Poems and Dramas by "Fiona MacLeod" (William Sharp)

Far away upon the hills at the lighting of the dawn
I saw a stirring in the fern and out there leapt a fawn:
And O my heart was up at that and like the wind it blew
Till its shadow hovered o'er the fawn as 'mid the fern it flew.

And Eilidh! Eilidh! Eilidh! was the wind song on the hill,
And Eilidh! Eilidh! Eilidh! did the echoing corries fill:
My hunting heart was glad indeed, at the lighting of the dawn,
For O it was the hunting then of my bonnie, bonnie Fawn!

THY DARK EYES TO MINE

Thy dark eyes to mine, Eilidh,
Lamps of desire!
O how my soul leaps
Leaps to their fire!

Sure, now, if I in heaven,
Dreaming in bliss,
Heard but a whisper,
But the lost echo even
Of one such kiss—

All of the Soul of me
Would leap afar—
If that called me to thee
Aye, I would leap afar
A falling star!

GREEN BRANCHES

Wave, wave, green branches, wave me far away
To where the forest deepens and the hillwinds, sleeping, stay:
Where Peace doth fold her twilight wings, and through the heart of day
There goes the rumour of passing hours grown faint and grey.

Wave, wave, green branches, my heart like a bird doth hover
Above the nesting-place your green-gloom shadows cover:
O come to my nesting heart, come close, come close, bend over,
Joy of my heart, my life, my prince, my lover!

SHULE, SHULE, SHULE, AGRAH!

His face was glad as dawn to me,
His breath was sweet as dusk to me,
His eyes were burning flames to me,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah!

The broad noon-day was night to me,
The full-moon night was dark to me,
The stars whirled and the poles span
The hour God took him far from me.

Perhaps he dreams in heaven now,
Perhaps he doth in worship bow,
A white flame round his foam-white brow,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah!

I laugh to think of him like this,
Who once found all his joy and bliss
Against my heart, against my kiss,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah!

Star of my joy, art still the same
Now thou hast gotten a new name?
Pulse of my heart, my Blood, my Flame,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah!

I do not give the correct spelling of the Gaelic. The line signifies “Move, move, move to me, my Heart's Love.”

LORD OF MY LIFE

He laid his dear face next to mine,
His eyes aflame burned close to mine,
His heart to mine, his lips to mine,
O he was mine, all mine, all mine.

Drunk with old wine of love I was,
Drunk as the wild bee in the grass:
Yea, as the wild bee in the grass,
Drunk, drunk, with wine of love I was!

His lips of life to me were fief,
Beneath him I was but a leaf
Blown by the wind, a shaken leaf,
Yea, as the sickle reaps the sheaf,
My Grief!
He reaped me as a gathered sheaf!

His to be gathered, his the bliss,
But not a greater bliss than this!
All of the empty world to miss
For wild redemption of his kiss!
My Grief!

For hell was lost, though heaven was brief
Sphered in the universe of thy kiss—
So cries to thee thy fallen leaf,
Thy gathered sheaf,
Lord of my life, my Pride, my Chief,
My Grief!

THE LONELY HUNTER

Green branches, green branches, I see you beckon; I follow!
Sweet is the place you guard, there in the rowan-tree hollow.
There he lies in the darkness, under the frail white flowers,
Heedless at last, in the silence, of these sweet midsummer hours.

But sweeter, it may be, the moss whereon he is sleeping now,
And sweeter the fragrant flowers that may crown his moon-white brow:
And sweeter the shady place deep in an Eden hollow
Wherein he dreams I am with him — and, dreaming, whispers, “Follow!”

Green wind from the green-gold branches, what is the song you bring?
What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?

Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a shadowy place;
White is the hunter's quarry, a lost-loved human face:
O hunting heart, shall you find it, with arrow of failing breath,
Led o'er a green hill lonely by the shadowy hound of Death?

Green branches, green branches, you sing of a sorrow olden,
But now it is midsummer weather, earth-young, sunripe, golden:
Here I stand and I wait, here in the rowantree hollow,
But never a green leaf whispers, “Follow, oh, Follow, Follow!”

O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing:
O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing
Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

COR CORDIUM

Sweet Heart, true heart, strong heart, star of my life, oh, never
For thee the lowered banner, the lost endeavour!
The weapons are still unforged that thee and me shall dissever,
For I in thy heart have dwelling, and thou hast in mine for ever.

Can a silken cord strangle love, or a steel sword sever?
Or be as a bruisèd reed, the flow'r of joy for ever?
Love is a beautiful dream, a deathless endeavour,
And for thee the lowered banner, O Sweet Heart never!

THE ROSE OF FLAME

Oh, fair immaculate rose of the world, rose of my dream, my Rose!
Beyond the ultimate gates of dream I have heard thy mystical call:
It is where the rainbow of hope suspends and the river of rapture flows—
And the cool sweet dews from the wells of peace for ever fall.

And all my heart is aflame because of the rapture and peace,
And I dream, in my waking dreams and deep in the dreams of sleep,
Till the high sweet wonderful call that shall be the call of release
Shall ring in my ears as I sink from gulf to gulf and from deep to deep—

Sink deep, sink deep beyond the ultimate dreams of all desire—
Beyond the uttermost limit of all that the craving spirit knows:

Then, then, oh then I shall be as the inner flame of thy fire,
O fair immaculate rose of the world, Rose of my dream, my Rose!

ISLA

Isla, Isla, heart of my heart, it is you alone I am loving—
Pulse my life, my flame, my joy, love is a bitter thing!
Love has its killing pain, they say—and you alone I am loving—
Isla, Isla, my pride, my king, love is a bitter thing!

Isla, Isla, in the underworld where the elfin music is,
There we shall meet one day at last, as the wave with the wind o' the south!
Then you shall cry, “My Dream, my Queen!” and crown me with your kiss,
And I to my Kingdom come, my king, my mouth to thy mouth!

AN IMMORTAL

“For a mortal love an Immortal may be shapen.”

Child of no mortal birth, that yet doth live,
Where loiterest thou, O blossom of our joy?
Unsummon'd hence, dost thou, knowing all, forgive?
Thy rainbow-rapture, doth it never cloy?
O exquisite dream, dear child of our desire,
On mounting wings flitt'st thou afar from here?
We cannot reach thee who dost never tire,
Sweet phantom of delight, appear, appear!
How lovely thou must be, wrought in strange fashion
From out the very breath and soul of passion ...
With eyes as proud as his, my lover, thy sire,
When seeking through the twilight of my hair
He finds the suddenly secret flame deep hidden there.
Twin torches flashing into fire.

THE VISION

In a fair place
Of whin and grass,
I heard feet pass
Where no one was.

I saw a face
Bloom like a flower—
Nay, as the rain-bow shower
Of a tempestuous hour.

It was not man, nor woman:
It was not human:
But, beautiful and wild
Terribly undefiled,
I knew an unborn child.

PULSE OF MY HEART

Are these your eyes, Isla,
That look into mine?
Is this smile, this laugh,
Thine?

Heart of me, dear,
O pulse of my heart,
This is our child, our child—
And ... we apart!

Wrought of thy life, Isla,
Wrought in my womb,
Never to feel thy kiss!—
Ah, bitter doom.

Hush, hush: within thine eyes
His eyes I see ...
Soft as a bird's sighs
Thy breathings rise! ...
If there be Paradise
For him and me
(Who hold it but a dream
Because of bitter fate)
The first supernal gleam

Beyond the flame-swept gate
Shall be thine eyes when thou drawest near—
None other shall it be
Who his lost hands, with mine, and thine
In love refound, shall intertwine ...
But now, alas, alas, we are far apart,
My baby dear,
Pulse of my Heart!

MO-LENNAV-A-CHREE

Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, dear to me, dear and sweet,
In dreams I am hearing the sound of your little running feet—
The sound of your running feet that like the sea-hoofs beat
A music by day an' night, Eilidh, on the sands of my heart, my Sweet!

Eilidh, blue i' the eyes, flower-sweet as children are,
And white as the canna that blows with the hill-breast wind afar,
Whose is the light in thine eyes—the light of a star?—a star
That sitteth supreme where the starry lights of heaven a glory are!

Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, put off your wee hands from the heart o' me,
It is pain they are making there, where no more pain should be:

For little running feet, an' wee white hands, an' croodlin' as of the sea,
Bring tears to my eyes, Eilidh, tears, tears, out of the heart o' me—
Mo-lennav-a-chree,
Mo-lennav-a-chree!

HUSHING SONG

Eilidh, Eilidh,
My bonny wee lass:
The winds blow,
And the hours pass.

But never a wind
Can do thee wrong,
Brown Birdeen, singing
Thy bird-heart song.

And never an hour
But has for thee
Blue of the heaven
And green of the sea:

Blue for the hope of thee,
Eilidh, Eilidh;
Green for the joy of thee,
Eilidh, Eilidh.

Swing in they nest, then,
Here on my heart,
Birdeen, Birdeen,
Here on my heart,
Here on my heart!

MY BIRDEEN

On bonnie birdeen,
Sweet-bird of my heart—
Tell me, my dear one,
How shall we part?

He calls me, he cries
Who is father to thee:
O birdeen, his eyes
In these blue eyes I see.

Thou art wrought of our love,
Of our joy that was slain:
My birdeen, my dove,
My passion, my pain.

LULLABY

Lennavan-mo,
Lennavan-mo,
Who is it swinging you to and fro,
With a long low swing and a sweet low croon,
And the loving words of the mother's rune?

Lennavan-mo,
Lennavan-mo,
Who is it swinging you to and fro?
I am thinking it is an angel fair,
The Angel that looks on the gulf from the lowest stair
And swings the green world upward by its leagues of sunshine hair.

Lennavan-mo,
Lennavan-mo,
Who swingeth you and the Angel to and fro?
It is He whose faintest thought is a world afar,
It is He whose wish is a leaping seven-moon'd star,
It is He, Lennavan-mo,
To whom you and I and all things flow.

Lennavan-mo,
Lennavan-mo,
It is only a little wee lass you are, Eilidh-mochree,
But as this wee blossom has roots in the depths of the sky,
So you are at one with the Lord of Eternity—
Bonnie wee lass that you are,
My morning-star,
Eilidh-mo-chree, Lennavan-mo, Lennavan-mo.

THE BUGLES OF DREAMLAND

Swiftly the dews of the gloaming are falling:
Faintly the bugles of Dreamland are calling.
O hearken, my darling, the elf-flutes are blowing
The shining-eyed folk from the hillside are flowing,
I' the moonshine the wild-apple blossoms are snowing,
And louder and louder where the white dews are falling
The far-away bugles of Dreamland are calling.

O what are the bugles of Dreamland calling
There where the dews of the gloaming are falling?
Come away from the weary old world of tears,
Come away, come away to where one never hears
The slow weary drip of the slow weary years,

But peace and deep rest till the white dews are falling
And the blithe bugle-laughters through Dreamland are calling.

Then bugle for us, where the cool dews are falling,
O bugle for us, wild elf-flutes now calling—
For Heart's-love and I are too weary to wait
For the dim drowsy whisper that cometh too late,
The dim muffled whisper of blind empty fate—
O the world's well lost now the dream-dews are falling,
And the bugles of Dreamland about us are calling.

MORAG OF THE GLEN

When Morag of the Glen was fëy
They took her where the Green Folk stray:
And there they left her, night and day,
A day and night they left her, fëy.

And when they brought her home again,
Aye of the Green Folk was she fain:
They brought her leannan, Roy M'Lean,
She looked at him with proud disdain.

For I have killed a man, she said,
A better man than you to wed:
I slew him when he clasped my head.
And now he sleepeth with the dead.

And did you see that little wren?
My sister dear it was flew, then!
That skull her home, that eye her den,
Her song is Morag o' the Glen!

For when she went I did not go,
But washed my hands in blood-red woe;
O wren, trill out your sweet song's flow
Morag is white as the driven snow!

THE HILLS OF RUEL

“Over the hills and far away”—
That is the tune I heard one day
When heather-drowsy I lay and listened
And watched where the stealthy sea-tide glistened.

Beside me there on the Hills of Ruel
An old man stooped and gathered fuel—
And I asked him this: if his son were dead,
As the folk in Glendaruel all said,
How could he still believe that never
Duncan had crossed the shadowy river.

Forth from his breast the old man drew
A lute that once on a rowan-tree grew:
And, speaking no words, began to play
“Over the hills and far away.”

“But how do you know,” I said, thereafter,
“That Duncan has heard the fairy laughter?
How do you know he has followed the cruel
Honey-sweet folk of the Hills of Ruel?”

“How do I know?” the old man said,
“Sure I know well my boy's not dead:
For late on the morrow they hid him, there
Where the black earth moistens his yellow hair,
I saw him alow on the moor close by,
I watched him low on the hillside lie,
An' I heard him laughin' wild up there,
An' talk, talk, talkin' beneath his hair—
For down o'er his face his long hair lay
But I saw it was cold and ashy grey.

Aye, laughin' and talkin' wild he was,
An' that to a Shadow out on the grass,
A Shadow that made my blood go chill,
For never its like have I seen on the hill.
An' the moon came up, and the stars grew white,
An' the hills grew black in the bloom o' the night,
An' I watched till the death-star sank in the moon
And the moonmaid fled with her flittermice shoon,
Then the Shadow that lay on the moorside there
Rose up and shook its wildmoss hair,
And Duncan he laughed no more, but grey
As the rainy dust of a rainy day,
Went over the hills and far away.”

“Over the hills and far away”
That is the tune I heard one day.
O that I too might hear the cruel
Honey-sweet folk of the Hills of Ruel.

SHEILING SONG

I go where the sheep go,
With the sheep are my feet:
I go where the kye go,
Their breath is so sweet:

O lover who loves me,
Art thou half so fleet?
Where the sheep climb, the kye go,
There shall we meet!

THE BANDRUIDH

My robe is of green,
My crown is of stars—
The grass is the green
And the daisies the stars:
O'er lochan and streamlet
My breath moveth sweet ...
Bonnie blue lochans,
Hillwaters fleet.

The song in my heart
Is the song of the birds,
And the wind in my heart
Is the lowing of herds:
The light in my eyes,
And the breath of my mouth,
Are the clouds of spring-skies
And the sound of the South.

(The Airs of Spring)

Grass-green from thy mouth
The sweet sound of the South!

The Bandruidh—lit. the Druidess, i. e. the Sorceress: poetically, the Green Lady, i.e. Spring.

THE MOON-CHILD

A little lonely child am I
That have not any soul:
God made me as the homeless wave,
That has no goal.

A seal my father was, a seal
That once was man:
My mother loved him tho' he was
'Neath mortal ban.

He took a wave and drownëd her,
She took a wave and lifted him:
And I was born where shadows are
In sea-depths dim.

All through the sunny blue-sweet hours
I swim and glide in waters green:
Never by day the mournful shores
By me are seen.

But when the gloom is on the wave
A shell unto the shore I bring:
And then upon the rocks I sit
And plaintive sing.

I have no playmate but the tide
The seaweed loves with dark brown eyes:
The night-waves have the stars for play,
For me but sighs.

THE RUNE OF THE FOUR WINDS

By the Voice in the corries
When the Polestar danceth:

By the Voice on the summits
The dead feet know:

By the soft wet cry
When the Heat-star troubleth:

By the plaining and moaning
Of the Sigh of the Rainbows:

By the four white winds of the world,
Whose father the golden Sun is,
Whose mother the wheeling Moon is,
The North and the South and the East and the West:
By the four good winds of the world,
That Man knoweth,
That One dreadeth,
That God blesseth—

Be all well
On mountain and moorland and lea,
On loch-face and lochan and river,
On shore and shallow and sea!

By the Voice of the Hollow
Where the worm dwelleth:

By the Voice of the Hollow
Where the sea-wave stirs not:

By the Voice of the Hollow
That sun hath not seen yet:

By the three dark winds of the world;
The chill dull breath of the Grave,
The breath from the depths of the Sea,
The breath of To-morrow:
By the white and dark winds of the world,
The four and the three that are seven,
That Man knoweth,
That One dreadeth,
That God blesseth—

Be all well
On mountain and moorland and lea,
On loch-face and lochan and river,
On shore and shallow and sea!

DREAM FANTASY

“If Death Sleep's brother be,
And souls bereft of sense have so sweet dreams,
How could I wish thus still to dream and die!”

[_]

(Madrigal)

William Drummond of Hawthornden.

There is a land of Dream;
I have trodden its golden ways:
I have seen its amber light
From the heart of its sun-swept days;
I have seen its moonshine white
On its silent waters gleam—
Ah, the strange sweet lonely delight
Of the Valleys of Dream.

Ah, in that Land of Dream,
The mystical moon-white land,
Comes from what unknown sea—
Adream on what unknown strand—
A sound as of feet that flee,
As of multitudes that stream
From the shores of that shadowy sea
Through the Valleys of Dream.

It is dark in the Land of Dream.
There is silence in all the Land.
Are the dead all gathered there—
In havens, by no breath fanned?
This stir i' the dawn, this chill wan air—
This faint dim yellow of morning-gleam—
O is this sleep, or waking where
Lie hush'd the Valleys of Dream?

MATER CONSOLATRIX

Heart's-joy must fade ... though it borrow
Heaven's azure for its clay:
But the Joy that is one with Sorrow,
Treads an immortal way:
For each, is born To-morrow,
For each, is Yesterday.

Joy that is clothed with shadow
Shall arise from the dead:
But Joy that is clothed with the rainbow
Shall with the bow be sped:...
Where the Sun spends his fires is she,
And where the Stars are led.

University of Virginia Library

POEMS

FROM THE HILLS OF DREAM