From the Land of Dreams :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh! those nights, those Winter nights
By the fire, when the sweet brown turf-sods glowed;
When the punch went round, and uncanny sights
I saw in the flickering shadows, while flowed
The talk when a neighbour or two dropped in;

Or maybe old Tom the Fiddler would come,
With: “God save all here!” and glad welcome win
To a seat by the hearth, in our farm at home.

II

“Tom the Rover,” “Tom of the Tongue,”
That could reel off stories, cap jest with jest,
Tom the crony of old and young,
Tom who could hold his own with the best.
Oh! the keene, or the lilt of the strings when he played,
When the girls came wheedling for “one more tune!”
But God help the fools of whom hares he made!
Try a fall with Tom, and he grassed you soon.

III

Oh! the stories I heard from him:
Tales of Kings in the days of old,
Merrows, changelings, and spectres grim,
Tales that made my young blood run cold,
Tales of humour, tales of romance,
Of faithful lovers at odds with fate,
Tales of the Irish Brigade in France,
Tales of the horrors of Ninety-eight.

IV

Strange were the sights old Tom had seen:
“The Headless Coach,” and the Leprechaun,
And the fairies' court, where he danced with their Queen,
When into her magic hill he'd gone.
And “beyant by the bridge,” one moonlit night,
There crouched the Banshee by the water side,
“With a freckled face, an' she all in white,
Thryin' over her keene for O'Neill that died.”

V

Oh! the rambles I had with him!
He taught me the ways of beasts and birds;
For he loved them all, fly, or walk, or swim,
Made me know the lives we but docket with words.
If Tom had his dreams he had eyes as well
For the world God fashions for man's high school,
The world that spins between heaven and hell,
And His scholar, Tom, was no book-learn'd fool.

VI

O Tom, 'twas yourself made me laugh and cry!
When our tunes come singing now in my ear,
The old days come back, and clear to my eye
The old place stands there, and the dead appear.

They welcome me home at the door. I grasp
My Father's hand, and his hearty voice
Breaks on my name; I feel the clasp
Of my Mother's arms by that door of joys!

VII

Ah! that door of joys! it opens for me
Only in dreams, and never more
Will open on earth, save when memory
Brings back the days I have lived before.
Ah! the life we lead here from day to day
Is but a struggle for life, it seems,
That finds us callow, that leaves us grey,
Our spirits dwell in the Land of Dreams.