youth, whose cheeks had never found,
Or long ere this had lost their ruddy stain;
A sibyl, with fierce face as of a hound
That dreams. She moveth, feeling in her brain
The lightnings pulse—behold her, aye behold—
Ignoble joy, and more ignoble pain
Cramm’d all her youth; and hates have bought and sold
Her spirit. As she moves, the foam-globes burst
Over her spotted flesh and flying hair
And her gigantic limbs. The weary thirst
Unquenchable still glows in her dull stare,
As round her, slow on feet that have no blood,
The phantoms of her faded pleasures walk;
And trailing crimson vans, a mumbling brood,
Ghosts of her vanished glories, muse and stalk
About the sea. Before her lies that youth,
Worn with long struggles; and the waves have sung
Their passion and their restlessness and ruth
Through his sad soul for ever old and young,
Till their fierce miseries within his eyes
Have lit lone tapers. Now the night was cast,
Making all one o’er rock and sea and skies;
And when once more the lightning Genii passed,
Strewing upon the rocks their steel-blue hair,
I saw him stagger with the clanking chain,
Trailing and shining ’neath the flickering glare.
With little cries of joy he kissed the rain
In creviced rocks, and laughed to the old sea,
And, nodding to and fro, sang songs of love,
And flowers and little children. Suddenly
Dropt down the velvet darkness from above,
Hiding away the ocean’s yelping flocks.
When flash on flash once more the lightning came,
The youth had flung his arms around the rocks,
And in the sibyl’s eyes a languid flame
Was moving. Bleeding now, his grasp unlocks,
And he is dragged again before her feet.
Why not? He is her own; and crouching nigh
Bending her face o’er his, she watches meet
And part his foaming mouth with eager eye—
To place a kiss of fire on the dim brow
Of Failure, and to crown her crownless head,
That all men evermore may humbly bow
Down to the mother of the foiled and dead.
For this did the Eternal Darkness bring
Thither thy dust, and knead it with a cry,
Gathered on her own lips, Oh youth, and fling
Failure for glory down on thee, and mould
Thy withered foe, and with the purple wing
Of ocean fan thee into life, and fold
For ever round thy waking and thy sleep
The darkness of the whirlwind shattered deep.
On Mr. Nettleship’s Picture at the Royal Hibernian Academy
Yonder the sickle of the moon sails on,
But here the Lioness licks her soft cub
Tender and fearless on her funeral pyre;
Above, saliva dripping from his jaws,
The Lion, the world’s great solitary, bends
Lowly the head of his magnificence
And roars, mad with the touch of the unknown,
Not as he shakes the forest; but a cry
Low, long and musical. A dew-drop hung
Bright on a grass blade’s under side, might hear
Nor tremble to its fall. The fire sweeps round
Re-shining in his eyes. So ever moves
The flaming circle of the outer Law,
Nor heeds the old, dim protest and the cry
The orb of the most inner living heart
Gives forth. He, the Eternal, works His will.
Remembrance
Remembering thee, I search out these faint flowers
Of rhyme; remembering thee, this crescent night
While o’er the buds and o’er the grass-blades, bright
And clinging with the dew of odorous showers,
With purple sandals sweep the grave-eyed hours—
Remembering thee, I muse, while fades in flight
The honey-hearted leisure of the light,
And hanging o’er the hush of willow bowers,
Of ceaseless loneliness and high regret
Sings the young wistful spirit of a star
Enfolden in the shadows of the East,
And silence holding revelry and feast;
Just now my soul rose up and touched it, far
In space, made equal with a sigh, we met.
Love Song
From the Gaelic
My love, we will go, we will go, I and you,
And away in the woods we will scatter the dew;
And the salmon behold, and the ousel too,
My love, we will hear, I and you, we will hear,
The calling afar of the doe and the deer.
And the bird in the branches will cry for us clear,
And the cuckoo unseen in his festival mood;
And death, oh my fair one, will never come near
In the bosom afar of the fragrant wood.
In Church
She prays for father, mother dear,
To Him with thunder shod,
She prays for every falling tear
In the holy church of God.
For all good men now fallen ill,
For merry men that weep,
For holiest teachers of His will,
And common men that sleep.
The sunlight flickering on the pews,
The sunlight in the air,
The flies that dance in threes, in twos,
They seem to join her prayer—
Her prayer for father, mother dear,
To Him with thunder shod,
A prayer for every falling tear
In the holy church of God.
A Summer Evening
The living woods forego their care,
Their dread of autumn’s mortal wing,
And shake their birds upon the air,
And like a silver trumpet ring.
The giddy bee’s complacent croon,
Where long grey grasses bow and bend,
In all its honey-thickened tune
Has no word of the sulphurous end.
The sunflowers weave a golden clime,
As though their season had no date,
Nod to the iron shoes of Time,
And play with his immortal hate.
And, maiden, be thou mirthful too,
Lay down the burden of thy race,
For God is walking in the dew,
An evening presence fills the place.
The hollow woodlands feel Him there,
And dread no more foul autumn’s wing,
And shake their birds upon the air,
And like a silver trumpet ring.
In the Firelight
Come and dream of kings and kingdoms,
Cooking chestnuts on the bars—
Round us the white roads are endless,
Mournful under mournful stars.
Whisper lest we too may sadden,
Round us herds of shadows steal—
Care not if beyond the shadows
Flieth Fortune’s furious wheel.
Kingdoms rising, kingdoms falling,
Bowing nations, plumèd wars—
Weigh them in an hour of dreaming,
Cooking chestnuts on the bars.
Where My Books Go
All the words that I gather,
And all the words that
