If you came from the south you should
Have seen another cottage just
Inside the wood.
And should you go back that way, please
Carry a message to the house
Among the trees.
Say—I will wait her at the rock
Beside the stream, this very night
At eight o'clock.
And ask your queen when you get home
To send my queen the present of
A honey-comb.
James Stephens
FIREFLIES
Fireflies, Fireflies, little glinting creatures,
Making night lovely with a rain of gold,
Born of the moonbeams, children all unearthly,
Ah how you vanish from a look too bold!
Fireflies, Fireflies, lovely as our dreams are,
Sewn with such fancies from the years gone by,
Wayward, elusive, as the playful zephyrs,
Hiding mid grasses, gleaming in the sky.
Fireflies, Fireflies, like unto the silent
Brown nuns who gather for the dead to pray,
As theirs your mission; holy, too, your tapers,
Souls of dead flowers lighting on their way.