The Nuts of Knowledge: Lyrical Poems Old and New

The Manager of the Dun Emer Press has to thank Mr. John Lane for permission to reprint ten poems from Homeward Songs By The Way, and ten from The Earth Breath.
FOR BRIAN WHEN HE IS GROWN UP THIS HANDFUL OF THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE I HAVE GATHERED ON THE SECRET STREAMS .

I thought, beloved, to have brought to you A gift of quietness and ease and peace, Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew Dropping from twilight trees.
Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows; Not mine the voice to still with peace divine: From the first fount the stream of quiet flows Through other hearts than mine.
Yet of my night I give to you the stars, And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains, And out of hell, beyond its iron bars, My scorn of all its pains.

A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free, Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.
And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air, I think the sacred Hazel Tree is dropping berries there From starry fruitage waved aloft where Connla's Well o'erflows; For sure the enchanted waters pour through every wind that blows.
I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew How every high and lonely thought that thrills my being through Is but a ruddy berry dropped down through the purple air, And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.

We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire; For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire, As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.