Little lad of the tricks,
Full well I know
That you have been in mischief:
Confess your fault truly.
I forgive you, child
Of the soft red mouth:
I will not condemn anyone
For a sin not understood.
Raise your comely head
Till I kiss your mouth:
If either of us is the better of that
I am the better of it.
There is a fragrance in your kiss
That I have not found yet
In the kisses of women
Or in the honey of their bodies.
Lad of the grey eyes,
That flush in thy cheek
Would be white with dread of me
Could you read my secrets.
He who has my secrets
Is not fit to touch you:
Is not that a pitiful thing,
Little lad of the tricks?
A Woman of the Mountain keens her Son
Grief on the death, it has blackened my heart:
lt has snatched my love and left me desolate,
Without friend or companion under the roof of my house
But this sorrow in the midst of me, and I keening.
As I walked the mountain in the evening
The birds spoke to me sorrowfully,
The sweet snipe spoke and the voiceful curlew
Relating to me that my darling was dead.
I called to you and your voice I heard not,
I called again and I got no answer,
I kissed your mouth, and O God how cold it was!
Ah, cold is your bed in the, lonely churchyard.
O green-sodded grave in which my child is,
Little narrow grave, since you are his bed,
My blessing on you, and thousands of blessings
On the green sods that are over my treasure.
Grief on the death, it cannot be denied,
It lays low, green and withered together,---
And O gentle little son, what tortures me is
That your fair body should be making clay!
I have not garnered gold
I have not garnered gold;
The fame I found hath perished;
In love I got but grief
That withered my life.
Of riches or of store
I shall not leave behind me
(Yet I deem it, O God, sufficient)
But my name in the heart of a child.
The Rann of the Little Playmate
Young Iosa plays with me every day,
(With an óró and an iaró)
Tig and Pookeen and Hide-in-the-Hay,
(With an óró and an iaró)
We race in the rivers with otters grey,
We climb the tall trees where red squirrels play,
We watch the wee lady-bird fly far away.
(With an óró and an iaró and an úmbó éró)
On the Strand of Howth
On the strand of Howth
Breaks a sounding wave;
A lone sea-gull screams
Above the bay.
In the middle of the meadow
Beside Glasnevin
The corncrake speaks
All night long.
There is minstrelsy of birds
In Glenasmole,
The blackbird and thrush
Chanting music.
There is shining of sun
On the side of Slieverua,
And the wind blowing
Down over its brow.
On the harbour of Dunleary,
Are boat and ship
With sails set
Ploughing the waves.
Here in Ireland,
Am I, my brother.
And you far from me
In gallant Paris.
I beholding
Hill and harbour,
The strand of Howth
And Slieverua's side,
And you victorious
In mighty Paris
Of the limewhite palaces
And the surging hosts;
And what I ask
Of you, beloved,
Far away
Is to think at times
Of the corncrake's tune
Beside Glasnevin
In the middle of the meadow,
Speaking in the night;
Of the voice of the birds
In Glenasmole
Happily, with melody,
Chanting music,
Of the strand of Howth
Where a wave breaks,
And the harbour of Dunleary,
Where a ship rocks;
On the sun that shines
On the side of Slieverua,
And the wind that blows
Down over its brow.
The Fool
Since the wise men have not spoken, I speak that am only a fool;
A fool that hath loved his folly,
Yea, more than the wise men their books or their counting houses or their quiet homes,
Or their fame in men's mouths;
A fool that in all his days hath done never a prudent thing,
Never hath counted the cost, nor recked if another reaped
The fruit of his mighty sowing, content to scatter the seed;
A fool that is unrepentant, and that soon at the end of all
Shall laugh in his lonely heart as the ripe ears fall to the reaping-hooks
And the poor are filled that were empty,
Tho' he go hungry.
I have squandered the splendid years that the Lord God gave to my youth
In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil.
Was it folly or grace? Not men shall judge me, but God.
I have squandered the splendid years:
Lord, if I had the years I would squander them over again,
Aye, fling them from me!
For this I have heard in my heart, that a man shall scatter, not hoard,
Shall do the deed of to-day, nor take thought of to-morrow's teen,
Shall not bargain or huxter with God; or was it a jest of Christ's
And is this my sin before men, to have taken Him at His word?
The lawyers have sat in council, the men with the keen, long faces,
And said, `This man is a fool,' and others have said, `He blasphemeth;'
And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life
In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things,
To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.
O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?
What if the dream come true? and if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?
Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin
On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures,
But remember this my faith
And so I speak.
Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say:
Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save;
Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all;
Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word.
And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter,
O people that I have loved, shall we not answer together?
The Wayfarer
The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.
(A sparrow which I found dead on my doorstep a day of winter.)
O little bird!
Cold to me thy lying on the flag:
Bird, that never had an evil thought,
Pitiful the coming of death to thee!
O Lovely Head
O lovely head of the woman that I loved,
In the middle of the night I remember thee;
But reality returns with the sun's whitening,
Alas, that the slender worm gnaws thee to-night.
Beloved voice, that wast low and beautiful,
Is it true that I heard thee in my slumbers!
Or is the knowledge true that tortures me?
My grief, the tomb hath no sound or voice?