I
“When is he coming? We have watched since morning,
We weary of this waiting; night grows late,
The winds are very bleak, the skies untender,
Our faith grows chill; of what avail to wait?
Long have we hoped, long sought, and long attended,
Caught at false shadows which misled our love.
Say, is he coming? He our souls’ desire,
Sworn to conduct us to the heights above?”
“How can I tell you? Do I not wait likewise?
Have I not also watched the dull hours glide;
Have I not wearied of this stagnant shore-line
Washed by one dark and never-varying tide?
Are not my seed-plots, like your own, untended;
With dock and ragweed filled from side to side,
With bristling chardocks, thistles, nettles, burdocks,
Lost in their tense and tangled maze I bide.
“This much I know. In all this dreary prospect
There is no spot so barren, bald, or dun,
No weedy grassland, no neglected hillside,
Unused by man, unfostered by the sun,
No, not one puny, mud-banked, stagnant streamlet
O’er which at dusk the meanest insects hum,
But will shine out a very star in splendour
When he at last, the long-desired, shall come.
“Do you then purpose to abide his coming
On this bleak ridgeway, watching from afar,
Wearing your soul out in a fruitless longing,
like one who waits to espy some unborn star?
No, for I weary, and to sleep is pleasant,
I shall await him on the shadowy strand,
No need to warn me! I shall feel him coming,
Thrilling the deep heart of this buried land.”
II
THE GAMBLERS
In our reckless early days,
In the glad and mad spring weather,
We gambled, he and I,
And laid our stakes together.
I have nothing now to lose,
Of what once belonged to me,
Save the grass above my graves,
And my graves beside the sea.
In those light and frolic days
I met all loss with scorn,
For my purse was full of hope,
And the world shone bright at morn.
I have nothing now to lose,
Of what once belonged to me,
Save the grass above my graves,
And my graves beside the sea.
I have thrown my latest stake,
No niggard was I born,
He has swept his winnings in,
And repays me with his scorn!
I have nothing, nothing left,
Of what once belonged to me,
Save the grass above my graves,
And my graves beside the sea.
III
A FAMINE CRY
Oh skeleton with the hungry jaw,
Corpse-snatcher, armed with tooth and claw,
Not satiate yet? Thy lustful maw?
Eiré, to you our love we gave,
Our mother-mistress, now our grave,
Be pitiful for once, and save!
My heart hath grown a very clod,
Stone-bound, unfruitful as this sod;
I ask and ask—“Is there a God?”
Eiré, to you our love we gave
Our mother-mistress, now our grave,
Be pitiful for once and save!
IV
GONE!
He wanted a trifle of freedom,
A trifle of breathing space,
Room for a man to stand in,
Room for a living race.
Pent and stifled, and thwarted,
Prisoned from sea to sea,
God to him has been gracious—
Burst are his bonds, he is free!
Now may you read his story
On the face upturned to the sky;
“A young man sick of living,
And a strong man glad to die!”
V
WISHES
I would I were you, you scaly fish, swim-swimming in the sea,
Or a fox upon the hillside there, a hunter bold and free,
Anything but the man I am, crying, dear God, to thee!
I would I were you, you black sea-weed, toss-tossing on the sea,
Or you, or you, grey lumps of stone, which feel no misery—
I pray you make me as these, dear God, since better may not be!
VI
TO A WOMAN SPINNING
How poor thou art, and yet thou art not poor.
Oh peaceful spinner!
Ragged and barefoot, sitting at thy door,
Thou art the winner!
Thine eyes are placid, as to-day the sea,
Thrice happy spinner!
Content on her best cates hath nourished thee,
A royal dinner!
At bed and board she serves thee on her knee,
Oh queenly spinner!
Would that such service she would lend to me,
Heart-broken sinner!
VII
SPAIN
Your sky is a hard and a dazzling blue,
Your earth and sands are a dazzling gold,
And gold or blue is the proper hue,
You say for a swordsman bold.
In the land I have left the skies are cold,
The earth is green, the rocks are bare,
Yet the devil may hold all your blue and your gold
Were I only once back there!
VIII
SPAIN: A DRINKING SONG
Many are praised, and some are fair,
But the fairest of all is She,
And he who misdoubts let him have a care,
For her liegemen sworn are we!
Then Ho! for the land that is green and grey,
The land of all lands the best,
For the South is bright and the East is gay,
But the sun shines last in the West,
The West!
The sun shines last in the West!
A queen is she, though a queen forlorn,
A queen of tears from her birth.
Ragged and hungry, woeful and worn,
Yet the fairest Fair on the earth.
Then here’s to the land that is green and grey,
The land of all lands the best!
For the South is bright, and the East is gay,
But the sun shines last in the West,
The West!
The sun shines last in the West!