Crane
I KNOW you, Crane:
I, too, have waited,
Waited until my heart
Melted to little pools around my feet!
Comer in the morning ere the crows,
Shunner,
Searcher
Something find for me!
The pennies that were laid upon the eyes
Of old, wise men I knew.
;;;;
The Little Fox
THAT sidling creature is a little Fox:
Like other canine he is leashed and led;
He goes upon the sidewalk; houses tower;
Men trample; horses rear; he drags his leash.
Did not I
Once know a lad from Irrus where they leave
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poem by Padraic Colum
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An Idyll
You stay for a while beside me with your beauty young and rare,
Though your light limbs are as limber as the foal's that follows the mare;
Brow fair and young and tender where thought has scarce begun,
Hair bright as the breast of the eagle when he strains up to the sun!
In the space of a broken castle I found you on a day
When the call of the new-come cuckoo went with me all the way,
You stood by un-mortised stones that were rough and black with age,
The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther's broken cage!
And we went down together by paths your childhood knew,
Remote you went beside me like the spirit of the dew,
Hard were the hedgerows still, sloe-bloom was their scanty dower,
You slipped it within your bosom, the bloom that scarce is flower!
And now you stay beside me with your beauty young and rare,
Though your light limbs are as limber as the foal's that follows the mare,
Brow fair and young and tender where thought has scarce begun,
Hair bright as the breast of the eagle when he strains up to the sun!
poem by Padraic Colum
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A Drover
To Meath of the pastures,
From wet hills by the sea,
Through Leitrim and Longford
Go my cattle and me.
I hear in the darkness
Their slipping and breathing.
I name them the bye-ways
They’re to pass without heeding.
Then the wet, winding roads,
Brown bogs with black water;
And my thoughts on white ships
And the King o’ Spain’s daughter.
O! farmer, strong farmer!
You can spend at the fair
But your face you must turn
To your crops and your care.
And soldiers—red soldiers!
You’ve seen many lands;
But you walk two by two,
And by captain’s commands.
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Crows
THEN, suddenly, I was aware indeed
Of what he said, and was revolving it:
How, in the night, crows often take to wing,
Rising from off the tree-tops in Drumbarr,
And flying on: I pictured what he told.
The crows that shake the night-damp off their wings
Upon the stones out yonder in the fields,
The first live things that we see in the mornings;
The crows that march across the fields, that sit
Upon the ash-trees' branches, that fly home
And crowd the elm-tops over in Drumbarr;
The crows we look on at all hours of light,
Growing, and full, and going these black beings have
Another lifetime!
Crows flying in the dark
Blackness in darkness flying; beings unseen
Except by eyes that are like to their own
Trespassers' eyes!
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The Poet
'THE blackbird's in the briar,
The seagull's on the ground-
They are nests, and they're more than nests,' he said,
'They are tokens I have found.
There, where the rain-dashed briar
Marks an empty glade,
The blackbird's nest is seen,' he said,
'Clay-rimmed, uncunningly made.
By shore of the inland lake,
Where surgeless water shoves,
The seagulls have their nests,' he said,
'As low as catties' hooves.'
I heard a poet say it,
The sojourner of a night;
His head was up to the rafter,
Where he stood in candles' light.
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A Saint
THE stir of children with fresh dresses on,
And men who meet and say unguarded words,
And women from the coops
Of drudgeries released;
And standing at their doors to watch go by
Small pomps with pennons and with first spring-flowers,
And, lifted over them,
Your name that sanctifies.
But you, when you came here, it was to front
Hard-handed men, and trouble them for dues
To stay the fatherless
Portion of what they ploughed.
To claim resource from them whose own resource
Was pittance this you came here to do,
And give for what you gained
Your season of bright youth:
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The Rune-Master
ARCH-SCHOLAR they'll call you,
Kuno Mayer,
Who know the word
Behind the word
The men of learning . . .
But who will tell them
Of the blackbird
That your heart held?
On an old thorn-tree
By an ancient rath
You heard him sing,
And with runes you charmed him
Till he stayed with you,
Giving clear song.
He sang o'er all
That Maravaun
Told King Guire;
And he told you how
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An Old Song Re-sung
As I went down through Dublin city
At the hour of twelve of the night,
Who did I see but a Spanish lady
Washing her feet by candle light.
First she washed them,
Then she dried them,
All by a fire of amber coals,
In all my life I never did see
A maid so neat about the soles.
I asked her would she come a-walking,
And we went on where the small bats flew,
A coach I called then to instate her,
And on we went till the grey cocks crew.
Combs of amber
In her hair were,
And her eyes had every spell,
In all my life I never did see
A maid whom I could love so well.
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The Plougher
Sunset and silence! A man: around him earth savage, earth broken;
Beside him two horses -- a plough!
Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn man there in the sunset,
And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that is founder of cities!
"Brute-tamer, plough-maker, earth-breaker! Can'st hear? There are ages
between us.
Is it praying you are as you stand there alone in the sunset?
"Surely our sky-born gods can be naught to you, earth child and earth
master?
Surely your thoughts are of Pan, or of Wotan, or Dana?
"Yet why give thoughts to the gods? Has Pan led your brutes where they
stumble?
Has Dana numbed pain of the child-bed, or Wotan put hands to your plough?
"What matter your foolish reply! O man, standing lone and bowed earthward,
Your task is a day near its close. Give thanks to the night-given God."
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Slowly the darkness falls, the broken lands blend with the savage;
The brute-tamer stands by the brutes, a head's breadth only above them.
A head's breadth? Ay, but therein is hell's depth, and the height up to
heaven,
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Queen Gormlai
NOT fingers that e'er felt
Fine things within their hold
Drew needles in and through,
And smoothed out the fold,
And put the hodden patch
Upon the patch of grey
Unseemly is the garb
That's for my back to-day!
O skinflint woman, Mor,
Who knows that I speak true
I had women once,
A queen's retinue;
And they were ones who knew
The raiment of a queen;
Their thoughts were on my tire,
Their minds were on my mien!
Light of hand and apt,
And companionable,
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