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REYNARDINE

 
If by chance you look for me
Perhaps you’ll not me find,
For I’ll be in my castle —
Enquire for Reynardine!
 
 
Sun and dark he courted me —
His eyes were red as wine:
He took me for his leman,
Did my sweet Reynardine.
 
 
Sun and dark the gay horn blows,
The beagles run like wind:
They know not where he harbours,
The fairy Reynardine.
 
 
If by chance you look for me
Perhaps you’ll not me find,
For I’ll be in my castle —
Enquire for Reynardine!
 

SNOW

 
Hills that were dark
At sparing-time last night
Now in the dawn-ring
Glimmer cold and white.
 

I AM THE GILLY OF CHRIST

 
I am the gilly of Christ,
The mate of Mary’s Son;
I run the roads at seeding time,
And when the harvest’s done.
 
 
I sleep among the hills,
The heather is my bed;
I dip the termon-well for drink,
And pull the sloe for bread.
 
 
No eye has ever seen me,
But shepherds hear me pass,
Singing at fall of even
Along the shadowed grass.
 
 
The beetle is my bellman,
The meadow-fire my guide,
The bee and bat my ambling nags
When I have need to ride.
 
 
All know me only the Stranger,
Who sits on the Saxon’s height;
He burned the bacach’s little house
On last Saint Brigid’s Night.
 
 
He sups off silver dishes,
And drinks in a golden horn,
But he will wake a wiser man
Upon the Judgment Morn!
 
 
I am the gilly of Christ,
The mate of Mary’s Son;
I run the roads at seeding time,
And when the harvest’s done.
 
 
The seed I sow is lucky,
The corn I reap is red,
And whoso sings the Gilly’s Rann
Will never cry for bread.
 

GO, PLOUGHMAN, PLOUGH

 
Go, ploughman, plough
The mearing lands,
The meadow lands,
The mountain lands:
All life is bare
Beneath your share,
All love is in your lusty hands.
 
 
Up, horses, now!
And straight and true
Let every broken furrow run:
The strength you sweat
Shall blossom yet
In golden glory to the sun.
 

GO, REAPER

 
Go, reaper,
Speed and reap,
Go take the harvest
Of the plough:
The wheat is standing
Broad and deep,
The barley glumes
Are golden now.
 
 
Labour is hard,
But it endures
Like love:
The land is yours:
Go reap the life
It gives you now,
O sunbrowned master
Of the plough!
 

THE GOOD PEOPLE

 
The millway path looks like a wraith,
The lock is black as ink,
And silently in stream and sky
The stars begin to blink.
 
 
I see them pass along the grass
With slow and solemn tread:
Aoibheall, their queen, is in between —
A corpse is at their head!
 
 
They wander on with faces wan,
And dirges sad as wind.
I know not, but it may be that
The dead’s of human kind.
 

THE STORM IS STILL, THE RAIN HATH CEASED

 
The storm is still, the rain hath ceased
To vex the beauty of the east:
A linnet singeth in the wood
His hermit song of gratitude.
 
 
So shall I sing when life is done
To greet the glory of the sun;
And cloud and star and stream and sea
Shall dance for very ecstasy!
 

SCARE-THE-CROWS

 
Twopence a day for scaring crows —
Tho’ the rain beats and the wind blows!
 
 
The scholars think I’ve little wit,
But, God! I’ve got my share of it.
 
 
Why does the gorbing land-shark
Leave ploughed rigs for the green park?
 
 
Where little’s to find, and nothing’s to eat
But rabbits’ droppings and pheasants’ meat.
 
 
He knows better than come my way
Between the mouth and the tail of day.
 
 
For one lick of my hurding wattle
Would lay him out like a showman’s bottle!
 
 
And the thoughts that rise in my crazed head
When the cloud is low and the wind’s dead.
 
 
Where you see only clay and stones
I see swords and blanching bones..
 
 
But I’ll leave you now – it’s gone six,
And the smoke is curling over the ricks.
 
 
And it’s hardly like that the land-shark
Will trouble the furrows after dark.
 

A CRADLE-SONG

 
Sleep, white love, sleep,
A cedarn cradle holds thee,
And twilight, like a silver-woven coverlid,
Enfolds thee.
Moon and star keep charmèd watch
Upon thy lying;
Water plovers thro’ the dusk
Are tremulously crying.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.
 
 
Sleep, white love, sleep,
The daylight wanes, and deeper
Gathers the blue darkness
O’er the cradle of the sleeper.
Cliodhna’s curachs, carmine-oared,
On Loch-da-linn are gleaming;
Blind bats flutter thro’ the night,
And carrion birds are screaming.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.
 
 
Sleep, white love, sleep,
The holy mothers, Anne and Mary,
Sit high in heaven, dreaming
On the seven ends of Eire.
Brigid sits beside them,
Spinning lamb-white wool on whorls,
Singing fragrant songs of love
To little naked boys and girls.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.
 

TWINE THE MAZES THRO’ AND THRO’

 
Twine the mazes thro’ and thro’
Over beach and margent pale;
Not a bawn appears in view,
Not a sail!
 
 
Round about!
In and out!
Thro’ the stones and sandy bars
To the music of the stars!
The asteroidal fire that dances
Nightly in the northern blue,
The brightest of the boreal lances,
Dances not so light as you,
Cliodhna!
Dances not so light as you.
 

THE FIGHTING-MAN

 
A fighting-man he was,
Guts and soul;
His blood as hot and red
As that on Cain’s hand-towel.
 
 
A copper-skinned six-footer,
Hewn out of the rock.
Who would stand up against
His hammer-knock?
 
 
Not a sinner —
No, and not one dared!
Giants showed clean heels
When his arm was bared.
 
 
I’ve seen him swing an anvil
Fifty feet,
Break a bough in two,
And tear a twisted sheet.
 
 
And the music of his roar —
Like oaks in thunder cleaving;
Lips foaming red froth,
And flanks heaving.
 
 
God! a goodly man,
A Gael, the last
Of those that stood with Dan
On Mullach-Maist!
 

MY MOTHER HAS A WEE RED SHOE

 
My mother has a wee red shoe —
She bought it off a bacach-man;
And all the neighbours say it’s true
He stole it off a Leath-brogan.
Bacach-man, bacach-man,
Where did you get it?
Faith now, says he,
In my leather wallet!
 
 
My father has an arrow-head —
He begged it off poor Peig na Blath;
And Mor, the talking-woman, said
She found it in a fairy rath.
Peig na Blath, Peig na Blath,
Where did you get it?
Faith now, says she,
In my wincey jacket!
 
 
My brother has a copper pot —
He tryst’ it wi’ a shuiler-man;
And gossip says it’s like as not
He truff’d it from a Clobhair-ceann.
Shuiler-man, shuiler-man,
Where did you get it?
Faith now, says he,
In my breeches’ pocket!
 

BY A WONDROUS MYSTERY

 
By a wondrous mystery
Christ of Mary’s fair body
Upon a middle winter’s morn,
Between the tides of night and day,
In Ara’s holy isle was born.
Mary went upon her knee
Travailing in ecstasy,
And Brigid, mistress of the birth,
Full reverently and tenderly
Laid the child upon the earth.
Then the dark-eyed rose did blow,
And rivers leaped from out the snow.
Earth grew lyrical: the grass,
As the light winds chanced to pass —
Than magian music more profound —
Murmured in a maze of sound.
White incense rose upon the hills
As from a thousand thuribles,
And in the east a seven-rayed star
Proclaimed the news to near and far.
The shepherd danced, the gilly ran,
The boatman left his curachan;
The king came riding on the wind
To offer gifts of coin and kind;
The druid dropped his ogham wand,
And said, “Another day’s at hand,
A newer dawn is in the sky:
I put my withered sapling by.
The druid Christ has taken breath
To sing the runes of life and death.”