 | Sonnets and Other Poems |  |
87
WINGED THOUGHTS.
Little they know us, ev'n who know us best.
Oft, when the social circle, frank and gay,
Sports with the topics of the passing day.
I seem, at friendly challenge, with keen zest
To catch and echo back the flying jest;
Yet will my inmost thought be far away—
Like bird that lights, and lights, but does not stay—
Beside my lost ones in their long low rest.
One sleeps in Erin, near the home she bless'd,
Where grateful hearts still worship her; and one,
Who pass'd, his active manhood scarce begun,
And all his poet-soul yet unexpress'd,
Lies under tamarisk boughs, where Afric's sun
Looks down on hallow'd ground at Beaufortwest.
Oft, when the social circle, frank and gay,
Sports with the topics of the passing day.
I seem, at friendly challenge, with keen zest
To catch and echo back the flying jest;
Yet will my inmost thought be far away—
Like bird that lights, and lights, but does not stay—
Beside my lost ones in their long low rest.
One sleeps in Erin, near the home she bless'd,
Where grateful hearts still worship her; and one,
Who pass'd, his active manhood scarce begun,
And all his poet-soul yet unexpress'd,
Lies under tamarisk boughs, where Afric's sun
Looks down on hallow'd ground at Beaufortwest.
St. Angelo, Lough Erne, 1898.
| Sonnets and Other Poems | |