Part 3

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.