, and on the ageless breath
Of cosmic whirlwinds spun,
I hurtle through the outer dark
Toward some fantastic sun!--
O God! how happy is the leaf,
A sweet and soulless thing,
Dying to live but in the green
Of yet another Spring--
These heights, these depths, these flaming worlds,
This stairway of the sky
I'd give, had no Voice said "Live on!"
When Death said, "You may die."
Tir Nan Og
THE breeze blows out from the land and it seeks the sea,
O and O! that my sail were set and away--
Fast and free on its wings would my sailing be
To the west: to the Tir Nan Og, where the blessed stay!
The darkness stirs, it awakes, it outspreads its arms,
O and O! and the birds in their nests are still,
The red-browed hill bleats low with the lamb's alarms,
And a sound of singing comes from the slipping rill.
My soul is awake alone, all alone in the earth,
O and O! and around is the lonely night.
As with the sun, would my soul go forth to its birth--
O'er the darkling sea, to the west--to the light, to the light!
Do they say, "Be content with the land of the Innis Fail,
O and O! there is friendship here, there is song."
But they smile to your face, when you turn they stammer and rail
And the song of the singer has tears and is over long!
A call comes out of the west and it calls a name,
O and O! it is soft, it is far, it is low--
Sweet, so sweet that it touches my soul with a flame
That burns the heart from my breast with the wish to go!
(Translated from the Celtic.)
The Little Man in Green
'TWAS a little man in green,
And he sat upon a stone;
And he sat there all alone,
Whispering.
"One and two," so whispered he.
('Twas an ancient man and hoar)
"One and two," and then no more--
Never, "Three".
Hawthorn trees were quick with May--
"Sir," said I, "Good-day to you"!
But he counted. "One and two"
In strange way.
Fool I was--oh, fool was I
(Who should know the ways of them!)
That I touched his cloak's green hem,
Passing by.
I was fey with spring and mirth--
Speaking him without a thought--
Now is joy a thing forgot
On the earth.
Ere the sweet thorn-buds were through,
Wife and child doom-stricken lay,
Cold as winter, white as spray--
"One and two!"
Now I seek eternally
That grim Counter of the fen,
Praying he may count again--
Counting, "Three".
* In the bad chance of a meeting with the "Little People" the
mor
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