Works

I

Everybody else, then, going,
And I still left where the fair was? . . .
Much have I seen of neighbour loungers
Making a lusty showing,
Each now past all knowing.

II
...

Prologue

Calm and clear! the bright day is declining,
The crystal expanse of the bay,
Like a shield of pure metal, lies shining
'Twixt headlands of purple and grey,...

What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy-seat!
Yet who that knows the worth of prayer,
But wishes to be often there?


Prayer makes the darken'd cloud withdraw,...

By the sad waters of separation
Where we have wandered by divers ways,
I have but the shadow and imitation
Of the old memorial days.

In music I have no consolation,...

Had the gods loved me I had lain
Where darnel is, and thorn,
And the wild night-bird's nightlong strain
Trembles in boughs forlorn.

Nay, but they loved me not; and I
Must needs a stranger be,...

Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness...

There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill:
For his country he sign'd, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.
...

You are here, and you are wanted,
Though a waif upon life's stair;
Though the sunlit hours are haunted
With the shadowy shapes of care.
Still the Great One, the All-Seeing...

"Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abitis in loca?"

Cease, Wind, to blow
And drive the peopled snow,
And move the haunted arras to and fro,
And moan of things I fear to know...

Farewell to the feast-day! the pray'r book is stained
With tears; of the booth scarce a trace has remained;
The lime branch is withered, the osiers are dying,
And pale as a corpse the fair palm-frond is lying;...

O'er the tears that we shed, dear
The bitter vines twist,
And the hawk and the red deer
They keep where we kiss'd:
All broken lies the shieling
That sheltered from rain,...

From my farm, from h'r farm
Furtively we came.
In either home a hearth was warm:
We nursed a hungrier flame.

Our feet were foul with mire,
Our faces blind with mist;...

Over the rim of the Moor,
And under the starry sky,
Two men came to my door
And rested them thereby.

Beneath the bough and the star,
In a whispering foreign tongue,
They talked of a land afar...

When with closed eyes in autumn's eves of gold
I breathe the burning odours of your breast,
Before my eyes the hills of happy rest
Bathed in the sun's monotonous fires, unfold.
...

You 'll be wonderin' whut 's de reason
I 's a grinnin' all de time,
An' I guess you t'ink my sperits
Mus' be feelin' mighty prime.
Well, I 'fess up, I is tickled
As a puppy at his paws....

("Moune, 'cureuil.")

[xx.]


Squirrel, mount yon oak so high,
To its twig that next the sky
Bends and trembles as a flower!
Strain, O stork, thy pinion well, -...

Roll on, O shining sun,
To the far seas!
Bring down, ye shades of eve,
The soft, salt breeze!
Shine out, O stars, and light
My darling's pathway bright,
As through the summer night...

Into life's ocean the youth with a thousand masts daringly launches;
Mute, in a boat saved from wreck, enters the gray-beard the port.

Live with a thrifty, not a needy fate;
Small shots paid often waste a vast estate.

Three memories hold us ever
With longing and with pain;
Three memories Time has never
Been able to restrain;
That in each life remain
A part of heart and brain.
...