,PAY, OCTOBER 3 
 
 Soul 
 
 ===== 
 
 A POET OF 
 IRISH 
 
 Francis Ledwidge and His ' 
 sage from Ireland 
 
 
 By N. J. O'C. 
 
 THE recent death of Fram 
 widge has brought to tht 
 of many readers the work 
 latest of Irish p< ; 'to achie ' 
 tinction. The death of - a i poets 
 
 rebellion of 1916 caused , iber of i 
 in Amer >. to imagin Ireland 
 
 lost her >most repr => s of -' 
 
 but it , ot until 1- that t ', 
 
 fell, fig f 0r worl ^ in 
 
 ranks o Royal In Fusil; 
 
 the Irij r no mor. he 
 
 ;nt i won fc 
 
 ilace in i nc jde, 
 
 .or.s. ", v, e Fj 
 
 :o the ' ] OV 
 
 L^dwidt dea 
 
 more th tht 
 
 rs. H tro 
 
 >y Lon , v 
 
 o "Son. ;, 
 
 'hich ht '[. 
 
 f Peace. 
 
 l.edwi . u , 
 
 rlsh lar. .n iln . 
 
 the poet v 
 
 han tha 
 edgre-'-' . 

 
 Francis Ledwidge 
 
 uthor of "(Songs of the Fields." ( Duffield.)
 
 WE ON ,, 101G. 

 
 SONGS 
 OF 
 THE 
 FIELDS 
 
 ^ 
 
 , 
 
 Ml, 
 
 the or- 
 
 4 
 
 j \VIDGE.
 
 Son? iwid ? o: 
 
 unsa 
 
 
 vv.iic-h miri 
 
 \vhieli on hat 
 

 
 SONGS OF 
 THE FIELDS 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS LEDWIDGE 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY LORD DUNSANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 
 1916
 
 Pot '^ Dcath 
 
 sat in Mitchell Kennerley's office in 
 New York and read in the daily papers 
 the news of the death of Francis Led- 
 widge, the dulcet Irish poet of royal 
 Meath, and the noble and tender tribute 
 paid him by Lord Dunsany, the Irish 
 genius who alone challenges the su- 
 premacy of Synge in Celtic literature. 
 This was on an early day in August. 
 Ledwidge was killed at the front, some- 
 where in France, on July 31st. Reach- 
 ing the MIRROR office I found the Lon- 
 don papers, among them the Saturday 
 Review of July 7th, and there I came 
 upon the following: 
 
 A HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 To the Editor of the Saturday 
 Review: 
 
 B.E.F, 20 June 1917. 
 Sir, A few weeks ago we were 
 resting in a little village which had 
 the reputation of a haunted house. 
 I made several attempts to extract 
 from the owner a little informa- 
 tion concerning his ghostly tenant, 
 but each time he was visibly pain- 
 ed and warned me severely against 
 impetuous (?) steps. I was de- 
 termined to see it through, how- 
 ever, by sleeping in the place for a 
 night. I had some difficulty in 
 forcing an entry, but eventually 
 succeeded in getting through a 
 window as the village clock told 
 eleven hours p. m. I lit my pipe, 
 spread my ground sheet on the 
 clay floor and nestled down in my 
 great-coat. I was tired and must 
 have fallen asleep almost imme- 
 diately. On a sudden I was 
 awakened by a noise like a rush- 
 ing of wings or falling water, and 
 a voice which I had heard before, 
 once in London and once in Man- 
 chester, a familiar voice, distinct- 
 ly called my name. Then silence 
 fell for a few minutes, only to be 
 broken by a similar noise and, this 
 time, footsteps, such as are heard
 
 TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 THE FIRST SINGER I KNEW 
 
 Lord Motley's Biography 
 
 By Shan F. Bullock. 
 
 "LONDON, Aug. 27. I have long ex- 
 pected the announcement, now authori- 
 tatively made, that Lord Morley's auto- 
 biography will be published soon, both 
 here and in America., by the Macmillan 
 Company. The book will have the 
 modest, and therefore characteristic, 
 title of "Reminiscences." It will be in 
 two large volumes and it is thought 
 will equal in length, and certainly in 
 importance, the famous life of Glad- 
 stone, now in its scores of editions to- 
 taling hundreds of thousands of copies. 
 Thru his political action at the out- 
 break of war, or just before it, Morley 
 has been in complete retirement. I can- 
 not recall an utterance by him since 
 then that has been given publicity. 
 Those who know him well have seen 
 him often traveling on the underground 
 from Wimbledon, a frail, time-beaten, 
 preoccupied old man, somewhat shab- 
 bily dressed, wearing an old silk hat, a 
 muffler and an overcoat with its collar 
 half turn'ed up. Not long ago I saw 
 him standing pa.tiently and unrecog- 
 nized in a queue at the guichet of a 
 booking office. He took a wrong ticket, 
 evidently. For the alert young woman 
 at the platform gate refused to let him 
 pass, and he had to shuffle back to the 
 guichet and explain to the clerk just 
 as you or I might. He had a look of 
 one obsessed by thought, preoccupied 
 not there, you might say. Yet his look 
 ting, was 
 
 distinction and none the less 
 because of its old-fashioned air. We 
 expect to find in Morley's book not 
 only recollections but revelations. His 
 - been full. He worked to pre- 
 eminence in politics, literature and jour- 
 
 "llonest John.*' 
 
 m In politics he never falsified the 
 of Honest John given him by his 
 
 countrymen. Many of them doubtlei 
 wish that he could have backed h 
 country in the great day of decisioi 
 Maybe he did. Anyhow, no carping a< 
 cusations have vexed his three years ( 
 peace. And we hope nay, believ< 
 some of us that toward the close c 
 volume 2 of "Reminiscences" he wi 
 abundantly justify the closing publi 
 act of a man who still goes by th 
 name of Honest John. 
 
 I wonder whether the name of Frar 
 cis Ledwidge is known in America. H 
 was a.n Irish poet, discovered by the 
 enthusiastic literary man Lord Dur 
 eany, in the Village of Slane, sorm 
 where near Tara, and by him encoui 
 aged and helped. He was born a la 
 borer. He earned a shilling a day i 
 his youth. He did scavenging. At las 
 he rose to be a road surveyor, a distric 
 councilor and a poet who, in the esti 
 mation of Lord Dunsany, "would hav 
 surpassed even Burris ... as th 
 greatest of peasant singers." A sma! 
 volume of his boyish verses has bee 
 published. A second is in the press 
 Both of these give evidence of extraor 
 dinary accomplishment and great prom 
 ise. What you miss most is what som 
 call the Celtic glamour and others cal 
 Irish moonshine. The verses are i 
 English and in the English tradition o 
 Wordsworth and Burns and Herrich 
 Only the work of a boy born to th 
 glories of beauty in himself and al 
 about him. He was a fervent national 
 1st. But whtn th- he an 
 
 swered. He served in the immorta 
 Irish brigade at Gallipoli, went thru th 
 awful retreat in Serbia, died a.t the ag. 
 of 25 in France on July 31. Keep hi, 
 .name green. Francis Ledwidge, poe 
 and corporal. 
 
 \\-.-> ., .. -, *., ^.Ji^B^M^M
 
 A HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 To the Editor of the Saturday 
 Review: 
 
 B.E.F, 20 June 1917. 
 Sir, A few weeks ago we were 
 resting in a little village which had 
 the reputation of a haunted house. 
 I made several attempts to extract 
 from the owner a little informa- 
 tion concerning his ghostly tenant, 
 but each time he was visibly pain- 
 ed and warned me severely against 
 impetuous (?) steps. I was de- 
 termined to see it through, how- 
 ever, by sleeping in the place for a 
 night. I had some difficulty in 
 forcing an entry, but eventually 
 succeeded in getting through a 
 window as the village clock told 
 eleven hours p. m. I lit my pipe, 
 spread my ground sheet on the 
 clay floor and nestled down in my 
 great-coat. I was tired and must 
 have fallen asleep almost imme- 
 diately. On a sudden I was 
 awakened by a noise like a rush- 
 ing of wings or falling water, and 
 a voice which I had heard before, 
 once in London and once in Man- 
 chester, a familiar voice, distinct- 
 ly called my name. Then silence 
 fell for a few minutes, only to be 
 broken by a similar noise and, this 
 time, footsteps, such as are heard 
 where men are surprised. Al- 
 though I am not a brave man, I 
 cannot admit to having any trem- 
 ors beyond that of intense excite- 
 ment at so wonderful a thing as 
 the supernatural ; and then I have 
 my own private way of explain- 
 ing a voice which is as dear from 
 the soul as from the body I loved. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 FRANCIS LEDWIDGE. 
 
 For those who are curious in the 
 matter of psychic phenomena, this evi- 
 dence of a "warning" will be of power- 
 ful value.
 
 MHICAGOEVEMGPOST 
 
 U.EWEULYN JONES, nterary Editor 
 
 The Friday issue of THE "POST, con- 
 taining the Literary Review, will be 
 mailed to any address outside Chicago 
 for $1 a year. 
 
 The Chicago Evening Post Friday 
 lAterary Review, being the tceekly 
 book section of The Post, is devoted 
 to the criticism of current literature, 
 the publication of literary comment 
 and of book news. 
 
 FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1017. 
 
 Francis Ledwidge. 
 
 Over a year ago we reviewed in 
 these columns the first book of verse 
 , of Francis Ledwidge, a young Irish 
 poet: of marked originality and charm, 
 who was introduced to the world by 
 Lord Dunsany. 
 
 Early this year his second collec- 
 tion of verses was published. Lord 
 Dunsany introduced them and gave 
 j them their title of "Songs of Peace," 
 : . for, he says, the poet's "devotion to 
 ! the fields of Meath, that, in nearly all 
 I his songs, from such far places brings 
 i his spirit home, like the instinct that 
 ' has been given to the swallows, seems 
 to be the keynote of the book." The 
 fa r places Lord Dunsany refers to 
 were Serbia and Egypt, whence Led- 
 widge was invalided home. 
 
 But now, a short time after some 
 of us had eagerly seized upon the few 
 copies of the book imported from 
 England, there comes a short dispatch 
 from London : 
 
 Lance Corporal Francis Ledwidge, a 
 Peasant poet of Meath, Ireland, was 
 killed on the battle front in Flanders 
 July 31. He was 28 years old.
 
 who was introduced to the world by 
 Lord Dunsany. 
 
 Early this year his second collec- 
 tion of verses was published. Lord 
 Dunsany introduced them and gave 
 them their title of "Songs of Peace," 
 . for, he says, the poet's "devotion to 
 the fields of Meath, that, In nearly all 
 his songs, from such far places brings 
 nig spirit home, like the instinct that 
 has been given to the swallows, seems 
 to be the keynote of the book." The 
 far places Lord Dunsany refers to 
 were Serbia and Egypt, whence Led- 
 widge was invalided home. 
 
 But now, a short time after some 
 of us had eagerly seized upon the few 
 copies of the book imported from 
 England, there comes a short dispatch 
 from London : 
 
 Lance Corporal Francis Ledwidge, a 
 peasant poet of Meath. Ireland, was 
 killed on the battle front in Flanders 
 July 31. He was 26 years old. 
 
 Lord Dunsany has somewhere ex- 
 pressed his faith that "there will he 
 singing after the war" that only the 
 carrying on of the war to a success- 
 ful conclusion will guarantee a world 
 in which singing is possible. It was, 
 doubtless, in this faith that Ledwidge 
 joined the Fifth Inniskilling Fusiliers 
 under Dunsany's captaincy. But one 
 must be able to live in the future 
 very intensely to see with any (vjnji- 
 nimity such sacrifices for it us those 
 of Rupert Brooke, Edward Tlioin:is 
 and Francis Ledwidge. More, per- 
 haps, in the case of Ledwidge than of 
 Brooke, for the latter welcomed the 
 war in his verse as in his 111 
 took his life, hut gave him a legend 
 and an immortality. Ledwidge was 
 younger than Brooke both in years 
 and as a poet. He had been a p-as- 
 ant and a wanderer seeking his bread 
 in humble ways. It was only within 
 a few months of his verse being rec- 
 iblishod that h
 
 I 
 
 invalided, and his death following 
 close upon the publication of his sec- 
 ond book. And unlike Rupert 
 Brooke one reads Mr. I.edwidge's 
 poetry with the feeling that, after 
 all, the war was no concern of his. 
 The man was in it, true, but the poet 
 was not. Patriotism, a desire to fol- 
 low his patron and friend, Lord Dun- 
 sany, one motive or many motives 
 mixed may have called Francis Led- 
 widge into action. The poet in him 
 responded to his surroundings in 
 Greece and Serbia. He used the nc 
 sights and the new sounds, and some 
 very beautiful poems are the result. 
 But in this latest book (which, we 
 presume, will soon be published in 
 this country by Messrs. Duffield & 
 Co., who handled his previous work; 
 there is singularly little direct refer- 
 ence to the war. In fact, here is the 
 only personal note about the matter 
 
 IN THE MEDITERRANEAN-GOING 
 
 TO THE WAR. 
 Lovely wings of gold and green 
 
 Flit abo-ut the sounds I hear, 
 On my window when I lean 
 To the shadows cool a.nd clear. 
 
 Roaming, I am listening still, 
 Bending, listening overlong. 
 
 In my soul a steadier will, 
 In my heart a newer song. 
 
 Of course, we know not what fur 
 tber material Lord Dunsany possesse 
 from Ledwidge's hand, or whethe 
 it is enough for a posthumous thir 
 Volume. But if in that, as in th 
 ^)ems published so far, there is th 
 saVne loyalty to the original impetu 
 of the poet's muse, the fields of Meath, 
 the song of the blackbird, the occa- 
 sional reminiscence Of Irish legend 
 and the same refusal to let the war 
 spread from the field of battle to the 
 poet's page that has so far character- 
 ized Mr. Ledwidge's verse, the fact
 
 Koamlng, I am listening still, 
 Bending, listening overlong, 
 
 In my soul a steadier will, 
 In my heart a newer song. 
 
 Of course, we know not what fur- 
 ther material Lord Dunsany possesses 
 from Ledwidge's hand, or whether 
 it is enough for a posthumous third 
 \jolume. But if in that, as in the 
 p^ems published so far, there is the 
 salue loyalty to the original impetus 
 of the poet's muse, the fields of Meath, 
 the song of the blackbird, the occa- 
 sional reminiscence of Irish legend 
 and the same refusal to let the war 
 spread from the field of battle to the 
 poet's page that has so far character- 
 ized Mr. Ledwidge's verse, the fact 
 will be tragic and significant. For its 
 implication is obviously that Mr. Led- 
 widge had no illusions about the war. 
 Evidently, he regarded it as a job, 
 something necessary to be carried 
 thru for the sake of civilization and 
 of peace, not as a romantic adventure 
 nor as a theme for art. The mere ro- 
 manticist needs war in his business ; 
 he sings its glories and could not sing 
 without its aid which he cannot see 
 to be something quite adventitious 
 from the standpoint of art. In Led- 
 widge we see the approach to the war 
 of the artist who is a pure artist and 
 not a romanticist. He ignores it. If 
 it brings him to Greece, he does not 
 ignore Greece. If it requires his per- 
 son, his life, he is ready to give i,hem. 
 But the garden of his muse is in- 
 violate and. inviolable. 
 
 And so Ledwidge the man is dead, 
 but the poet will live in his few pages 
 of lyrical rhapsody, poured out in his 
 own notes and on his own themes, in 
 lofty indifference to the outer circum- 
 stances that were to kill him on the 
 threshold of his career.
 
 invalided, and his death 
 
 close upon the publication of his s< 
 
 ond book. Aud unlike Runert 
 
 te's 
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 lis. 
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 ol- 
 111- 
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 vnr, 
 
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 ^iOOI 
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 sr; 
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 siSno, BB -oo , uo S u l3? H '-'I 
 pa^onb aa^ spuoq 5 u9uiuaAo3 uSiaaoj 
 
 SQN09 LA09 N9I3HOJ 
 
 ..^ :::::: 
 
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 INTRODUCTION 
 By LORD DUNSANY 
 
 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 
 7
 
 8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 diction worthy of poetry, as well as an imagi- 
 nation 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 gram- 
 mar, 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,
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 " 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 :
 
 io INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 speak- 
 ing 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
 
 INTRODUCTION n 
 
 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-
 
 12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 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. 
 
 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, 
 June, J?fJ. jth J?. Inniskilling Fusiliers.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACE 
 
 To MY BEST FRIEND . . . 15 
 
 BEHIND THE CLOSED EYE . . .17 
 
 BOUND TO THE MAST . . . 19 
 
 To A LINNET IN A CAGE . . . 22 
 
 A TWILIGHT IN MIDDLE MARCH . . . 24 
 
 SPRING . . . ... 26 
 
 DESIRE IN SPRING .. ... 28 
 
 A RAINY DAY IN APRIL . . . 29 
 
 A SONG OF APRIL . . . . . 32 
 
 THE BROKEN TRYST . . ' . .34 
 
 THOUGHTS AT THE TRYSTING STILE. . . 36 
 
 EVENING IN MAY . . .. . 39 
 
 AN ATTEMPT AT A CITY SUNSET .. . .41 
 
 WAITING . . . .... 43 
 
 THE SINGER'S MUSE . . ' , . . 44 
 
 INAMORATA . ., ... 46 
 
 THE WIFE OF LLEW . . . 48 
 
 THE HILLS . . ... 49 
 
 JUNE . . . ... 51 
 
 IN MANCHESTER . . . . 53 
 
 Music ON WATER . . . 55 
 
 To M. McG. . . ... 58 
 
 IN THE DUSK . . . . . 60 
 
 13
 
 14 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE DEATH OF AILILL . . 62 
 
 AUGUST . . . . 64 
 
 THE VISITATION OF PEACE . . 65 
 
 BEFORE THE TEARS . . . 70 
 
 GOD'S REMEMBRANCE . . . 72 
 
 AN OLD PAIN . . . . . 74 
 
 THE LOST ONES . . ... 78 
 
 ALL-HALLOWS EVE . . . 80 
 
 A MEMORY . . ... 83 
 
 A SONG . . . ... 87 
 
 A FEAR . . . ... 89 
 
 THE COMING POET . . . 90 
 
 THE VISION ON THE BRINK . . 92 
 
 To LORD DUNSANY . . . 94 
 
 ON AN OATEN STRAW . . . 96 
 
 EVENING IN FEBRUARY . . . . 97 
 
 THE SISTER . . ... 98 
 
 BEFORE THE WAR OF COOLEY . . . 100 
 
 LOW-MOON LAND . . . . 103 
 
 THE SORROW OF FINDEBAR . . . 105 
 
 ON DREAM WATER . . . . 108 
 
 THE DEATH OF SUALTEM . . . . 109 
 
 THE MAID IN LOW-MOON LAND . . .113 
 THE DEATH OF LEAG, CUCHULAIN'S CHARIOTEER 114 
 
 THE PASSING OF CAOILTE . . . . 117 
 
 GROWING OLD . . . . . 119 
 
 AFTER MY LAST SONG . 121
 
 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 
 '5
 
 16 TO MY BEST FRIEND 
 
 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. 
 B 17
 
 i8 BEHIND THE CLOSED EYE 
 
 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 un- 
 furl, 
 
 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, 
 19
 
 20 BOUND TO THE MAST 
 
 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 ;
 
 BOUND TO THE MAST 21 
 
 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,
 
 TO A LINNET IN A CAGE 23 
 
 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, 
 24
 
 A TWILIGHT IN MIDDLE MARCH 25 
 
 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 JEolus 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. 
 26
 
 SPRING 27 
 
 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. 
 
 X- 
 
 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. 
 28
 
 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, 
 29
 
 30 A RAINY DAY IN APRIL 
 
 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.
 
 A RAINY DAY IN APRIL 31 
 
 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 she 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, 
 32
 
 A SONG OF APRIL 33 
 
 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 ? 
 34
 
 THE BROKEN TRYST 35 
 
 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, 
 36
 
 THOUGHTS AT THE TRYSTING STILE 37 
 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 ! "
 
 38 THOUGHTS AT THE TRYSTING STILE 
 
 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, 
 39
 
 40 EVENING IN MAY 
 
 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 
 41
 
 42 AN ATTEMPT AT A CITY SUNSET 
 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. 
 43
 
 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 : 
 
 44
 
 THE SINGER'S MUSE 45 
 
 " 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, 
 46
 
 INAMORATA 47 
 
 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. 
 48
 
 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 lolcos. Day's bright eye 
 D 49
 
 50 THE HILLS 
 
 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, 
 Si
 
 52 JUNE 
 
 While siren-like the pollen-stained 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, 
 S3
 
 54 IN MANCHESTER 
 
 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. 
 
 55
 
 56 MUSIC ON WATER 
 
 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 lignt 
 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.
 
 MUSIC ON WATER 57 
 
 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.
 
 TO M. McG. 59 
 
 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. 
 60
 
 IN THE DUSK 61 
 
 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 
 
 62
 
 THE DEATH OF AILILL 63 
 
 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. 
 64
 
 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 
 E 65
 
 66 THE VISITATION OF PEACE 
 
 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
 
 THE VISITATION OF PEACE 67 
 
 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,
 
 68 THE VISITATION OF PEACE 
 
 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
 
 THE VISITATION OF PEACE 69 
 
 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 eclipsed 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-fringed winds that fill the heart's low 
 sighs 
 
 And never break upon the bosom's pain, 
 70
 
 BEFORE THE TEARS 71 
 
 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 
 72
 
 GOD'S REMEMBRANCE 73 
 
 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. 
 
 74
 
 AN OLD PAIN 75 
 
 '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,
 
 76 AN OLD PAIN 
 
 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
 
 AN OLD PAIN 77 
 
 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 fire, 
 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, 
 78
 
 THE LOST ONES 79 
 
 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. 
 
 1 Provincially a kind of laughter. 
 
 2 A curl of hair thrown back from the forehead : used meta- 
 phorically here, and itself a metaphor taken from the curl of a 
 cow's tongue. 
 
 3 Maidens on Hallows Eve pull leaves of yarrow, and, saying 
 over them certain words, put them under their pillows and so 
 dream of their true-loves. 
 
 80
 
 ALL-HALLOWS EVE 81 
 
 And there will be old yarn balls, 1 and old spells 
 
 In broken lime-kilns, and old eyes will peer 
 For constant lovers in old spidery wells, 2 
 
 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 fare- 
 wells ; 
 
 And many feet will tap a lonely way 
 Back to the comfort of their chilly cells, 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 Also they look for his face in old wells. 
 
 F
 
 82 ALL-HALLOWS EVE 
 
 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.
 
 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 dance.
 
 84 A MEMORY 
 
 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 tuned 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
 
 A MEMORY 85 
 
 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,"
 
 86 A MEMORY 
 
 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 aeons 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, 
 87
 
 88 A SONG 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 89
 
 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 
 90
 
 THE COMING POET 91 
 
 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, 
 
 92
 
 THE VISION ON THE BRINK 93 
 
 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. 
 
 94
 
 TO LORD DUNSANY 95 
 
 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. 
 96
 
 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. 
 G 97
 
 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. 
 98
 
 THE SISTER 99 
 
 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 drip- 
 ping red." 
 And a tall soldier galloped up the glen
 
 BEFORE THE WAR OF COOLEY 101 
 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
 
 102 BEFORE THE WAR OF COOLEY 
 
 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 
 103
 
 104 LOW-MOON LAND 
 
 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 
 105
 
 io6 THE SORROW OF FINDEBAR 
 
 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.
 
 THE SORROW OF FINDEBAR 107 
 
 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, AililTs 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 ! 
 108
 
 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. 
 109
 
 i ro THE DEATH OF SUALTEM 
 
 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.
 
 THE DEATH OF SUALTEM in 
 
 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.
 
 112 THE DEATH OF SUALTEM 
 
 And there he saw Sualtem shouting still 
 
 The message of Muirevne 'mid the sound 
 
 Of hurried bucklings 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. 
 H 113
 
 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, 
 114
 
 THE DEATH OF LEAG 115 
 
 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."
 
 Ii6 THE DEATH OF LEAG 
 
 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, 
 117
 
 ii8 THE PASSING OF CAOILTE 
 
 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. 
 119
 
 120 GROWING OLD 
 
 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.
 
 122 AFTER MY LAST SONG 
 
 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.
 
 
 WHHHHH 
 
 A 000032315 4