Of pyrate galleys warping down;
For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,
They have not spared to wake the towne:
But while the west bin red to see,
And storms be none, and pyrates flee,
Why ring _The Brides of Enderby_?’
I looked without, and lo! my sonne
Came riding downe with might and main:
He raised a shout as he drew on,
Till all the welkin rang again,
‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth!’
(A sweeter woman ne’er drew breath
Than my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth.)
‘The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe,
The rising tide comes on apace,
And boats adrift in yonder towne
Go sailing uppe the market place!
He shook as one that looks on death:
‘God save you, mother!’ straight he saith;
‘Where is my wife, Elizabeth?’
‘Good sonne, where Lindis winds away
With her two bairns I marked her long;
Arid ere yon bells beganne to play
Afar I heard her milking song.’
He looked across the grassy lea,
To right, to left, ‘Ho Enderby!’
They rang _The Brides of Enderby_!
With that he cried and beat his breast;
For, lo! along the river’s bed
A mighty eygre reared his crest,
And uppe the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud;
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.
And rearing Lindis backward pressed
Shook all her trembling bankes amaine;
Then madly ay the eygre’s breast
Flung uppe her weltering walls again.
Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout—
Then beaten foam flew round about—
Then all the mighty floods were out.
So farre, so fast the eygre drave,
The heart had hardly time to beat,
Before a shallow seething wave
Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet:
The feet had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.
Upon the roofe we sat that night,
The noise of bells went sweeping by:
I marked the lofty beacon light
Stream from the church tower, red and high—
A lurid mark and dread to see;
And awsome bells they were to mee,
That in the dark rang _Enderby_.
They rang the sailor lads to guide
From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed;
And I—my sonne was at my side,
And yet the ruddy beacon glowed:
And yet he moaned beneath his breath,
‘O come in life, or come in death!
O lost! my love, Elizabeth.’
And didst thou visit him no more?
Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;
The waters laid thee at his doore,
Ere yet the early dawn was clear.
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,
The lifted sun shone on thy face,
Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.
That flow strewed wrecks about the grass,
That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!
To manye more than myne and me:
But each will mourn his own (she saith);
And sweeter woman ne’er drew breath
Than my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth.
I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
‘Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!’ calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
‘Cusha! Cusha!’ all along,
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth;
From the meads where melick groweth,
When the water winding down
Onward floweth to the town.
I shall never see her more
Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
Shiver, quiver;
Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling,
To the sandy lonesome shore;
I shall never hear her calling,
‘Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot;
Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow;
Lightfoot, Whitefoot,
From your clovers lift the head;
Come uppe Jetty, follow, follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed.’
LADY CURRIE (VIOLET FANE)
1843-1905
_146. Forbidden Love_
Oh, love! thou that shelterest some
’Neath thy wings, so white and warm,
Wherefore on a bat-like wing
All disguisèd didst thou come
In so terrible a form?
As a dark forbidden thing,
As a demon of the air—
As a sorrow and a sin,
Wherefore cam’st thou thus to me,
As a tempter and a snare?
When the heart that beats within
This, my bosom, warm’d to thee,
Was it from a love of sinning,
From a fatal love of wrong,
From a wish to shun the light?
Nay! I swear at the beginning
Hadst thou sung an angel’s song,—
Had this wrong thing been the right,
Thou hadst seem’d as worth the winning,
And with will as firm and strong
I had lov’d with all my might.
THE HON. EMILY LAWLESS
1845-1913
_147. Fontenoy (1745)_
After the Battle: early dawn, Clare coast
‘_Mary mother, shield us! Say, what men are ye,_
_Sweeping past so swiftly in this morning sea?_’
‘Without sails or rowlocks merrily we glide
Home to Corca Bascuin on the brimming tide.’
‘_Jesus save you, gentry! why are ye so white,_
_Sitting all so straight and still in this misty light?_’
‘Nothing ails us, brother; joyous souls are we,
Sailing home together, on the morning sea.
‘Cousins, friends, and kinsfolk, children of the land,
Here we come together, a merry, rousing band;
Sailing home together from the last great fight,
Home to Clare from Fontenoy, in the morning light.
‘Men of Corca Bascuin, men of Clare’s Brigade,
Harken, stony hills of Clare, hear the charge we made;
See us come together, singing from the fight,
Home to Corca Bascuin, in the morning light.’
FANNY PARNELL
1854-1882
_148. After Death_
Shall mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country? Shall mine eyes behold
thy glory?
Or shall the darkness close around them ere the sunblaze break at last
upon thy story?
When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle, as a new sweet
sister hail thee,
Shall these lips be seal’d in callous death and silence, that have
known but to bewail thee?
Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises when all men their
tribute bring thee?
Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor when all poets’
mouths shall sing thee?
Ah! the harpings and the salvoes and the shouting of thy exiled sons
returning!
I should hear though dead and mouldered, and the grave-damps should
not chill my bosom’s burning.
Ah! the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them ’mid the shamrocks
and the mosses,
And my heart would toss within the shroud and quiver as a captive
dreamer tosses.
I should turn and rend the cere-clothes round me, giant sinews I
should borrow—
Crying, ‘O my brothers, I have also loved her in her loneliness
and sorrow!
‘Let me join with you the jubilant procession; let me chant with
you her story;
Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks, now mine eyes have
seen her glory!’
MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE
1861-1907
_149. A Moment_
The clouds had made a crimson crown
About the mountains high.
The stormy sun was going down
In a stormy sky.
Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
And hold your breath between?
In all the ages this can never be
As if it had not been.
_150. Gone_
About the little chambers of my heart
Friends have been coming—going—many a year.
The doors stand open there.
Some, lightly stepping, enter; some depart.
Freely they come and freely go, at will.
The walls give back their laughter; all day long
They fill the house with song.
One door alone is shut, one chamber still.
_151. Unwelcome_
We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise,
And the door stood open at our feast,
When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.
O still grew the hearts that were beating so fast,
The loudest voice was still.
The jest died away on our lips as they passed,
And the rays of July struck chill.
The cups of red wine turned pale on the board,
The white bread black as soot,
The hound forgot the hand of her lord,
She fell down at his foot.
Now let me lie where the dead dog lies,
Ere I sit me down again at a feast,
When there passes a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.
AMY LEVY
1861-1889
_152. A London Plane-Tree_
Green is the plane-tree in the square,
The other trees are brown;
They droop and pine for country air,
The plane-tree loves the town.
Here from my garret-pane I mark
The plane-tree bud and blow,
Shed her recuperative bark,
And spread her shade below.
Among her branches, in and out,
The city breezes play;
The dull fog wraps her round about;
Above, the smoke curls grey.
Others the country take for choice,
And hold the town in scorn;
But she has listen’d to the voice
On city breezes borne.
_153. In September_
The sky is silver-grey; the long
Slow waves caress the shore.
On such a day as this I have been glad,
Who shall be glad no more.
_154. In the Nower_
Deep in the grass outstretched I lie,
Motionless on the hill;
Above me is a cloudless sky,
Around me all is still:
There is no breath, no sound, no stir,
The drowsy peace to break;
I close my tired eyes—it were
So simple not to wake.
_155. Cambridge in the Long_
Where drowsy sound of college-chimes
Across the air is blown,
And drowsy fragrance of the limes,
I lie and dream alone.
A dazzling radiance reigns o’er all—
O’er gardens densely green,
O’er old grey bridges and the small,
Slow flood which slides between.
This is the place; it is not strange,
But known of old and dear.
What went I forth to seek? The change
Is mine; why am I here?
Alas, in vain I turned away,
I fled the town in vain;
The strenuous life of yesterday
Calleth me back again.
And was it peace I came to seek?
Yet here, where memories throng,
Ev’n here, I know the past is weak,
I know the present strong.
This drowsy fragrance, silent heat,
Suit not my present mind,
Whose eager thought goes out to meet
The life it left behind.
Spirit with sky to change; such hope,
An idle one we know;
Unship the oars, make loose the rope,
Push off the boat and go....
Ah, would what binds me could have been
Thus loosened at a touch!
This pain of living is too keen,
Of loving, is too much.
_156. New Love, New Life_
I
She, who so long has lain
Stone-stiff with folded wings,
Within my heart again
The brown bird wakes and sings.
Brown nightingale, whose strain
Is heard by day, by night,
She sings of joy and pain,
Of sorrow and delight.
II
’Tis true,—in other days
Have I unbarred the door;
He knows the walks and ways
Love has been here before.
Love blest and love accurst
Was here in days long past;
This time is not the first,
But this time is the last.
_157. London Poets_
They trod the streets and squares where now I tread,
With weary hearts, a little while ago;
When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow
Clung to the leafless branches overhead;
Or when the smoke-veil’d sky grew stormy-red
In Autumn; with a re-arisen woe
Wrestled, what time the passionate spring-winds blow;
And paced scorch’d stones in summer. They are dead.
The sorrow of their souls to them did seem
As real as mine to me, as permanent.
To-day—it is the shadow of a dream,
The half-forgotten breath of breezes spent.
So shall another soothe his woe supreme—
_No more he comes, who this way came and went._
DORA SIGERSON SHORTER
1866-1918
_158. Sixteen Dead Men_
Hark! in the still night. Who goes there?
‘_Fifteen dead men._’ Why do they wait?
‘_Hasten, comrade, death is so fair._’
Now comes their Captain through the dim gate.
Sixteen dead men! What on their sword?
‘_A nation’s honour proud do they bear._’
What on their bent heads? ‘_God’s holy word;_
_All of their nation’s heart blended in prayer._’
Sixteen dead men! What makes their shroud?
‘_All of their nation’s love wraps them around._’
Where do their bodies lie, brave and so proud?
‘_Under the gallows-tree in prison-ground._’
Sixteen dead men! Where do they go?
‘_To join their regiment where Sarsfield leads;_
_Wolfe Tone and Emmet, too, well do they know._
_There shall they bivouac, telling great deeds._’
Sixteen dead men! Shall they return?
‘_Yea, they shall come again, breath of our breath._
_They on our nation’s hearth made old fires burn._
_Guard her unconquered soul, strong in their death._’
_159. Ireland_
’Twas the dream of a God,
And the mould of His hand,
That you shook ’neath this stroke,
That you trembled and broke
To this beautiful land.
Here He loosed from His hold
A brown tumult of wings,
Till the wind on the sea
Bore the strange melody
Of an island that sings.
He made you all fair,
You in purple and gold,
You in silver and green,
Till no eye that has seen
Without love can behold.
I have left you behind
In the path of the past,
With the white breath of flowers,
With the best of God’s hours,
I have left you at last.
ALICE MEYNELL
_160. In Manchester Square (In memoriam T. H.)_
The paralytic man has dropped in death
The crossing-sweeper’s brush to which he clung,
One-handed, twisted, dwarfed, scanted of breath,
Although his hair was young.
I saw this year the winter vines of France,
Dwarfed, twisted, goblins in the frosty drouth,
Gnarled, crippled, blackened little stems askance,
On long hills to the South.
Great green and golden hands of leaves ere long
Shall proffer clusters in that vineyard wide.
And oh! his might, his sweet, his wine, his song,
His stature, since he died!
_161. Christ in the Universe_
With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.
But not a star of all
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.
Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.
No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.
Nor, in our little day,
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.
But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.
O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The countless forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.
_162. Renouncement_
I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—
The thought of thee—and in the blue Heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden tho’ bright;
Yet it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,—
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
_163. A Letter from a Girl to Her own Old Age_
Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses,
O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses
What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses.
O mother, for the weight of years that break thee!
O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee,
And from the changes of my heart must make thee.
O fainting traveller, morn is grey in heaven.
Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven?
And are they calm about the fall of even?
Pause near the ending of thy long migration,
For this one sudden hour of desolation
Appeals to one hour of thy meditation.
Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee
Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee,
Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee.
Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander
Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder
The misty mountains of the morning yonder.
Listen:—the mountain winds with rain were fretting,
And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting.
I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting.
What part of this wild heart of mine I know not
Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not,
And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not.
Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it
Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it,
And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it.
Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide thee.
Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence, hide thee,
This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee,—
Telling thee: all thy memories moved the maiden,
With thy regrets was morning over-shaden,
With sorrow, thou hast left, her life was laden.
But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue thee?
Life changes, and the years and days renew thee.
Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee;
Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses
Upon the evening as the morning tresses,
Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses.
And we, so altered in our shifting phases,
Track one another ’mid the many mazes
By the eternal child-breath of the daisies.
I have not writ this letter of divining
To make a glory of thy silent pining,
A triumph of thy mute and strange declining.
Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded.
Only one morning, and the day was clouded.
And one old age with all regrets is crowded.
Oh hush, oh hush! Thy tears my words are steeping.
Oh hush, hush, hush! So full, the fount of weeping?
Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping?
Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her.
Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter
That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her:
The one who now thy faded features guesses,
With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses,
With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses.
_164. Chimes_
Brief, on a flying night,
From the shaken tower,
A flock of bells take flight,
And go with the hour.
Like birds from the cote to the gales,
Abrupt—O hark!
A fleet of bells set sails,
And go to the dark.
Sudden the cold airs swing.
Alone, aloud,
A verse of bells takes wing
And flies with the cloud.
MARGARET L. WOODS
_165. To the Forgotten Dead_
To the forgotten dead,
Come, let us drink in silence ere we part.
To every fervent yet resolvèd heart
That brought its tameless passion and its tears,
Renunciation and laborious years,
To lay the deep foundations of our race,
To rear its mighty ramparts overhead
And light its pinnacles with golden grace.
To the unhonoured dead.
To the forgotten dead,
What dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein
Of Fate and hurl into the void again
Her thunder-hoofèd horses, rushing blind
Earthward along the courses of the wind.
Among the stars along the wind in vain
Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed,
And nothing, nothing of them doth remain.
To the thrice-perished dead.
_166. Genius Loci_
Peace, Shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on?
Since long ago grace-giving Phoebus died,
And all the train that loved the stream-bright side
Of the poetic mount with him are gone
Beyond the shores of Styx and Acheron,
In unexplorèd realms of night to hide.
The clouds that show their shadows far and wide
Are all of Heaven that visits Helicon.
Yet here, where never muse or god did haunt,
Still may some nameless power of Nature stray,
Pleased with the reedy stream’s continual chant
And purple pomp of these broad fields in May.
The shepherds meet him where he herds the kine,
And careless pass him by whose is the gift divine.
_167. A Ballade of the Night_
Far from the earth the deep-descended day
Lies dim in hidden sanctuaries of sleep.
The wingèd winds couched on the threshold keep
Uneasy watch, and still expectant stay
The voice that bids their rushing host delay
No more to rise, and with tempestuous power
Rend the wide veil of heaven. Long watching they
Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour.
Hark! where the forests slow in slumber sway
Below the blue wild ridges, steep on steep,
Thronging the sky—how shuddering as they leap
The impetuous waters go their fated way,
And mourn in mountain chasms, and as they stray
By many a magic town and marble tower,
As those that still unreconciled obey,
Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour.
Listen—the quiet darkness doth array
The toiling earth, and there is time to weep—
A deeper sound is mingled with the sweep
Of streams and winds that whisper far away.
Oh listen! where the populous cities lay
Low in the lap of sleep their ancient dower,
The changeless spirit of our changeful clay
Sighs in the silence of the midnight hour.
Sigh, watcher for a dawn remote and grey,
Mourn, journeyer to an undesirèd deep,
Eternal sower, thou that shalt not reap,
Immortal, whom the plagues of God devour.
Mourn—’tis the hour when thou wert wont to pray.
Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour.
ROSE TERRY COOKE
_168. Arachne_
I watch her in the corner there,
As, restless, bold, and unafraid,
She slips and floats along the air
Till all her subtile house is made.
Her home, her bed, her daily food,
All from that hidden store she draws;
She fashions it and knows it good,
By instinct’s strong and sacred laws.
No tenuous threads to weave her nest,
She seeks and gathers there or here,
But spins it from her faithful breast,
Renewing still, till leaves are sere.
Then, worn with toil and tired of life,
In vain her shining traps are set.
The frost hath hushed the insect strife
And gilded flies her charm forget.
But swinging in the snares she spins,
She sways to every wintry wind:
Her joy, her toil, her errand done,
Her corse the sport of storms unkind.
Poor sister of the spinster clan,
I too from out my store within
My daily life and living plan,
My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.
I know thy heart when heartless hands
Sweep all that hard-earned web away,
Destroy its pearled and glittering bands,
And leave thee homeless by the way.
I know thy peace when all is done,
Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,
Soft shining in the autumn sun;
A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.
I know what thou hast never known,—
Sad presage to a soul allowed—
That not for life I spin, alone,
But day by day I spin my shroud.
VIOLET JACOB
_169. Tam i’ the Kirk_
O Jean, my Jean, when the bell ca’s the congregation
Owre valley an’ hill wi’ the ding frae its iron mou’,
When a’ body’s thochts is set on his ain salvation,
Mine’s set on you.
There’s a reid rose lies on the Buik o’ the Word afore ye
That was growin’ braw on its bush at the keek o’ day,
But the lad that pu’d yon flower i’ the mornin’s glory,
He canna pray.
He canna pray; but there’s nane i’ the kirk will heed him
Whaur he sits sae still his lane at the side o’ the wa’,
For nane but the reid rose kens what my lassie gie’d him—
It an’ us twa!
He canna sing for the sang that his ain he’rt raises,
He canna see for the mist that’s afore his een,
An’ a voice drouns the hale o’ the psalms an’ the paraphrases,
Cryin’ ‘Jean, Jean, Jean!’
ANNA BUNSTON DE BARY
_170. The Snowdrop_
Close to the sod
There can be seen
A thought of God
In white and green.
Unmarred, unsoiled
It cleft the clay,
Serene, unspoiled
It views the day.
It is so holy
And yet so lowly.
Would you enjoy
Its grace and dower
And not destroy
The living flower?
Then you must, please,
Fall on your knees.
MOIRA O’NEILL
_171. The Rachray Man_
Och, what was it got me at all that time
To promise I’d marry a Rachray man?
An’ now he’ll not listen to rason or rhyme,
He’s striving to hurry me all that he can.
‘Come on, an’ ye _be_ to come on!’ say he,
‘Ye’re bound for the Island to live wi’ me.’
See Rachray Island beyont in the bay,
And the dear knows what they be doin’ out there
But fishin’ and fightin’ and tearin’ away,
An’ who’s to hinder, an’ what do they care?
The goodness can tell what ’ud happen to me
When Rachray ’ud have me, _anee, anee_!
I might have took Pether from over the hill,
A dacent poacher, the kind, poor boy:
Could I keep the ould places about me still
I’d never set foot out of sweet Ballyvoy.
My sorra on Rachray, the could sea-caves,
An’ blackneck divers, an’ weary ould waves!
I’ll never win back now, whatever may fall,
So give me good luck, for ye’ll see me no more;
Sure an Island man is the mischief an’ all—
An’ me that was never married before!
Oh think o’ my fate when ye dance at a fair,
In Rachray, there’s no Christianity there.
_172. The Grand Match_
Dennis was hearty when Dennis was young,
High was his step in the jig that he sprung,
_He_ had the looks an’ the sootherin’ tongue—
An’ he wanted a girl wid a fortune.
Nannie was grey-eyed an’ Nannie was tall,
Fair was the face hid inunder her shawl,
Troth! an’ he liked her the best o’ them all—
But she’d not a _traneen_ to her fortune.
He be to look out for a likelier match,
So he married a girl that was counted a catch,
An’ as ugly as need be, the dark little patch—
But that was a trifle, he told her.
She brought him her good-lookin’ gold to admire,
She brought him her good-lookin’ cows to his byre,
But far from good-lookin’ she sat by his fire—
An’ paid him that ‘thrifle’ he tould her.