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