Experiences :: :: University of Virginia Library

To Dr. Robertson Nicoll

A MEMORY.

This is just the weather, a wet May and blowing,
All the shining, shimmering leaves tossing low and high,
When my father used to say: “'Twill be the great mowing!
God's weather's good weather, be it wet or dry.”

Blue were his eyes and his cheeks were so ruddy,
He was out in all weathers, up and down the farm;
With the pleasant smile and the word for a wet body:
“Sure the weather's God's weather. Who can take the harm?”

With a happy word he'd silence all repining
While the hay lay wet in field and the cattle died,
When the rain rained every day and no sun was shining:
“Ah, well, God is good,” he'd say, even while he sighed.

In the parched summer with the corn not worth saving,
Every field bare as your hand and the beasts to feed,

Still he kept his heart up, when other folk were raving:
“God will send the fodder; 'tis He that knows the need.”

A wet May, a wild May; he used to rise up cheery
In the grey of the morning for market and for fair.
Now he sleeps the whole year long, though days be bright, be dreary,
In God's weather that's good weather he sleeps without a care.

Now, 'tis just the weather, a wild May and weeping,
How the blackbird sang and sang 'mid the tossing leaves!
When my father used to say: “'Twill be the great reaping,
God send fine weather to carry home the sheaves!”

THE IRISH PIPES.

I heard the piper playing,
The piper old and blind,
And knew its secret saying—
The voice of the summer wind.

I heard clear waters falling,
Lapping from stone to stone,
The wood-dove crying and calling,
Ever alone, alone.

I heard the bells of the heather
Ring in the summer breeze,
Soft stir of fur and feather
And quiet hum of bees.

The piper drew me yearning
Into the dim grey lands,
Where there is no returning
Although I wring my hands.

There to the piper's crooning
I saw my dead again,
All in a happy nooning
Of golden sun and rain.

You piper, kind and hoary,
Your pipes upon your knee,
If I should tell my story,
The things you piped for me;

The folk would leave their selling
And bid their buying go,
If I could but be telling
The things you let me know.

“'TIS HOT TO-DAY IN LONDON.”

'Tis hot to-day in London: the dust is in the street:
There's a greyness and a tiredness on the faces that you meet;
The dusty windows gaping to catch a breath of wind:
But the song of running waters is in my mind.

In Ireland of the Streams there's a thousand brooklets clear:
Every ditch is paved with silver where the gold and gems appear:
There's a weeny troutlet swimming round each boulder's mossy face;
Och, you smell the water's sweetness in the driest place.

The water's brown as amber and yellow as the gold;
'Tisn't wine that you'd be wanting where it flows so sweet and cold,
With the weeshy twinkling bubbles just inviting you to drink,
And the honeyed flowers all pressing to the water's brink.

It flows so free in Ireland that it hangs from cliff and rock,
Like a fringe of gold and silver on the green of a King's cloak;

Little rainbows do be springing in the sun and in the breeze;
Sure, 'tis hot to-day in London, och, God help us, it is!

There's a little stream I know, and it flows so soft and still,
'Tis myself that longs to track it to its cradle in the hill,
Where below a mountain fern it comes gushing out so small
That the two soft hands of Molly could just hold it all.

Ochone, the fairy glens where the tree-tops meet above!
Where the singing of the waters and the moan of the wood-dove
Are the only sounds you're hearing, with the soft wind in the trees;
Och, 'tis hot to-day in London, sure, God help us, it is!

THE CHILDREN.

I am the children's hearts' delight,
Their sun by day, their moon by night;
Their light, their warmth; and all their bliss
To be wherever Mother is.

And when I go I must cast off
Small hands constraining me in love;
And when they leave me they are sent
Into an outer banishment.

The children have me in their dreams
Between the star-beams and moon-beams;
They name me in their prayer and play:
With Mother, Mother, all the day.

I am their centre of all things.
The innocent love's burnt-offerings
Laid on my altar send on high
Sweet smoke of incense in my sky.

Dear God, while they are little, see,
They love Thee hidden, loving me;
And being too young to know indeed
Set up their mother in Thy stead.

Thou who hast willed we mothers should
Through the sweet years of babyhood
Take Thy place with the children, yea,
Be God and Heaven of their small day,—

Remember when Thou wast like these,
Thou Babe that lay on Mary's knees,
When all Thy Heaven was Mother's eyes,
And all Heaven's music lullabies.

Thou who didst follow at her skirt
Have pity on my low desert;
Thy proxy, vice-regent, lest I,
Unworthy of my destiny,

Show a blurred image of Thy face.
Yea, make me a true looking-glass
Wherein the children shall surmise
As darkly through a glass Thine eyes.

PLANTING BULBS.

Setting my bulbs arow
In cold earth under the grasses,
Till the frost and the snow
Are gone and the Winter passes—

Sudden a foot-fall light,
Sudden a bird-call ringing;
And these in gold and in white
Shall rise with a sound of winging;

Airy and delicate all,
All go trooping and dancing
At Spring's call and footfall,
Airily dancing, advancing.

In the dark of the year,
Turning the earth so chilly,
I look to the day of cheer,
Primrose and daffodilly.

Turning the sods and the clay
I think on the poor sad people
Hiding their dead away
In the churchyard, under the steeple.

All poor women and men,
Broken-hearted and weeping,
Their dead they call on in vain,
Quietly smiling and sleeping.

Friends, now listen and hear,
Give over crying and grieving,
There shall come a day and a year
When the dead shall be as the living.

There shall come a call, a foot-fall,
And the golden trumpeters blowing
Shall stir the dead with their call,
Bid them be rising and going.

Then in the daffodil weather
Lover shall run to lover;
Friends all trooping together;
Death and Winter be over.

Laying my bulbs in the dark,
Visions have I of hereafter.
Lip to lip, breast to breast, hark!
No more weeping, but laughter!

IN THE WOOD.

Night's in the wood now, in poplars and larches,
Sycamore and chestnut, till the dawn shall wake.
Who is he goes shouting through the fairy arches?
Who is this brawler by bush and brake?

Oh, this is the Blackbird. He will not be quiet,
He wakes the wedding-couches in the old madcap way.
“Good-night and good-night now!” With laughter and riot
He sets the nests to twitter in the twilight grey.

“Good-night and good-night now!” Oh, rascal, give over!
Tits and linnets answer with a sleepy call.
“Once more a jolly good-night now to every lass and lover!”
The sleepy wood is stirring to hear him brawl.

Dark is the wood now: the birds should be sleeping;
Thrushes, finches, dreaming till the break of day.
And still the rogue, Blackbird, the wood awake is keeping,
Shouting “Good-night, now!” in the old mad-cap way.

FOR YOUR SAKE.

For your sake who have left me grieving
I love the old who are tired of living,
Tired of travelling a road grown weary,
More than the young, more than the merry.

The old, patient and rosy faces
Stir my heart in its secret places.
The old eyes that ache for rest
Set my heart to bleed in my breast.

More than the children, golden and ruddy,
The bent knees and the feeble body
Stab my heart with the mother-pain,
For your sake in the night and rain.

For your sake I would fain enfold them
The old heads to my breast and hold them,
Keep them safe from the lonely fear,
My kind love of many a year.

The old hands I could kneel and kiss them,
Knotted and purple, could love them, caress them.
Ah, my dear, when the house is asleep,
I see your hands and I wake and weep.

THE GARDEN.

Our Lord, Christ Jesus, Son of God
Loved gardens while on earth He abode.

There was a garden where He took
His pleasures oft, by Kedron's brook.
There in His uttermost agony
He found a pillow whereon to lie
And anguish while His disciples slept.
Be sure the little grass-blades kept
Vigil with Him, and the grey olives
Shivered and sighed like one that grieves,
And the flowers hid their eyes for fear!
His garden was His comforter.
There to the quiet heart He made
He came, and it upheld His head
Before the angel did. Therefore
Blessed be gardens evermore!

Christ Jesus in the sad world's dearth
Lay three days in the lap of earth.
And while He lay, stabbed through, one Wound,
The garden waited tear-bedrowned,
Quiet from sunrise to sunrise.
The widowed flowers had veiled their eyes;
Nor Canterbury bells did ring;
Nor rose lift her burnt-offering;
Nor primroses nor violets,
Nor sops-in-wine nor mignonettes,

But thought upon the thorns and spears
And on the blessed Mary's tears.
All in a Truce of God,—a peace,—
The garden rocked Him on her knees.

But O! in the beautiful rose-red day
Who comes a-walking down this way?
Why's Magdalen weeping? Ah, sweet lady,
She knows not where is her Lord's Body!
Sweet Magdalen, see! here is your Love!
Whom Solomon's-seal and the sweet-clove
Brush with their lips as He goes by;
And love-lies-bleeding and rosemary.
Now bid His disciples haste! Bring hither
His Mother and St. John together!
But 'twas the Garden saw Him rise.
Wherefore she flaunts her peacock's eyes;
Wherefore her birds sing low and loud.
The heart that bore His sleep is proud.

Because the garden was His friend
Blessed be gardens world without end!

Amen.

THE DARK ROSE.

Though all my loves of old have passed away
And lie at rest wrapped in your holy clay,
I do not therefore love you less or more,
Seeing I love you for yourself, asthore:
My own land, with your misty vales and hills
Where my heart wanders by the happy rills.

I love you for yourself. Your beauty green
Calls to me in the night-watches between
The day and day; and though I never come
Your stars are as a million lights of home
Upon your sacred hill-tops, crest on crest,
Ere the first bird has wakened the first nest.

I love you, love you for your own sweet sake.
Ere the first bird awakens the first brake,
I dream of you amid your quiet seas.
Let others tell your history, memories,
Counting your heroes. Not for these or those
I love you; only for yourself, Dark Rose.

I love you, not for any living or dead,
For any gold or any dear black head.
Yea, were you desert, I should love no less
You with your mother-breast of milkiness,
Of milk and honey, that still calls me back,
My feet, my heart, on the familiar track.

Your hidden glens, your singing waters call,
Allure me still at dawn and even-fall;
The wind that ruffles all your meadows grey,
Sighs in my heart at dawn and close of day—
Sighs in my heart and will not let me be.
The wind from over your mountains troubles me.

EVERYTHING THAT I MADE.

Everything that I made I used to bring to you.
Was it a song, why, then 'twas a song to sing to you.
Was it a story, to you I was telling my story.
Ah, my dear, could you hear 'mid the bliss and the glory?

Did anyone praise me, to you I said it all over.
My laughter for you: how we laughed in the days past recover!
My tears and my trouble were for you: did anyone grieve me
I carried it straight to the love that was sure to relieve me.

O my dear, when aught happens, to you I am turning,
Forgetting how far you have travelled since then from my yearning.
There's nobody now to tell things to: your house is so lonely:
And still I'm forgetting and bringing my tale to you only.

The old days are over: how pleasant they were while they lasted!
The sands were pure gold that ran out ere we knew and were wasted.
And still I'm forgetting, ochone, that no longer you're near me,
And turn to you still with my tale, and there's no one to hear me.

INTROIT: AN ECHO.

I look and see the world is fair,
And marvel much at what can move
The Lord of Earth, the Lord of Air,
To such extremity of love.

Seeing we have so short a space
To abide on this side of the tomb,
We could have borne a barer place,
An unadorned, but cleanly room.

Pilgrim am I and wayfarer,
Sojourner one night at an inn;
What matters if the room is bare,
So that the bed and sheets be clean?

But ah, dear Lord, this would not suit
Thy love for me, impure, unkind;
Thou settest the daisies at my feet,
Mak'st me the sky, mak'st me the wind.

Me doth ingenious love devise
The mountains and the lakes and sea,
All roses and the peacocks' eyes;
The sun runs round his course for me.

For me the children and the lambs,
For me the nightingale and lark,
All fields and meadows and tall palms
And the starred curtain of the dark.

Yea, in Thine Image, I am given
The eyes to look beyond our night;
The love which makes of earth a heaven,
Yea, am I loved in my despite.

Why should I try to tell them o'er,
Thy mercies that will not be said,
More than the sands on the sea-shore,
More than the hairs upon my head?

Thou, Artizan and Architect,
And Master-Lover, Master-Mind,
With wondrous cunning Thou hast decked
These walls for common eyes and blind.

Since Thou dost such delights provide
For passing earth and sinful men,
What can it be Thou settest aside
For man when he is risen again?

What is it that Thou hast reserved?
What glories on his sight will break,
When he sits down by angels served
And at Thy board his thirst will slake?

Alas, my Lord, why wouldst Thou strive
To make so fair a house of call,
That there are some who here will live,
As though Thy lovely earth were all?

Yea, though we turn Thy gifts to ill,
Make of Thy benefits our bane,
Thy love, Thy love, transcending still
Seeks us again, finds us again.

THE NEW BOY.

He never knew before how heavenly the places,
Light-loved but yesterday, the fields of his home;
Gleam to his sick eyes the lost beloved faces,
A mirage, a water-well, where he may not come.

Dear was the white road, winding and turning,
Where his free feet ran nor knew them free.
Beacons the low house, a heaven to his yearning,
A heaven of accustomed things where he may not be.

Round the smooth cricket ground the woods, a watch keeping,
Draw a dark barrier where he may not pass.
What is work? What is play? The sad hours go creeping.
His heaven's out of reach, and none cares, alas!

His tears make a water-course; his poor cheek's grimy;
His heart hangs so heavy and his feet are lead.
Oh what to him is Audio? And what is Eimi?
Who only wants his mother's breast for his aching head.

Boys alike and masters, phantoms to his vision.
The high-class room walls the cage to the bird.
He heeds not the chill kindness nor the sly derision,
Sick for his mother's kiss, his father's word.

Far, far away, beyond these drear spaces,
Beyond the sullen hours that creep away,
Lie the deliverance, the heavenly places.
He strangles with his sobs till the grey day.

THE MAN OF THE HOUSE.

Joseph, honoured from sea to sea,
This is your name that pleases me,
“Man of the House.”

I see you rise at the dawn and light
The fire and blow till the flame is bright.

I see you take the pitcher and carry
The deep well-water for Jesus and Mary.

You knead the corn for the bread so fine,
Gather them grapes from the hanging vine.

There are little feet that are soft and slow,
Follow you whithersoever you go.

There's a little face at your workshop door,
A little One sits down on your floor:

Holds His hands for the shavings curled,
The soft little hands that have made the world.

Mary calls you: the meal is ready:
You swing the Child to your shoulder steady.

I see your quiet smile as you sit
And watch the little Son thrive and eat.

The vine curls by the window space,
The wings of angels cover the face.

Up in the rafters, polished and olden,
There's a Dove that broods and his wings are golden.

You who kept Them through shine and storm,
A staff, a shelter, kindly and warm.

Father of Jesus, Husband of Mary,
Hold us your lilies for sanctuary!

Joseph, honoured from sea to sea,
Guard me mine and my own roof-tree,
Man of the House!

THE COTTAGE GARDEN.

The Cottage Garden shows a face
Of heartsease and of herb-of-grace,
Such Sunday cleanness and so bright,
In lavender and pink and white.

With little beds in formal box,
And rows of stocks and hollyhocks,
Clove-gillyflowers and sops-in-wine,
And jessamine and eglantine.

Now where the lilies bowed their heads,
Like angel-folk in the garden-beds,
Now in the equinoctial weather
The China asters press together.

Never was such a damask seen
On gown of Empress or of Queen;
Never was silk or taffety
So finely pranked to take the eye.

Pink, purple, white, in serried masses,
That give no hint of leaves or grasses;
The China asters ope like suns
Their cheerful constellations.

The rose, the rose's hues are dull,
No snapdragon is beautiful,
Beside the China aster's grace,
Who shows a new-washed morning face.

As though a peacock changed his hues
To rose and purple, whites and blues,
The Cottage Garden spreads a train
Of colours from the rainbow ta'en.

The Cottage Garden shows a flare
Of splendour to the evening star;
A country girl, so beautiful,
She makes the mincing ladies dull.

THE FIELD-PATH WAY.

Let's put the dusty road aside
For ogreish things that snort and smell,
For folk that drive in gigs or ride
All in a haste to buy or sell.

See here an open gate invites,
The way runs on beside the wheat;
Dappled with sweetest reds and whites
The softest turf offers a seat.

Across the valley dark and green,
The road a dusty ribbon doth wind:
Beauty and beauty set between:
Is not the field-path to your mind?

By the white clover we shall go,
The very way the wild bee went;
By honeysuckles all a-blow,
Their horns of plenty spilling scent;

And by wild roses pink and pale,
Campion and scabious and new hay:
This is the way the nightingale
Went some delicious night of May.

Now by some pasture rich and deep,
Where white and strawberry cattle stand,
Where shepherd-men still keep the sheep
All in a sweet and ordered land.

Now through the man-high oats we fare,
Lit with the flaming poppies fine,
Millions of emerald columns bear
The fretted arches all a-shine.

Come, take the field-path way a-while,
By cherry orchards, cool and dark,
With lovers on a rustic stile,
And everywhere the springing lark.

Let's leave the road to folk in haste,
The field-path goes a leisured way;
Ere the delicious time be past,
Gather we roses while we may.

THE FLYING WHEEL.

When I was young the days were long,
Oh, long the days when I was young:
So long from morn to evenfall
As they would never end at all.

Now I grow old Time flies, alas!
I watch the years and seasons pass.
Time turns him with his fingers thin
A wheel that whirls while it doth spin.

There is no time to take one's ease,
For to sit still and be at peace:
Oh, whirling wheel of Time be still,
Let me be quiet if you will!

Yet still it turns so giddily,
So fast the years and seasons fly,
Dazed with the noise and speed I run
And stay me on the Changeless One.

I stay myself on Him who stays
Ever the same through nights and days:
The One Unchangeable for aye,
That was and will be: the one Stay,

O'er whom Eternity will pass
But as an image in a glass;
To whom a million years are nought,
I stay myself on a great thought.

I stay myself on the great Quiet
After the noises and the riot;
As in a garnished chamber sit
Far from the tumult of the street.

Oh, wheel of Time turn round apace!
But I have found a resting-place.
You will not trouble me again
In the great peace where I attain.

THE SERVANTS.

I have six servants for my use,
Two bear me wheresoe'er I choose;
Carry me over the world where'er
I choose to be a traveller.

Two, feat and nimble, do my will,
Write, play, sew, toilers tireless still,
Serve me with joy, serve me with love,
And never cry, “It is enough.”

Two yet remaining ope for me
The world of Art and Poetry,
The dear delights of Nature spread
That feast my soul like daily bread.

The feet that bear me long and well,
Wonderfully wrought, a miracle:
I praise God as I walk abroad
For these strong, delicate works of God.

Likewise my hands that toil and moil,
Nor in my service fear a soil;
Wonderful hands that still achieve
So much between the morn and eve.

Yet of my eyes what shall I say,
That without any holiday,
Year after year sans ease and rest,
Work for me like the patient beast?

The eyes I have not thought to spare,
Being a merciless taskmaster,
Not careful of their strength nor wise,—
I crave forgiveness of my eyes.

When on one day account I shall
Unto the Over-Lord of all,
For these, my servants, I shall say,
“Well did they serve me in my day.”

And on that day of the Great Assize
I pray my hands, my feet, my eyes
Accuse me not. Ah, why should I fear
These fellow-travellers, kind and dear?

These comrades on the heavenward road,
Those cunning, wonderful works of God.
Not servants! Nay, but each a friend,
For whom I praise God, world without end.

IN MARCH.

In the March twilight, the wonderful March twilight,
Blackbirds, thrushes, sing so wild on every tree,
Sing their wildest, best, in the grey, the shy light
Break the heart with grief, with hope, with ecstasy.

In the March twilight, the wonderful grey weather,
The song troubles the founts of tears, of memory,
Snatches me from life, transports me altogether;
The winged song ringing from a yet bare tree.

I am wild with joy, I am hurt with grieving:
My heart goes out in a passion to you, and you
Dead this many a year: and to you who are living:
The old ways, the old days, old faces I knew.

Now I thrill again to my love and my lover,
The doubts and exaltations, the hopes and fears,
When I still was young and was yet to discover
The quiet days, the good days that came with the years.

Thrushes, blackbirds sing, awake the guest immortal
That flutters in my breast like a bird in the cage.
My soul's awake in her cage, trembles, bids loose the portal,
Would wing her flight at last from her dull hermitage.

Blackbirds, thrushes sing a song made in Heaven
In the March twilight, before the time of leaves,
Break the heart in my breast in the grey March even,
Trouble my soul in her cage that grieves and grieves.

THE FIELDS.

Whene'er I take my walks abroad
And see the fields outspread,
My heart leaps up to thank that God
Who such sweet things has made.

But dear as are the fields I know,
And like friends' faces kind,
Some, more than others, when I go,
I carry in my mind.

Some, more than others, beckon me
From out the dusty town,
With “Come and lie beneath a tree
And fling your burthen down.”

Some, more than others, make a breast
Where my tired thoughts may lean,
With “Turn again and take your rest
All in a shadow green.”

And why a certain field should prove,
When far away I range,
More than another in my love
I find it passing strange.

For each displays the velvet floor,
And each the grove ashine;
And some have purling streams, and more
The quietly breathing kine.

I love them all; yet when I leave
And in the sad town mourn,
Some haunt me at the morn and eve,
And call me to return.

And each has many birds and flowers,
Each spreads a golden sheet
When the sweet Summer's in the bowers
And Cuckoo's calling sweet.

And one I never hear at all
Wherever I may roam;
While one at dawn and even-fall
Calls me and calls me home.

Dear are the fields; and yet 'tis plain
One has one's dearest friends
Among the fields as among men;
And there the wonder ends.

THE SPINSTER'S LAMENT.

Where are now the gay lads gone
Who my partners were of yore?
At the dance I sit alone,
Once the lightest on the floor.

Chits I dandled on my knee
Fling me many a scornful glance,
Wonder withered girls like me
Show their faces at the dance.

Where are all the gay lads gone
Who my partners were of old?
Many a one lies under stone,
Under stone, the night is cold.

Saucy girls they pass me by,
Toss their top-knots and their curls,
Twenty lovers once had I,
So take warning by me, girls!

Willie lies in Cloonagad,
Jack sleeps sound in Kilnaree,
Patrick was a coaxing lad;
Patrick's quiet under sea.

Joe and Jim and Valentine,
All are gone the self-same path;
Play the music, pour the wine,
But the fiddler's name is Death.

Where are now the loves I lost—
Tim and Jerry, Bob and Dick?
At the dance I sit, a ghost,
Count the dead and not the quick;

Count the dancers who are gone,
Brown and black and golden head:
At the dance I sit alone,
Tell my rosary of the dead.

THE COMMON.

This Common holds all sweets in one:
Sweet scents and sounds, sweet shade and sun,
Bright birds, light moths on gauzy wings;
Thank God that these are common things!

The pines fling incense far and wide,
Drop their sweet cones on every side;
There is a pond of amber sweet
Hid in the very heart of it.

Green bracken waves like a green sea,
Breaks like a green wave airily;
With gorse in blossom and the broom,
Acres of honey and of bloom.

What carpet's underneath the feet,
Here in this delicate deep retreat?
A carpet fit for a Queen's foot,
A thousand years it took to do't.

Here in a wild-wood solitude
Beyond the delicious gorse and wood,
The village rests this eve in peace,
Against a sky of primroses.

This Common, twenty miles from town,
Small honour hath she, small renown,
She holds her secret quietly,
And lets the noisy town go by.

No rich man here or his minion
Bids the poor traveller to begone,
Nor bids him take the road again,
Since this is not for common men.

The Common spreads her sweets for all
From evenfall to evenfall;
Wells of refreshment, water-springs:
Thank God that these are common things!

SEPTEMBER NIGHT.

Here in the Surrey lanes the night
Holds infinite sweetness out of sight;
A thousand golden censers swing
Beside the pine's burnt-offering.

The golden leafage, in its death,
Drifts in the hollows, and beneath
The foot gives up, until it dies,
Its sad and delicate fragrancies.

Sweet is the night, and yet beyond
All sweetness, solemn and profound,
Rises the smell of the good brown loam;
Voice of the mother calls us home.

The smell of the earth is round us still,
Down in the valley, over the hill,
The sweet brown loam in field and wood
Smells in the darkness, and is good.

The night has got a thousand sweets,
Sucked by the night-dews and great heats
From out a million mouths that spill
Their store, yet hoard the sweetness still.

But over all the sweets doth come
The great and quiet breath of the loam,
And Earth's a milky mother mild,
That calls to her every wandering child.

“Come home,” she says, “come home, and rest
All weary heads upon my breast.”
Kine in the darkness stir in sleep,
The wood-dove calls in silence deep.

I shall remember, when I go,
White nights of moonlight, drenched in snow,
Heavy with sweets, and, like a sea,
The breath of the mother holding me.

AT EUSTON STATION.

Yon is the train I used to take
In the good days of yore,
When I went home for love's dear sake,
I who go home no more.

The station lights flare in the wind,
The night is blurred with rain,
And there was someone, old and kind,
Who will not come again.

Oh, that's an Irish voice I hear,
And that's an Irish face,
And these will come when dawn is near
To the beloved place.

And these will see when day is grey
And lightest winds are still
The long coast-line by Dublin Bay
With exquisite hill on hill.

I would not follow if I might
Who came so oft of old;
No window-pane holds me a light,
The warm hearth-fire is cold.

There is the train I used to take.
Be blest from shore to shore,
O land of love and of heart-break!
But I go home no more.

INDIAN SUMMER.

I wish the poplar there would shed
The leafage it has borne too long,
That the last word was done and said
With the last blackbird's summer song.
If once the boughs were bare and stark
Who knows what hopes might stir in the dark?

The yellow trees the South wind blows,
I wish they would shed their last gold rain.
If they were stripped at last who knows
What heavy heart might lift again?
One must be stripped quite bare before
Comes the new birth long-waited for.

Better sweet things when done and over
Were out of sight beneath a stone.
If one were stripped beyond recover
Who knows what stir of buds unblown,
What sap, might warm the chill veins
After the Winter and the rains?

Some day the purple buds might come,
Thickening the branch against the sky,
What time the blackbird sings in the gloom
And a wet wind goes wandering by,

With violets in its breath. Who knows
What joy might be with lily and rose?

The ghost of Summer troubles me.
If skies were grey and winds were chill,
Who knows what sudden hope might be
Of wonderful new beginnings still?
When one might find at last—one might!—
Again, the long-perished dear delight.

TO THE BELOVED.

You were a part of the green country,
Of the grey hills and the quiet places;
They are not the same, the fields and the mountains,
Without the lost and beloved faces,
And you were a part of the sweet country.

There's a road that winds by the foot of the mountains,
Where I run in my dreams and you come to meet me,
With your blue eyes and your cheeks' old roses,
The old fond smile that was quick to greet me.
They are not the same, the fields and the mountains.

There is something lost, there is something lonely,
The birds are singing, the streams are calling,
The sun's the same, and the wind in the meadows.
But o'er your grave are the shadows falling,
The soul is missing, and all is lonely.

It is what they said: you were part of the country,
You were never afraid of the wind and weather.
I can hear in dreams the feet of your pony,
You and your pony coming together,
You will drive no more through the pleasant country.

You were a part of the fields and mountains,
Everyone knew you, everyone loved you;
All the world was your friend and neighbour,
The women smiled and the men approved you.
They are not the same, the fields and the mountains.

I sigh no more for the pleasant places,
The longer I've lost you the more I miss you.
My heart seeks you in dreams and shadows,
In dreams I find you, in dreams I kiss you,
And wake, alas! to the lonely places.

THE LAST TIME.

This is the last time we shall sit and see
The dreaming hills so dear to you and me;
The last time that this mountain wind so cool
Shall lave us in its freshness beautiful.

The last time we shall go in the dim dusk,
Down the steep golf-links, sweet with honey and musk
Of the evening fragrance; and the last sad time
We'll hear across these fields the vesper chime.

We shall not hear again the wood-doves all
Crooning, when shades of night begin to fall,
Nor smell again yon pines that fill the night
And day with their spilt odours of delight.

We shall not sleep and wake so fresh, so gay,
Under our cottage eaves to the bright day,
Nor see across the lawn the exquisite trees
Flinging long shadows over the pale leas.

Our life is full of last times: yet we go
With a high heart of courage, since we know
We go together, we and our small brood,
Dear imps of mischief, quaint and wild and good.

With a high heart of courage we can face,
Hand fast in hand, all change of time and place,
The dark fogs and the winter and the streets,
We have our secret greenness, our retreats.

Yet in all last times there is hid a grief,
A canker in the flower and in the leaf,
Over them lies a shadow not their own,
From some most bitter day, my dear, my own.

When for the last time I shall walk with you,
(Even old friends must part though dear and true,)
We who were always glad, being side by side,
Shall reach that point at last where ways divide.

And for the sake of the last talk, last walk,
To-night the flower goes withering on its stalk,
There's desolation on the hills and sea,
Because of the last time that's yet to be.

POPLAR.

No gale that heaven could send her
Troubles the lands or seas,
Yet Poplar, that pretender,
Green-kirtled to the knees,

Is crying and complaining,
Lashed by a fancied storm,
And now to earth is straining
Her silk and slender form.

A lady with a vapour,
She faints and shrieks and cries;
Again, like a tall taper,
Aspires to the still skies.

Though lad and lass go Maying,
Though June hath brought the rose,
She yet goes masquing, playing,
At times of storms and snows.

There's a soft voice of laughter
Amid her leafy screen,
Like small hands clapping after
The player's merriest scene.

The trees of wood and coppice
Are stirring not a leaf
In time of corn and poppies,
In time of fruit and sheaf.

And yet the Poplar mocking
Of storms she has her fill,
And now wind-tossed and rocking,
And now demure and still,

So tall, so fair, so slender,
Plays with such charm her part,
Who sees must still commend her,
Who hears exalt her art.

THANKSGIVING.

Out of the blaze of sun I step
Into a darkness cool and deep,
The blessed shadow, black as night,
Dappled with dancing flecks of light.

As to a river I step down,
Put off the languor as a gown,
Lace me in shade from head to feet;
Praise God who made the darkness sweet.

The woodland tunnel stretches far,
Cooler than limpid waters are,
Made all of dancing leaves, inlaid
With gold, as the night-sky is made.

Now God be praised who made the sun
Ripen the harvests every one,
The splendid sun for fruit and grain,
And gives as well the quickening rain.

Yet in the blinding days a-glare,
When leaves all windless hang in the air,
And the flowers fail, and birds are mute,
And life goes with a heavy foot,

All praise to Him whose love foresees
And makes the night-dews, the cool breeze,
And, blessed thought of God! the shade,
To comfort every weary head.

COUNTRY MORNING.

Outside my open window
A stretch of village green,
Freshness of quiet morning
Is on the peaceful scene.

The brook through reeds and rushes,
Runs on its quiet way,
There water-hens are hidden,
And there the wild-duck stray.

In every copse the pheasant
Whirs in a golden flight.
Alas! the burnished beauty,
That may be dull to-night!

Blue haze and bluer shadows,
And pheasant-gold the trees,
The mist from the pale meadows
Is grey as are the seas.

Beyond the spreading oak-trees,
Beyond the swelling park
Rises the lordly mountain,
Gorse-gold and heather-dark.

See there the dappled beauties
All shining in the sun,
The horses and their riders—
Cubbing is just begun.

Below my open window
The village gossip stays;
They talk of crops and cattle
And of the good old days.

Cattle and horses wander,
Cropping the grass so cool;
A cygnet grey and fearless
Travels from pool to pool.

Blue smoke hangs in the branches,
Sweet sounds of morning rise,
And all sweet innocences
Are in the Morning's eyes.

GORSE.

There's wildfire on the common now,
And every bush a mounting fire.
The flames spring upward, bough by bough,
Fountains of fire that still aspire.

Now every path's a golden street,
Gold walls bow down to let you pass,
As Israel's children in the heat
Trod honey and dew for molten brass.

Are golden valleys, golden dells,
And every bloom a golden house,
Where clogged with honey, by golden wells,
The gold bee makes his gold carouse?

The sun but now has gone to bed:
The stars shine palely, one by one;
The moon unveils her silver head,
Dreams it is morning and the sun.

Come, fire-flies, in your shining flights,
And warm your gossamer wings from cold,
Through the rich dark of summer nights
Here's flame that lights the world to gold.

Come, squirrel; from the wood and grove
Your favourite sweets the sun distils,
All nutty fragrances you love—
Some attar of nuts the good month spills.

The nightingale is now awake;
In all the copses lovers sleep,
All the night long, by bush and brake,
Torches of Hymen flare and leap.