| |
| HE 1 stood among a crowd at Drumahair; | |
| His heart hung all upon a silken dress, | |
| And he had known at last some tenderness, | |
| Before earth made of him her sleepy care; | |
| But when a man poured fish into a pile, | 5 |
| It seemed they raised their little silver heads, | |
| And sang how day a Druid twilight sheds | |
| Upon a dim, green, well-beloved isle, | |
| Where people love beside star-laden seas; | |
| How Time may never mar their faery vows | 10 |
| Under the woven roofs of quicken boughs: | |
| The singing shook him out of his new ease. | |
| |
| As he went by the sands of Lisadill, | |
| His mind ran all on money cares and fears, | |
| And he had known at last some prudent years | 15 |
| Before they heaped his grave under the hill; | |
| But while he passed before a plashy place, | |
| A lug-worm with its gray and muddy mouth | |
| Sang how somewhere to north or west or south | |
| There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race; | 20 |
| And how beneath those three-times blessed skies | |
| A Danaan fruitage makes a shower of moons, | |
| And as it falls awakens leafy tunes: | |
| And at that singing he was no more wise. | |
| |
| He mused beside the well of Scanavin, | 25 |
| He mused upon his mockers: without fail | |
| His sudden vengeance were a country tale, | |
| Now that deep earth has drunk his body in; | |
| But one small knot-grass growing by the pool | |
| Told where, ah, little, all-unneeded voice! | 30 |
| Old Silence bids a lonely folk rejoice, | |
| And chaplet their calm brows with leafage cool; | |
| And how, when fades the sea-strewn rose of day, | |
| A gentle feeling wraps them like a fleece, | |
| And all their trouble dies into its peace; | 35 |
| The tale drove his fine angry mood away. | |
| |
| He slept under the hill of Lugnagall; | |
| And might have known at last unhaunted sleep | |
| Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep, | |
| Now that old earth had taken man and all: | 40 |
| Were not the worms that spired about his bones | |
| A-telling with their low and reedy cry, | |
| Of how God leans His hands out of the sky, | |
| To bless that isle with honey in His tones; | |
| That none may feel the power of squall and wave, | 45 |
| And no one any leaf-crowned dancer miss | |
| Until He burn up Nature with a kiss: | |
| The man has found no comfort in the grave. | |
