LITMIR.BIZ

      The host is riding from Knocknarea

      And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;

      Caolte tossing his burning hair

      And Niamh calling Away, come away:

      Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

      The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,

      Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,

      Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam,

      Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;

      And if any gaze on our rushing band,

      We come between him and the deed of his hand,

      We come between him and the hope of his heart.

      The host is rushing 'twixt night and day,

      And where is there hope or deed as fair?

      Caolte tossing his burning hair,

      And Niamh calling Away, come away.

      O sweet everlasting Voices be still;

      Go to the guards of the heavenly fold

      And bid them wander obeying your will

      Flame under flame, till Time be no more;

      Have you not heard that our hearts are old,

      That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,

      In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?

      O sweet everlasting Voices be still.

      Time drops in decay,

      Like a candle burnt out,

      And the mountains and woods

      Have their day, have their day;

      What one in the rout

      Of the fire-born moods,

      Has fallen away?

      All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,

      The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,

      The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,

      Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

      The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;

      I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,

      With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold

      For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

      O'Driscoll drove with a song,

      The wild duck and the drake,

      From the tall and the tufted reeds

      Of the drear Hart Lake.

      And he saw how the reeds grew dark

      At the coming of night tide,

      And dreamed of the long dim hair

      Of Bridget his bride.

      He heard while he sang and dreamed

      A piper piping away,

      And never was piping so sad,

      And never was piping so gay.

      And he saw young men and young girls

      Who danced on a level place

      And Bridget his bride among them,

      With a sad and a gay face.

      The dancers crowded about him,

      And many a sweet thing said,

      And a young man brought him red wine

      And a young girl white bread.

      But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,

      Away from the merry bands,

      To old men playing at cards

      With a twinkling of ancient hands.

      The bread and the wine had a doom,

      For these were the host of the air;

      He sat and played in a dream

      Of her long dim hair.

      He played with the merry old men

      And thought not of evil chance,

      Until one bore Bridget his bride

      Away from the merry dance.

      He bore her away in his arms,

      The handsomest young man there,

      And his neck and his breast and his arms

      Were drowned in her long dim hair.

      O'Driscoll scattered the cards

      And out of his dream awoke:

      Old men and young men and young girls

      Were gone like a drifting smoke;

      But he heard high up in the air

      A piper piping away,

      And never was piping so sad,

      And never was piping so gay.

      Although you hide in the ebb and flow

      Of the pale tide when the moon has set,

      The people of coming days will know

      About the casting out of my net,

      And how you have leaped times out of mind

      Over the little silver cords,

      And think that you were hard and unkind,

      And blame you with many bitter words.

      The Danann children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,

      And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,

      For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,

      With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:

      I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,

      And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me.

      Desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea;

      Desolate winds that hover in the flaming West;

      Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beat

      The doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost;

      O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable host

      Is comelier than candles before Maurya's feet.

      Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,

      Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;

      Laugh heart again in the gray twilight,

      Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

      Your mother Eire is always young,

      Dew ever

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