Behold! a new white world!The falling snowHas cloaked the last old yearAnd bid him go.
To-morrow! cries the oak-treeTo his heart,My sealèd buds shall flingTheir leaves apart.
To-morrow! pipes the robin,And againHow sweet the nest that longWas full of rain.
To-morrow! bleats the sheep,And one by oneMy little lambs shall frolic’Neath the sun.
For us, too, let some fairTo-morrow be,O Thou who weavest threadsOf Destiny!
Thou wast a babe on thatFar Christmas Day,Let us as children followIn Thy way.
So that our hearts grown cold’Neath time and pain,With young sweet faith may blossomGreen again.
That empty promisesOf passing yearsSpring into life, and notRepenting tears.
So that our deeds uponThe earth may go,As innocent as lambs,And pure as snow.
The kine of my rather, they are straying from my keeping;The young goat’s at mischief, but little can I do:For all through the night did I hear the Banshee keening;O youth of my loving, and is it well with you?
All through the night sat my mother with my sorrow;“Whisht, it is the wind, O one childeen of my heart!”My hair with the wind, and my two hands clasped in anguish;Black head of my darling! too long are we apart.
Were your grave at my feet, I would think it half a blessing;I could herd then the cattle, and drive the goats away;Many a Paternoster I would say for your safe keeping;I could sleep above your heart, until the dawn of day.
I see you on the prairie, hot with thirst and faint with hunger;The head that I love lying low upon the sand.The vultures shriek impatient, and the coyote dogs are howling,Till the blood is pulsing cold within your clenching hand.
I see you on the waters, so white, so still forlorn,Your dear eyes unclosing beneath a foreign rain:A plaything of the winds, you turn and drift unceasing,No grave for your resting; O mine the bitter pain!
All through the night did I hear the Banshee keening:Somewhere you are dying, and nothing can I do;My hair with the wind, and my two hands clasped in anguish;Bitter is your trouble—and I am far from you.
Neighbour! for pity a hound cries on your stepsWith pleading eyes, with sore and weary feet.Neighbour! your pity a poor beast doth implore;Hunger and cold are busy in the street.Then, neighbour! pause; ’tis no good work you do.“Off from my door! I have no place for you.”
Neighbour, your mercy! A heart of love is here,Within this weary body—love is rare,And seldom comes to cry before our door.Then open wide, and take your little share.Love pleads to be your servant, leal and true.“Off from my step! I have no place for you.”
From step to step abused, from door to door,Whipped by the wind, and beaten by the rain,With hunger at his throat, he passes on;Yet one who follows shares the creature’s pain.One follows. Neighbour, stop! unless you rue.“Off from my step! I have no place for you.”
The gentle Christ had heard His crying hound,And left His throne to track the weary feet.He follows, though unseen, with bleeding heart,Refused from door to door, from street to street.Yes, one who follows had refusal too.“Off from my door! I have no place for you.”
I saw an Eastern God to-day;My comrades laughed; lest I betrayMy secret thoughts, I mocked him too.His many hands (he had no few,This God of gifts and charity),The marble race, that smiled on me,I mocked, and said, “O God unthroned,Lone exile from the faith you owned,No priest to bring you sacrifice,No censer with its breath of spice,No land to mourn your funeral pyre.O King, whose subjects felt your fire,Now dead, now stone, without a slave,Unfeared, unloved, you have no grave.Poor God, who cannot understand,And what of your fair Eastern land,What dark brows brushed your dusky feet,What warm hearts on your marble beat,With many a prayer unanswered?”My comrades laughed and passed. I said,“If in those lands you wander still,In spirit, God, and work your will,”I whispered in the marble earSo low—because the walls might hear—The painted lips they smiled at me—“O guard my love, where’er he be.”
Who has room for a friendWho has money to spend,And a goblet of goldFor your fingers to hold,At the wave of whose handLeap the salmon to land,Drop the birds of the air,Fall the stag and the hare.Who has room for a friendWho has money to lend?We have room for a friend!
Who has room for a friendWho has nothing to lend,When the goblet of goldIs as far from his holdAs the fleet-footed hare,Or the birds of the air.Who has room for a friendWho has nothing to spend?We know not such a friend.
Hush, ’tis thy voice!No, but a bird upon the boughRomancing to its mate, but where art thouTo bid my heart rejoice?
’Tis thy hand, speak!No, but the branches striking in the windLet loose a withered leaf that falls behindBlown to my cheek.
Hush, thy footfall!No, ’tis a streamlet hidden in the fern,Thus from dawn to dark I wait, I learnSorrow is all.
O to be a woman! to be left to pique and pine,When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine.Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still?There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill.All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free—O to be a sailor, and away across the sea!When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam,The gray-gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home,Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale,As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail.There is danger on the waters—there is joy where dangers be—Alas! to be a woman and the nomad’s heart in me.
Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore—With a soul that finds a passion for each long breaker’s roar,With a heart that beats as restless as all the winds that blow—Thrust a cloth between her fingers, and tell her she must sew;Must join in empty chatter, and calculate with straws—For the weighing of our neighbour—for the sake of social laws.O chatter, chatter, chatter, when to speak is misery,When silence lies around your heart—and night is on the sea.So tired of little fashions that are root of all our strife,Of all the petty passions that upset the calm of life.The law of God upon the land shines steady for all time;The laws confused that man has made, have reason not nor rhyme.
O bird that fights the heavens, and is blown beyond the shore,Would you leave your flight and danger for a cage to fight no more?No more the cold of winter, or the hunger of the snow,Nor the winds that blow you backward from the path you wish to go?Would you leave your world of passion for a home that knows no riot?Would I change my vagrant longings for a heart more full of quiet?No!—for all its dangers, there is joy in danger too:On, bird, and fight your tempests, and this nomad heart with you!
The seas that shake and thunder will close our mouths one day,The storms that shriek and whistle will blow our breaths away.The dust that flies and whitens will mark not where we trod.What matters then our judging? we are face to face with God.
How can I laugh or dance as others do,Or ply my rock or reel?My heart will still return to dreams of youBeside my spinning-wheel.
My little dog he cried out in the dark,He would not whisht for me:I took him to my side—why did he barkWhen you were on the sea?
I fear the red cock—if he crow to-night—I keep him close and warm,’Twere ill with me, if he should wake in frightAnd you out in the storm.
I dare not smile for fear my laugh would ringAcross your dying ears;O, if you, drifting, drowned, should hear me singAnd think I had not tears.
I never thought the sea could wake such waves,Nor that such winds could be;I never wept when other eyes grew blindFor some one on the sea.
But now I fear and pray all things for you,How many dangers be!I set my wheel aside, what can I doWhen you are on the sea?
Why in my neighbour’s gardenAre the flowers more sweet than mine?I had never such bloom of roses,Such yellow and pink woodbine.
Why in my neighbour’s gardenAre the fruits all red and gold,While here the grapes are bitterThat hang for my fingers’ hold?
Why in my neighbour’s gardenDo the birds all fly to sing?Over the fence between usOne would think ’twas always spring.
I thought my own wide gardenOnce more sweet and fair than all,Till I saw the gold and crimsonJust over my neighbour’s wall.
But now I want his thrushes,And now I want his vine,If I cannot have his cherriesThat grow more red than mine.
The serpent ’neath his applesWill tempt me to my fall,And then—I’ll steal my neighbour’s fruitAcross the garden wall.
This is my brave singer,With his beak of gold;Now my heart’s a captiveIn his song’s sweet hold.
O, the lark’s a rover,Seeking fields above:But my serenaderHath a human love.
“Hark!” he says, “in winterNests are full of snow,But a truce to wailingSummer breezes blow.”
“Hush!” he sings, “with night-timePhantoms cease to be,Join your serenaderPiping on his tree.”
O, my little lover,Warble in the blue;Wingless must I envySkies so wide for you.
Gormlaith, wife of Niall Glendu,Happy was your dream that night,Dreamt you woke in sudden fright,Niall of Ulster stood by you.
Niall of Ulster, dead and gone,Many a year had come again,Him who was in battle slainNow your glad eyes rest upon.
Well your gaze caressed him o’er,His dark head you loved so well,Where the coulin curled and fellOn the clever brow he bore.
Those brave shoulders wide and strong,Many a Dane had quaked to see,Never a phantom fair as he,—Wife of Glendu gazed so long.
Glad Queen Gormlaith, at the dawnUp you sprang to draw him near,Ah! the grey cock loud and clearCrew, and then the Ghost was gone.
Stretched your arms in vain request,Slipped and fell, and wounded soreCalled his name, then spake no more,For the bed-stick pierced your breast.
Queen, your smiling lips were dumbWith that last dear name you cried,Yet some had it, ere you died,Niall of Ulster whispered, “Come.”
Whose is the voice that will not let me rest?I hear it speak.Where is the shore will gratify my quest,Show what I seek?Not yours, weak Muse, to mimic that far voice,With halting tongue;No peace, sweet land, to bid my heart rejoiceYour groves among.
Whose is the loveliness I know is by,Yet cannot place?Is it perfection of the sea or sky,Or human face?Not yours, my pencil, to delineateThe splendid smile!Blind in the sun, we struggle on with FateThat glows the while.
Whose are the feet that pass me, echoingOn unknown ways?Whose are the lips that only part to singThrough all my days?Not yours, fond youth, to fill mine eager eyesOr find that shoreThat will not let me rest, nor satisfiesFor evermore.
I closed my hands upon a mothAnd when I drew my palms apart,Instead of dusty, broken wingsI found a bleeding human heart.
I crushed my foot upon a wormThat had my garden for its goal,But when I drew my foot asideI found a dying human soul.
She walks in a lonely gardenOn the path her feet have made,With high-heeled shoes, gold-buckled,And gown of a flowered brocade;
The hair that falls on her shoulders,Half-held with a ribbon tie,Once glowed like the wheat in autumn,Now grey as a winter sky.
Time on her brow with rough fingersWrites his record of smiles and tears;And her mind, like a golden timepiece,He stopped in the long past years.
At the foot of the lonely garden,When she comes to the trysting placeShe knew of old, there she lingers,With a blush on her withered face.
The children out on the common:They climb to the garden wall;And laugh: “He will come to-morrow!”Who never will come at all.
And often over our sewing,As I and my neighbour sitTo gossip over this storyThat has never an end to it,
“He is dead,” I would say, “that lover,Who left her so long ago,”But my neighbour would rest her needleTo answer, “He’s false I know.”
“For could it be he were sleeping.With a love that was such as thisHe’d have burst through the gates of silence,And flown to meet her kiss.”
Is she best with tears or laughter,This dame in her old brocade?My neighbour says she is holy,With a faith that will not fade.
* * * * *
But the children out on the commonThey answer her dreary call,And say: “He will come to-morrow!”Who never will come at all.
Wirastrua, wirastrua, woe to me that you are dead!The corpse has spoken from out his bed,“Yesternight my burning brainThrobbed and beat on the strings of pain:Now I rest, all my dreaming’s done,In the world behind the sun.Yesterday I toiled full sore,To-day I ride in a coach and four.Yesternight in the streets I lay,To-night with kings, and as good as they.”Wirastrua! wirastrua! would I were lying as cold as you.
What is the secret of your life, browsing ox,Ox the sweet grass eating?Who strung the mighty sinews in your flesh?Who set that great heart beating?
What is the secret of your death, soulless ox,Ox so patiently waiting?Why hath pain wove her net for your brain’s anguishIf for you Death will gain no life’s creating?
A little dog disturbed my trust in Heaven.I praised most faithfullyAll the great things that be,Man’s pain and pleasure even,I said though hard this weighingOf pains and tears and prayingHe will reward most just.
I said your bitter weeping man or maid,Your tears or laughterShall gain a just Hereafter;Meet you the will of God then unafraid,Gird you to your trials for God’s abodeIs open for all sorrow;Live for the great to-morrow.There passed me on the road
A little dog with hungry eyes, and sadThin flesh all shivering,All sore and quivering,Whining beneath the fell disease he had.I hurried home and praised God as beforeFor thus affordingTo man rewarding,The dog was whining outside my door.
I flung it wide, and said, Come enter in,Outcast of God.Beneath His rodYou suffer sore, poor beast, that had no sin.Not at my door then must you cry complainingYour lot unjust,But His who thrustYou from His door your body maiming.
Not mine the pleasure that you bear this pain,Hurled into beingWithout hope of freeingBy grief and patience a soul for any gain.Thus I reproached God while I tendedThe sores to healingA voice stealingAnd whispering out of the beast I friended,
Said, “God had quickened my flesh, bestowingJoys without measure,Made for its pleasure,An Eden’s garden for ever glowing.Gave me to Man, his care and protectionTo gain and to give,And bid us so liveIn united bonds of help and affection.
“Man wrecked our garden, so we were hurledOut from the skiesOf ParadiseInto the sorrows of a weeping world.He forgets my care, I, as God has said,Give still affectionFor that connectionWhich into all our bodies life has breathed.
“And why are you abusing God, and praisingWith mock effacementAnd false abasementYour own heart’s kindness, deeming it amazingThat you should do this duty for my sake,Which is His bidding,Nor blame for riddingHimself of me, your neighbour, he who spake hard words,Hard words and drove me forth all sore and ill?”
Thus while I tendedThis dog I friendedGave back my faith in Heaven by God’s will.
I prayed so eagerly,“Turn and seeHow bitter I have striven—A word and all forgiven.”I prayed so eagerly.
I prayed so eagerly—Not to be,You turned and passed. Good-bye!Fates smile for me, dreamed I—Yet I prayed eagerly.
When the dark comes,“Is this the end?” I pray,No answer from the night,And then once more the day.I take the world againUpon my neck and goPace with the serious hours.Since fate will have it so,Begone dead man, unclaspYour hands from round my heart,I and my burden pass,You and your peace depart.
I left my home for travelling;Because I heard the strange birds singIn foreign skies, and felt their wing
Brush past my soul impatiently;I saw the bloom on flower and treeThat only grows beyond the sea.
Methought the distant voices spakeMore wisdom than near tongues can make;I followed—lest my heart should break.
And what is past is past and done.I dreamt, and here the dream begun:I saw a salmon in the sun
Leap from the river to the shore—Ah! strange mishap, so wounded sore,To his sweet stream to turn no more.
A bird from ’neath his mother’s breast,Spread his weak wings in vain request;Never again to reach his nest.
I saw a blossom bloom too soonUpon a summer’s afternoon;’Twill breathe no more beneath the moon.
I woke, warmed ’neath a foreign skyWhere locust blossoms bud and die,Strange birds called to me flashing by.
And dusky faces passed and wokeThe echoes with the words they spoke——The same old tales as other folk.
A truce to roaming! Never moreI’ll leave the home I loved of yore.But strangers meet me at the door.
* * * * *
I left my home still travelling,For yet I hear the strange birds sing,And foreign flowers rare perfumes bring.
I hear a distant voice, more wiseThan others are ’neath foreign skies.I’ll find—perhaps in paradise.
This is an evil night to go, my sister,To the fairy-tree across the fairy rath,Will you not wait till Hallow Eve is over?For many are the dangers in your path!
I may not wait till Hallow Eve is over,I shall be there before the night is fled,For, brother, I am weary for my lover,And I must see him once, alive or dead.
I’ve prayed to heaven, but it would not listen,I’ll call thrice in the devil’s name to-night,Be it a live man that shall come to hear me,Or but a corpse, all clad in snowy white.
* * * * *
She had drawn on her silken hose and garter,Her crimson petticoat was kilted high,She trod her way amid the bog and brambles,Until the fairy-tree she stood near-by.
When first she cried the devil’s name so loudlyShe listened, but she heard no sound at all;When twice she cried, she thought from out the darknessShe heard the echo of a light footfall.
When last she cried her voice came in a whisper,She trembled in her loneliness and fright;Before her stood a shrouded, mighty figure,In sombre garments blacker than the night.
“And if you be my own true love,” she questioned,“I fear you! Speak you quickly unto me.”“O,I am not your own true love,” it answered,“He drifts without a grave upon the sea.”
“If he be dead, then gladly will I followDown the black stairs of death into the grave.”“Your lover calls you for a place to rest himFrom the eternal tossing of the wave.”
“I’ll make my love a bed both wide and hollow,A grave wherein we both may ever sleep.”“What give you for his body fair and slender,To draw it from the dangers of the deep?”
“I’ll give you both my silver comb and earrings,I’ll give you all my little treasure store.”“I will but take what living thing comes forward,The first to meet you,passing to your door.”
“O may my little dog be first to meet me,So loose my lover from your dreaded hold.”“What will you give me for the heart that loved you,The heart that I hold chained and frozen cold?”
“My own betrothed ring I give you gladly,My ring of pearls—and every one a tear!”“I will but have what other living creatureThat second in your pathway shall appear.”
“To buy this heart, to warm my love to living,I pray my pony meet me on return.”“And now,for his young soul what will you give me,His soul that night and day doth fret and burn?”
“You will not have my silver comb and earrings,You will not have my ring of precious stone;O, nothing have I left to promise to you,But give my soul to buy him back his own.”
All woefully she wept, and stepping homeward,Bemoaned aloud her dark and cruel fate;“O, come,” she cried, “my little dog to meet me,And you, my horse, be browsing at the gate.”
Right hastily she pushed by bush and bramble,Chased by a fear that made her footsteps fleet,And as she ran she met her little brother,Then her old father coming her to meet.
“O brother, little brother,” cried she weeping,“Well you said of fairy-tree beware,For precious things are bought and sold ere mid-night,On Hallow-eve, by those who barter there.”
She went alone into the little chapel,And knelt before the holy virgin’s shrine,Saying, “Mother Mary, pray you for me,To save those two most gentle souls of thine.”
And as she prayed, behold the holy statueSpoke to her, saying, “Little can I aid,God’s ways are just, and you have dared to questionHis judgment on this soul you bought—and paid.”
“For that one soul, your father and your brother,Your own immortal life you bartered; then,Yet one chance is allowed—your sure repentance,Give back his heart you made to live again.”
“For these two souls—my father and my brother—I give his heart back into death’s cold land,Never again to warm his dead, sweet body,Or beat to madness underneath my hand.”
“And for your soul—to save it from its sorrow,You must drive back his soul into the night,Back into righteous punishment and justice,Or lose your chance of everlasting light.”
“O, never shall I drive him back to anguish,My soul shall suffer, letting his go free.”She rose, and weeping, left the little chapel,Went forward blindly till she reached the sea.
She dug a grave within the surf and shingle,A dark, cold bed, made very deep and wide,She laid her down all stiff and stretched for burial,Right in the pathway of the rising tide.
First tossed into her waiting arms the restlessLoud waves, a woman very grey and cold,Within her bed she stood upright so quickly,And loosed her fingers from the dead hands’ hold.
The second who upon her heart had restedFrom out the storm, a baby chill and stark,With one long sob she drew it on her bosom,Then thrust it out again into the dark.
The last who came so slow was her own lover,She kissed his icy face on cheek and chin,“O cold shall be your house to-night, beloved,O cold the bed that we must sleep within.
“And heavy, heavy, on our lips so faithfulAnd on our hearts, shall lie our own roof-tree.”And as she spoke the bitter tears were fallingOn his still face, all salter than the sea.
“And oh,” she said, “if for a little momentYou knew, my cold, dead love, that I was by,That my soul goes into the utter darknessWhen yours comes forth—and mine goes in to die.”
And as she wept she kissed his frozen forehead,Laid her warm lips upon his mouth so chill,With no response—and then the waters flowingInto their grave, grew heavy, deep and still.
* * * * *
And so, ’tis said, if to that fairy thorn-treeYou dare to go, you see her ghost so lone,She prays for love of her that you will aid her,And give your soul to buy her back her own.
This is the scene of a man’s despair, and a soul’s releaseFrom the difficult traits of the flesh; so, it seeking peace,A shot rang out in the night; death’s doors were wide;And you stood alone, a stranger, and saw inside.
Coward flesh, brave soul, which was it? One feared the world,The pity of men, or their scorn; yet carelessly hurledAll on the balance of Chance for a state unknown;Fled the laughter of men for the anger of God—alone.
Perhaps when the hot blood streamed on the daisied sod,Poor soul, you were likened to Cain, and you fled from God;Men say you fought hard for your life, when the deed was done;But your body would rise no more ’neath this world’s sun.
I’d choose—should I do the act—such a night as this,When the sea throws up white arms for the wild wind’s kiss;When the waves shake the shuddering shore with their foamy jaws;Tear the strand, till slipping pebbles shriek through their claws.
The sky is loud with the storm; not a bird dare spanFrom here to the mist; beasts are silent; yet for a man,For a soul springing naked to meet its judge, a nightThat were as a brother to this poor spirit’s long flight.
But he had chosen, they tell me, a dusk so fairOne almost thought there were not such another—there.The air was full of the perfume of pines, and the sweetSleepy chirp of birds, long the lush soft grass at his feet.
They say there was dancing too in a house close by,That they heard the shot just thinking wild birds must die.They supped and laughed, went singing the long night through,And they danced unknowing the dance of death with you.
What did you hear when you opened the doors of death?Was it the sob of a thrush, or a slow sweet breathOf the perfumed air that blew through the doors with you,That you fought so hard to regain the world you knew?
Or was it a woman’s cry that, shrieking into the gloom,Like a hand that closed on your soul clutching it from its doom?Was it a mother’s call, or the touch of a baby’s kiss,That followed your desperate soul down the black abyss?
What did you see—as you stood on the other side—A strange shy soul amongst souls, did you seek to hideFrom the ghosts that were who judged you upon your way,Reckoned your sins against theirs for the judgment day?
You feared the world, the pity of men or their scorn,The movements of fate and the sorrows for which you were born.Men’s laughter, men’s speech, their judging, what was it to thisWhere the eyes of the dead proclaim you have done amiss.
Not peace did you gain, perhaps, nor the rest you had planned,’Neath the horrible countless eyes that you could not withstand?Or was it God looked from his throne in a moment’s disdain,And you shrieked for a trial once more in the height of your pain?
Perhaps—but who knows—when you struggled so hard for life’s breath,You saw nothing passing the grave except silence and death,You lay shut in by the four clay walls of your cell,There the live soul locked up in the stiff dead body’s shell.
Dead, dead and coffin’d, buried beneath the clay,And still the living soul caged in to wait decay,For ever alone in night of unlifting gloomThere to think, and think, and think, in the silent tomb.
Or was it in death’s cold land there was no perfumeOf the scented flowers, or lilt of a bird’s gay tune.No sea there, or no cool of a wind’s fresh breath,No woods, no plains, no dreams, and alas! no death?
Was there no life there that man’s brain could understand?No past, no future, hopes to come, in that strange land?No human love, no sleep, no day, no night,But ever eternal living in eternal light?
Perhaps the soul thus springing to fill its grave,Found all the peace and happiness that it could crave;All it had lost alone was that poor body’s partWhich naught but grey corruption saw for its chart.
Ah well! for us there ended all one man’s life with this—A shot, a cry, a struggle, and a fainting woman’s kiss;Life’s blood let ’mid the grasses—and all a world was lost,And no one may ever know how he paid the cost.
He is lost in the crowd of the dead, in the night-time of death,A name on a stone left to tell that he ever drew breath.So desperate body die there, with your soul’s long release,And unhappy spirit God grant you Eternity’s peace!
Printed byBallantyne,Hanson & Co.London & Edinburgh
[21]“May my darling come through safely!”