[1]Fairy music.
[1]Fairy music.
THE RUSHESThe rushes nod by the riverAs 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 fairiesWho lived ere the hills were high,They nod so grave by the riverTo everyone passing by.If they would tell me their secretsI would go by a hidden way,To the rath when the moon retiringDips dim horns into the gray.And a fairy-girl out of LeinsterIn 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 KINGSAll the dead kings came to meAt 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 storyOf ancient glory, sweetly told.It was too early for the lark,But the starry dark had tints of gold.I listened to the sorrows threeOf 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 storyOf later glory, her fourth sorrow:There was a sound like moving shieldsIn high green fields and the lowland furrow.And one said: "We who yet are kingsHave heard these things lamenting inly."Sweet music flowed from many a billAnd 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 perishedAnd all they cherished in the way,Their thoughts unsung, like petal showersInflame the hours of blue and gray."And one said: "A loud tramp of menWe'll hear again at Rosnaree."A bomb burst near me where I lay.I woke, 'twas day in Picardy.France,January 7th, 1917.IN FRANCEThe silence of maternal hillsIs round me in my evening dreams;And round me music-making billsAnd mingling waves of pastoral streams.Whatever way I turn I findThe 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 proveThe 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.FAIRIESMaiden-poet, come with meTo the heaped up cairn of Maeve,And there we'll dance a fairy danceUpon 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 CAFÉKiss 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 seenAloof from our good table's sparkle,At the acme of our cheerHere are francs to keep the circle.They are far who miss us most—Sipand kiss—how well we love them,Battling through the world to keepTheir hearts at peace, their God above them.February 11th, 1917.SPRINGOnce more the lark with song and speedCleaves through the dawn, his hurried barsFall, like the flute of GanymedeTwirling and whistling from the stars.The primrose and the daffodilSurprise the valleys, and wild thymeIs sweet on every little hill,When lambs come down at folding time.In every wild place now is heardThe magpie's noisy house, and throughThe mingled tunes of many a birdThe ruffled wood-dove's gentle coo.Sweet by the river's noisy brinkThe water-lily bursts her crown,The kingfisher comes down to drinkLike rainbow jewels falling down.And when the blue and grey entwineThe daisy shuts her golden eye,And peaces-wraps all those hills of mineSafe in my dearest memory.France,March 8th, 1917.PANHe knows the safe ways and unsafeAnd 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 lambsHe settles them for rest at noon,And plays them on his oaten pipeThe very wonder of a tune.France,March 11th, 1917.WITH FLOWERSThese have more language than my song,Take them and let them speak for me.I whispered them a secret thingDown the green lanes of Allary.You shall remember quiet waysWatching them fade, and quiet eyes,And two hearts given up to love,A foolish and an overwise.France,April, 1917.THE FINDI took a reed and blew a tune,And sweet it was and very clearTo be about a little thingThat only few hold dear.Three times the cuckoo named himself,But nothing heard him on the hill,Where I was piping like an elfThe air was very still.'Twas all about a little thingI made a mystery of sound,I found it in a fairy ringUpon a fairy mound.June 2nd, 1917.A FAIRY HUNTWho would hear the fairy hornCalling all the hounds of FinnMust be in a lark's nest bornWhen the moon is very thin.I who have the gift can hearHounds and horn and tally ho,And the tongue of Bran as clearAs Christmas bells across the snow.And beside my secret placeHurries by the fairy fox,With the moonrise on his face,Up and down the mossy rocks.Then the music of a hornAnd the flash of scarlet men,Thick as poppies in the cornAll across the dusky glen.Oh! the mad delight of chase!Oh! the shouting and the cheer!Many an owl doth leave his placeIn the dusty tree to hear.TO ONE WHO COMES NOW AND THENWhen you come in, it seems a brighter fireCrackles upon the hearth invitingly,The household routine which was wont to tireGrows full of novelty.You sit upon our home-upholstered chairAnd talk of matters wonderful and strange,Of books, and travel, customs old which dareThe gods of Time and Change.Till we with inner word our care refuteLaughing that this our bosoms yet assails,While there are maidens dancing to a fluteIn Andalusian vales.And sometimes from my shelf of poems you takeAnd secret meanings to our hearts disclose,As when the winds of June the mid bush shakeWe see the hidden rose.And when the shadows muster, and each treeA moment flutters, full of shutting wings,You take the fiddle and mysteriouslyWake wonders on the strings.And in my garden, grey with misty flowers,Low echoes fainter than a beetle's hornFill all the corners with it, like sweet showersOf bells, in the owl's morn.Come often, friend, with welcome and surpriseWe'll greet you from the sea or from the town;Come when you like and from whatever skiesAbove you smile or frown.Belgium,July 22nd, 1917.THE SYLPHI saw you and I named a flowerThat lights with blue a woodland space,I named a bird of the red hourAnd a hidden fairy place.And then I saw you not, and knewDead leaves were whirling down the mist,And something lost was crying throughAn evening of amethyst.HOMEA 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 seenOn uphill paths that wind awayThrough summer sounds and harvest green.This is a song a robin sangThis morning on a broken tree,It was about the little fieldsThat call across the world to me.Belgium,July, 1917.THE LANAWN SHEEPowdered and perfumed the full beeWinged 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 maidFilled 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 stoopedAbove 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 coastBeyond the most adventurous sailor,Where she had spent a thousand yearsOut of the fears that now assail her.And there, she told me, honey dropsOut of the tops of ash and willow,And in the mellow shadow SleepDoth sweetly keep her poppy pillow.Nor Autumn with her brown line marksThe time of larks, the length of roses,But song-time there is over neverNor flower-time ever, ever closes.And wildly through uncurling fernsFast 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 gloryLingers upon the left of nightTill 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 houseAnd 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 treesGlad galaxies of youth are dancing,Treading the perfume of the flowers,Filling the hours with mazy glancing.And when the dance is done, the treesAre left to Peace and the brown woodpecker,And on the western slopes of skyThe day's blue eye begins to flicker.But at the sighing of the leaves,When all earth grieves for lights departedAn ancient and a sad desireSteals in to tire the human-hearted.No fairy aid can save them nowNor turn their prow upon the ocean,The hundred years that missed each heartAbove 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 hillsCan 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 broughtAnd shyly sought the lips which drank it."But in your dim grave of the seaThere shall not be a friend to love you.And ever heedless of your lossThe earth ships cross the storms above you."And still the chase goes on, and stillThe wine shall spill, and vacant places** Be given over to the newAs love untrue keeps changing faces."And I must wander with my songFar from the young till Love returning,Brings me the beautiful rewardOf some heart stirred by my long yearning.")Friend, have you heard a bird lamentWhen 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 unstirredWithout a word for such a sorrow?Say, can the lark forget the cloudWhen poppies shroud the seeded furrow?Like a poor widow whose late griefSeeks for relief in lonely byeways,The moon, companionless and dim,Took her dull rim through starless highways.I was too weak with dreams to feelEnchantment 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 lastAnd lock me fast in white embraces,And down mysterious ways of loveWe two shall move to fairy places.Belgium,July, 1917.