A Northern Love Song.
SEOSAMH MACCATHMHAOIL
Brighidín Bhán of the lint-white locks,
What was it gave you that flaxen hair,
Long as the summer heath in the rocks?
What was it gave you those eyes of fire,
Lip so waxen and cheek so wan?
Tell me, tell me, Brighidín Bhán,
Little white bride of my heart’s desire.
Was it the Good People stole you away,
Little white changeling, Brighidín Bhán?
Carried you off in the ring of the dawn,
Laid like a queen on her purple car,
Carried you back between night and day;
Gave you that fortune of flaxen hair,
Gave you those eyes of wandering fire,
Lit at the wheel of the northern star?
Gave you that look so far away?
Tell me, tell me, Brighidín Bhán,
Little white bride of my heart’s desire.
Fairy Workers.
(“Songs of Donegal.” Herbert Jenkins.)
PATRICK MACGILL
Said the Fairies of Kilfinnan
To the Fairies of Macroom:
“Oh! send to us a shuttle
For our little fairy loom.
Our workers, one and twenty,
Are waiting in the Coom——”
So Kilfinnan got a shuttle
From the Fairies of Macroom.
Kilfinnan got the shuttle,
The shuttle for the loom.
“Now, send us back a hammer,”
Said the Fairies of Macroom.
“We’ve cobblers, one and twenty,
All idle in their room.”
And Kilfinnan sent a hammer
To the Fairies of Macroom.
The Queen of all the Fairies
Sat in her drawing-room:
Her robes came from Kilfinnan,
Her brogues came from Macroom.
Now, at the Royal Dinner
The proudest in the room
Were the Fairies from Kilfinnan
And the Fairies from Macroom.
The Shadow People.
(“Complete Poems.” Published by Herbert Jenkins.)
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE
Old lame Bridget doesn’t hear
Fairy music in the grass
When the gloaming’s on the mere
And the shadow people pass:
Never hears their slow grey feet
Coming from the village street
Just beyond the parson’s wall,
Where the clover globes are sweet
And the mushroom’s parasol
Opens in the moonlit rain.
Every night I hear them call
From their long and merry train.
Old lame Bridget says to me,
“It is just your fancy, child.”
She cannot believe I see
Laughing faces in the wild,
Hands that twinkle in the sedge
Bowing at the water’s edge
Where the finny minnows quiver,
Shaping on a blue wave’s ledge
Bubble foam to sail the river.
And the sunny hands to me
Beckon ever, beckon ever.
Oh! I would be wild and free,
And with the shadow people be.
My Mother.
(“Complete Poems.” Published by Herbert Jenkins.)
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE
God made my mother on an April day,
From sorrow and the mist along the sea,
Lost birds’ and wanderers’ songs and ocean spray,
And the moon loved her wandering jealously.
Beside the ocean’s din she combed her hair,
Singing the nocturne of the passing ships,
Before her earthly lover found her there
And kissed away the music from her lips.
She came unto the hills and saw the change
That brings the swallow and the geese in turns.
But there was not a grief she deeméd strange,
For there is that in her which always mourns.
Kind heart she has for all on hill or wave
Whose hopes grew wings like ants to fly away.
I bless the God Who such a mother gave
This poor bird-hearted singer of a day.
Lyric from “The Crier by Night.”
(“King Lear’s Wife and other Plays.” Published by Constable.)
GORDON BOTTOMLEY
The bird in my heart’s a-calling through a far-fled, tear-grey sea
To the soft slow hills that cherish dim waters weary for me,
Where the folk of rath and dun trail homeward silently
In the mist of the early night-fall that drips from their hair like rain.
The bird in my heart’s a-flutter, for the bitter wind of the sea
Shivers with thyme and woodbine as my body with memory;
I feel their perfumes ooze in my ears like melody—
The scent of the mead at the harping I shall not hear again.
The bird in my heart’s a-sinking to a hushed vale hid in the sea,
Where the moonlit dew o’er dead fighters is stirred by the feet of the Shee,
Who are lovely and old as the earth but younger than I an be
Who have known the forgetting of dying to a life one lonely pain.
The Quest.
(Dublin University Press.)
They said: “She dwelleth in some place apart,
Immortal Truth, within whose eyes
Who looks may find the secret of the skies
And healing for life’s smart.”
I sought Her in loud caverns underground—
On heights where lightnings flashed and fell;
I scaled high Heaven; I stormed the gates of Hell,
But Her I never found.
Till thro’ the tumults of my Quest I caught
A whisper: “Here, within thy heart,
I dwell; for I am thou: behold thou art
The Seeker—and the Sought.”