 | Poetical Works of Lionel Johnson |  |
291
PROLOGUE
The May fire once on every dreaming hill
All the fair land with burning bloom would fill:
All the fair land, at visionary night,
Gave loving glory to the Lord of Light.
Have we no leaping flames of Beltane praise
To kindle in the joyous ancient ways;
No fire of song, of vision, of white dream,
Fit for the Master of the Heavenly Gleam;
For him who first made Ireland move in chime,
Musical from the misty dawn of time?
All the fair land with burning bloom would fill:
All the fair land, at visionary night,
Gave loving glory to the Lord of Light.
Have we no leaping flames of Beltane praise
To kindle in the joyous ancient ways;
No fire of song, of vision, of white dream,
Fit for the Master of the Heavenly Gleam;
For him who first made Ireland move in chime,
Musical from the misty dawn of time?
Ah, yes: for sacrifice this night we bring
The passion of a lost soul's triumphing:
All rich with faery airs that, wandering long
Uncaught, here gather into Irish song;
Sweet as the old remembering winds that wail
From hill to hill of gracious Inisfail;
Sad as the unforgetting winds that pass
Over her children in her holy grass
At home, and sleeping well upon her breast,
Where snowy Déirdre and her sorrows rest.
The passion of a lost soul's triumphing:
All rich with faery airs that, wandering long
Uncaught, here gather into Irish song;
Sweet as the old remembering winds that wail
From hill to hill of gracious Inisfail;
Sad as the unforgetting winds that pass
Over her children in her holy grass
At home, and sleeping well upon her breast,
Where snowy Déirdre and her sorrows rest.
Another tale we tell you: how a man,
Filled with high dreams, his race of longing ran
Haunted by fair and infinite desire;
Whose life was music, yet a wounding fire.
Stern is the story: welcome it no less,
Aching and lofty in its loveliness.
Come, then, and keep with us an Irish feast,
Wherein the Lord of Light and Song is priest;
Now, at this opening of the gentle May
Watch warring passions at their storm and play;
Wrought with the flaming ecstasy of art,
Sprung from the dreaming of an Irish heart.
Filled with high dreams, his race of longing ran
Haunted by fair and infinite desire;
Whose life was music, yet a wounding fire.
Stern is the story: welcome it no less,
Aching and lofty in its loveliness.
Come, then, and keep with us an Irish feast,
Wherein the Lord of Light and Song is priest;
292
Watch warring passions at their storm and play;
Wrought with the flaming ecstasy of art,
Sprung from the dreaming of an Irish heart.
Beltaine, 1899.
| Poetical Works of Lionel Johnson | |