I want to clap my hands and cryFor Beauty in her secret bower.Quiet golden miles of dawn—Smilingall the East along;And in my heart nigh fully blownA little rose-bud of a song.CEOL SIDHE[1]When May is here, and every mornIs dappled with pied bells,And dewdrops glance along the thornAnd wings flash in the dells,I take my pipe and play a tuneOf dreams, a whispered melody,For feet that dance beneath the moonIn fairy jollity.And when the pastoral hills are greyAnd the dim stars are spread,A scamper fills the grass like playOf feet where fairies tread.And many a little whispering thingIs calling to the Shee.The dewy bells of evening ring,And all is melody.France,December 29th, 1916.

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