(_From "The Flower of Old Japan"_)
Carol, every violet has
Heaven for a looking-glass!
Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
Every little cottage stands
Girt about with boundless lands.
Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond--
Shores no seamen ever hailed,
Seas no ship has ever sailed.
All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,
So the story tries to teach
More than can be told in speech.
Beauty is a fading flower,
Truth is but a wizard's tower,
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,
And a forest round it rolls.
We have come by curious ways
To the light that holds the days;
We have sought in haunts of fear
For that all-enfolding sphere:
And lo! it was not far, but near.
We have found, O foolish-fond,
The shore that has no shore beyond.
Deep in every heart it lies
With its untranscended skies;
For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?
Carol, Carol, we have come
Back to heaven, back to home.
_Padraic Colum_
Padraic Colum was born at Longford, Ireland (in the same county as
Oliver Goldsmith), December 8, 1881, and was educated at the local
schools. At 20 he was a member of a group that created the Irish
National Theatre, afterwards called The Abbey Theatre.
Colum began as a dramatist with _Broken Soil_ (1904), _The Land_
(1905), _Thomas Muskerry_ (1910), and this early dramatic influence
has colored much of his work, his best poetry being in the form of
dramatic lyrics. _Wild Earth_, his most notable collection of verse,
first appeared in 1909, and an amplified edition of it was published
in America in 1916.