LITMIR.BIZ

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waved it off on the air.

      ‘I have cap and bells,’ he pondered,

      ‘I will send them to her and die’;

      And when the morning whitened

      He left them where she went by.

      She laid them upon her bosom,

      Under a cloud of her hair,

      And her red lips sang them a love-song:

      Till stars grew out of the air.

      She opened her door and her window,

      And the heart and the soul came through,

      To her right hand came the red one,

      To her left hand came the blue.

      They set up a noise like crickets,

      A chattering wise and sweet,

      And her hair was a folded flower

      And the quiet of love in her feet.

THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG

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      The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears

      Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,

      And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries

      Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.

      We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,

      The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,

      Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you,

      Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.

THE LOVER ASKS FORGIVENESS BECAUSE OF HIS MANY MOODS

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      If this importunate heart trouble your peace

      With words lighter than air,

      Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;

      Crumple the rose in your hair;

      And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,

      ‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame!

      O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,

      That murmuring and longing came,

      From marble cities loud with tabors of old

      In dove-gray faery lands;

      From battle banners, fold upon purple fold,

      Queens wrought with glimmering hands;

      That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face

      Above the wandering tide;

      And lingered in the hidden desolate place,

      Where the last Phœnix died

      And wrapped the flames above his holy head;

      And still murmur and long:

      O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead

      In a tumultuous song’:

      And cover the pale blossoms of your breast

      With your dim heavy hair,

      And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest

      The odorous twilight there.

HE TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS

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      I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,

      For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;

      And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood

      With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:

      I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay

      Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,

      Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair

      Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.

HE TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY

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      O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,

      The poets labouring all their days

      To build a perfect beauty in rhyme

      Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze

      And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:

      And therefore my heart will bow, when dew

      Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,

      Before the unlabouring stars and you.

HE HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE

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      I wander by the edge

      Of this desolate lake

      Where wind cries in the sedge

      Until the axle break

      That keeps the stars in their round,

      And hands hurl in the deep

      The banners of East and West,

      And the girdle of light is unbound,

      Your breast will not lie by the breast

      Of your beloved in sleep.

HE THINKS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SPOKEN EVIL OF HIS BELOVED

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      Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,

      And dream about the great and their pride;

      They have spoken against you everywhere,

      But weigh this song with the great and their pride;

      I made it out of a mouthful of air,

      Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

THE BLESSED

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      Cumhal called out, bending his head,

      Till Dathi came and stood,

      With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth,

      Between the wind and the wood.

      And Cumhal said, bending his knees,

      ‘I have come by the windy way

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