Front matter (continued 2)

Song and silence ever be All the grace, life bring to me: Song well winged with sunrise fire; Silence holy and entire: Silence of a marble sea, Song of an immortal lyre.

Take my thanks, who profferest Wistful song and musical: Melodies memorial, Melancholy, augural: Meaning, that Old World is best: Ours, a witless palimpsest.

Not cool glades of Fontainebleau Hold the secret; not French plains, Crowned with monumental fanes; Not the Flemish waters' flow: Light the fair days come, light go: But the mystery remains.

Here, beneath the carven spires, We have dreams, revolts, desires: Here each ancient, haunted Hall Holds its Brocken carnival; Where Philosophy attires All her forms, to suit us all.

In a ring her witches crowd: Faces passionate and proud, Luring eyes and voices loud: Death ends life: And life is death: Man is dust: The soul a breath: Who knows aught? Each fair Lie saith.

Master of the revel rout, Flaunts him Mephistopheles: Leading up, to where he sees Faith, alone and ill at ease, Many a winning, light-foot Doubt: Knows each other: dance it out!

Ah, the whirling, bacchant dance! Then no more Faith's crystal glance Pierces the benighted skies: Then, for her inheritance, Hath she but each dream, that lies Dying in her wildered eyes.

Breaking hearts! For you the lark Cries at morn: for you the deep Silence deepens in the dark, When invisible angels mark Your tired eyes, that burn and weep, Hardly wearied into sleep.

Fearful hearts! For you all song Sighs, and laughs, and soars: for you Low-preluding winds prolong Meditative music through Twilight: till for you there throng Calm stars, unprofaned and true.

Song and silence ever be All the grace, life bring to me: Song of Mary, mighty Mother; Song of whom she bare, my Brother: Silence of an ecstasy, When I find Him, and none other.

Song thou sendest, singing fair: But what music past compare That must be when, gathered home, Poor strayed children kneel in prayer: Confessors of Christendom Unto thee, O royal Rome!

Silence all is mine alone Now, before the altar throne Darkling, waiting, happier thus, Till the night watches be gone. Holy Aloysius! Holy Mother! pray for us.

Sadly the dead leaves rustle in the whistling wind, Around the weather-worn, gray church, low down the vale: The Saints in golden vesture shake before the gale; The glorious windows shake, where still they dwell enshrined; Old Saints, by long dead, shrivelled hands, long since designed: There still, although the world autumnal be, and pale, Still in their golden vesture the old saints prevail; Alone with Christ, desolate else, left by mankind.

Only one ancient Priest offers the Sacrifice, Murmuring holy Latin immemorial: Swaying with tremulous hands the old censer full of spice, In gray, sweet incense clouds; blue, sweet clouds mystical: To him, in place of men, for he is old, suffice Melancholy remembrances and vesperal.

Imageries of dreams reveal a gracious age: Black armour, falling lace, and altar lights at morn. The courtesy of Saints, their gentleness and scorn, Lights on an earth more fair, than shone from Plato's page: The courtesy of knights, fair calm and sacred rage: The courtesy of love, sorrow for love's sake borne. Vanished, those high conceits! Desolate and forlorn, We hunger against hope for that lost heritage.

Gone now, the carven work! Ruined, the golden shrine! No more the glorious organs pour their voice divine; No more rich frankincense drifts through the Holy Place: Now from the broken tower, what solemn bell still tolls, Mourning what piteous death? Answer, O saddened souls! Who mourn the death of beauty and the death of grace.

About the august and ancient Square, Cries the wild wind; and through the air, The blue night air, blows keen and chill: Else, all the night sleeps, all is still. Now, the lone Square is blind with gloom: Now, on that clustering chestnut bloom, A cloudy moonlight plays, and falls In glory upon Bodley's walls: Now, wildlier yet, while moonlight pales, Storm the tumultuary gales. O rare divinity of Night! Season of undisturbed delight: Glad interspace of day and day! Without, an world of winds at play: Within, I hear what dead friends say. Blow, winds! and round that perfect Dome, Wail as you will, and sweep, and roam: Above Saint Mary's carven home, Struggle, and smite to your desire The sainted watchers on her spire: Or in the distance vex your power Upon mine own New College tower: You hurt not these! On me and mine, Clear candlelights in quiet shine: My fire lives yet! nor have I done With Smollett, nor with Richardson: With, gentlest of the martyrs! Lamb, Whose lover I, long lover, am: With Gray, whose gracious spirit knew The sorrows of art's lonely few: With Fielding, great, and strong, and tall; Sterne, exquisite, equivocal; Goldsmith, the dearest of them all: While Addison's demure delights Turn Oxford, into Attic, nights. Still Trim and Parson Adams keep Me better company, than sleep: Dark sleep, who loves not me; nor I Love well her nightly death to die, And in her haunted chapels lie. Sleep wins me not: but from his shelf Brings me each wit his very self: Beside my chair the great ghosts throng, Each tells his story, sings his song: And in the ruddy fire I trace The curves of each Augustan face. I sit at Doctor Primrose' board: I hear Beau Tibbs discuss a lord. Mine, Matthew Bramble's pleasant wrath; Mine, all the humours of the Bath. Sir Roger and the Man in Black Bring me the Golden Ages back. Now white Clarissa meets her fate, With virgin will inviolate: Now Lovelace wins me with a smile, Lovelace, adorable and vile. I taste, in slow alternate way, Letters of Lamb, letters of Gray: Nor lives there, beneath Oxford towers, More joy, than in my silent hours. Dream, who love dreams! forget all grief: Find, in sleep's nothingness, relief: Better my dreams! Dear, human books, With kindly voices, winning looks! Enchaunt me with your spells of art, And draw me homeward to your heart: Till weariness and things unkind Seem but a vain and passing wind: Till the gray morning slowly creep Upward, and rouse the birds from sleep: Till Oxford bells the silence break, And find me happier, for your sake. Then, with the dawn of common day, Rest you! But I, upon my way, What the fates bring, will cheerlier do, In days not yours, through thoughts of you!

Exiled in America From thine old Castilia, Son of holy Avila! Leave thine endless tangled lore, As in childhood to implore Her, whose pleading evermore Pleads for her own Avila.

Seraph Saint, Teresa burns Before God, and burning turns To the Furnace, whence she learns How the Sun of Love is lit: She the Sunflower following it. O fair ardour infinite: Fire, for which the cold soul yearns!

Clad in everlasting fire, Flame of one long, lone desire, Surely thou too shalt aspire Up by Carmel's bitter road: Love thy goal and love thy goad, Love thy lightness and thy load, Love thy rose and love thy briar.

Leave the false light, leave the vain: Lose thyself in Night again, Night divine of perfect pain. Lose thyself, and find thy God, Through a prostrate period: Bruise thee with an iron rod; Suffer, till thyself be slain.

Fly thou from the dazzling day, For it lights the downward way: In the sacred Darkness pray, Till prayer cease, or seem to thee Agony of ecstasy: Dead to all men, dear to me, Live as saints, and die as they.

Stones and thorns shall tear and sting, Each stern step its passion bring, On the Way of Perfecting, On the Fourfold Way of Prayer: Heed not, though joy fill the air; Heed not, though it breathe despair: In the City thou shalt sing.

Without hope and without fear, Keep thyself from thyself clear: In the secret seventh sphere Of thy soul's hid Castle, thou At the King's white throne shalt bow: Light of Light shall kiss thy brow, And all darkness disappear.

The spear rent Christ, when dead for me He lay: My sin rends Christ, though never one save He Perfectly loves me, comforts me. Then pray, Longinus Saint! the Crucified, for me.

Hard is the holy-war, and hard the way: At rest with ancient victors would I be. O faith's first glory from our England! pray, Saint Alban! to the Lord of Hosts, for me.

Fain would I watch with thee, till morning gray, Beneath the stars austere: so might I see Sunrise, and light, and joy, at last. Then pray, John Baptist Saint! unto the Christ, for me.

Remembering God's coronation day; Thorns, for His crown; His throne, a Cross: to thee Heaven's kingdom dearer was than earth's. Then pray Saint Louis! to the King of kings, for me.

Thy love loved all things: thy love knew no stay, But drew the very wild beasts round thy knee. O lover of the least and lowest! pray, Saint Francis! to the Son of Man, for me.

Bishop of souls in servitude astray, Who didst for holy service set them free: Use still thy discipline of love, and pray, Saint Charles! unto the world's High Priest, for me.

Upon the moorland winds blown forth, Your mighty music storms our heart: Immortal sisters of the North! Daughters of nature: Queens of art.

Becomingly you bore that name, Your Celtic name, that sounds of Greece: Children of thunder and of flame; Passion, that clears the air for peace.

Stoic, thy chosen title: thou, Whose soul conversed with vehement nights, Till love, with lightnings on his brow, Met anguish, upon Wuthering Heights.

Thou, Stoic! Though the heart in thee Never knew fear, yet always pain: Not Stoic, thou! whose eyes could see Passion's immeasurable gain:

Not standing from the war apart, Not cancelling the lust of life; But loving with triumphant heart The impassioned glory of the strife.

Oh, welcome death! But first, to know The trials and the agonies: Oh, perfect rest! But ere life go, To leave eternal memories.

Then down the lone moors let each wind Cry round the silent house of sleep: And there let breaths of heather find Entrance, and there the fresh rains weep.

Rest! rest! The storm hath surged away: The calm, the hush, the dews descend. Rest now, ah, rest thee! night and day: The circling moorlands guard their friend.

Thou too, before whose steadfast eyes Thy conquering sister greatly died: By grace of art, that never dies. She lives: thou also dost abide.

For men and women, safe from death, Creatures of thine, our perfect friends: Filled with imperishable breath, Give thee back life, that never ends.

Oh! hearts may break, and hearts forget, Life grow a gloomy tale to tell: Still through the streets of bright Villette, Still flashes Paul Emanuel!

Still, when your Shirley laughs and sings, Suns break the clouds to welcome her: Still winds, with music on their wings, Drive the wild soul of Rochester.

Children of fire! The Muses filled Hellas, with shrines of gleaming stone: Your wasted hands had strength to build Gray sanctuaries, hard-hewn, wind-blown.

Over their heights, all blaunched in storm, What purple fields of tempest hang! In splendour stands their mountain form, That from the sombre quarry sprang.

Now the high gates lift up their head: Now stormier music, than the blast, Swells over the immortal dead: Silent and sleeping, free at last.

But from the tempest, and the gloom, The stars, the fires of God, steal forth: Dews fall upon your heather bloom, O royal sisters of the North!

Winter is at the door, Winter! Winter! Winter is at the door: For all along the worn oak floor Waver the carpets; and before The once warm southern orchard wall, The last October peaches fall; In vain behind their fellows all Belated.

Winter is come apace, Winter! Winter! Winter is come apace. The fireside is the cheeriest place, To wear unfeigned a merry face: While music tells, though now 'tis chill, How merle, and maid, and mavis, will, When spring comes dancing down the hill, Be mated.

In purple heather is my sleep On Moel Fammau: far below, The springing rivulets leap, The firs wave to and fro.

This morn, the sun on Bala Lake Broke out behind me: morrow morn Near Rhual I shall wake, Before the sun is born;

High burning over Clywyd Vale, And reddening the mountain dew: While the moon lingers frail, High up in skies of blue.

Lovely and loved, O passionate land! Dear Celtic land, unconquered still! Thy mountain strength prevails: Thy winds have all their will.

They have no care for meaner things; They have no scorn for brooding dreams: A spirit in them sings, A light about them beams.

Lord of the Golden Branch, Virgil! and Caesar's friend: Leader of pilgrim Dante! Yes: things have their tears: So sighed thy song, when down sad winds pierced to thine ears Wandering and immemorial sorrows without end. And things of death touch hearts, that die: Yes: but joys blend, And glories, with our little life of human fears: Rome reigns, and Caesar triumphs! Ah, the Golden Years, The Golden Years return: this also the Gods send.

O men, who have endured an heavier burden yet! Hear you not happy airs, and voices augural? For you, in these last days by sure foreknowledge set, Looms no Italian shore, bright and imperial? Wounded and worn! What Virgil sang, doth God forget? Virgil, the melancholy, the majestical.

Sighing and grief are all my portion now, Sighing and grief: But thou art somewhere smiling: thou, Like a frail leaf,

By winter's mercy spared a little yet, Canst put aside The coming shadow: happy to forget, How thy companion died.

I.

Let not any withering Fate, With her all too sombre thread, Flying from the Ivory Gate, Make thy soul discomforted: From the nobler Gate of Horn, Take the blessing of the morn.

Eyes bent full upon the goal, Whatso be the prize of it: Tireless feet, and crystal soul, With good heart, the salt of wit: These shall set thee in the clear Spirits' home and singing sphere.

Hush thy melancholy breath, Wailing after fair days gone: Make thee friends with kindly Death, That his long dominion, With a not too bitter thrall, Hold thee at the end of all.

Sorrow, angel of the night, Sorrow haughtily disdains Invocation by our light Agonies, and passing pains: Sorrow is but under pure Cloven hearts their balm and cure.

II.

And yet, what of the sorrowing years, Their clouds and difficult event? Here is a kindlier way than tears, A fairer way than discontent: The passionate remembrances, That wake at bidding of the air: Fancies, and dreams, and fragrances, That charmed us, when they were.

So breathed the hay, so the rose bloomed, Ah! what a thousand years ago! So long imprisoned and entombed, Out of our hearts the old joys flow: Peace! present sorrows: lie you still! You shall not grow to memories: The ancient hours live yet, to kill The sorry hour, that is.

I hate you with a necessary hate. First, I sought patience: passionate was she: My patience turned in very scorn of me, That I should dare forgive a sin so great, As this, through which I sit disconsolate; Mourning for that live soul, I used to see; Soul of a saint, whose friend I used to be: Till you came by! a cold, corrupting, fate.

Why come you now? You, whom I cannot cease With pure and perfect hate to hate? Go, ring The death-bell with a deep, triumphant toll! Say you, my friend sits by me still? Ah, peace! Call you this thing my friend? this nameless thing? This living body, hiding its dead soul?

Far from the world, far from delight, Distinguishing not day from night; Vowed to one sacrifice of all The happy things, that men befall; Pleading one sacrifice, before Whom sun and sea and wind adore; Far from earth's comfort, far away, We cry to God, we cry and pray For men, who have the common day. Dance, merry world! and sing: but we, Hearing, remember Calvary: Get gold, and thrive you! but the sun Once paled; and the centurion Said: This dead man was God's own Son. Think you, we shrink from common toil, Works of the mart, works of the soil; That, prisoners of strong despair, We breathe this melancholy air; Forgetting the dear calls of race, And bonds of house, and ties of place; That, cowards, from the field we turn, And heavenward, in our weakness, yearn? Unjust! unkind! while you despise Our lonely years, our mournful cries: You are the happier for our prayer; The guerdon of our souls, you share. Not in such feebleness of heart, We play our solitary part; Not fugitives of battle, we Hide from the world, and let things be: But rather, looking over earth, Between the bounds of death and birth; And sad at heart, for sorrow and sin, We wondered, where might help begin. And on our wonder came God's choice, A sudden light, a clarion voice, Clearing the dark, and sounding clear: And we obeyed: behold us, here! In prison bound, but with your chains: Sufferers, but of alien pains. Merry the world, and thrives apace, Each in his customary place: Sailors upon the carrying sea, Shepherds upon the pasture lea, And merchants of the town; and they, Who march to death, the fighting way; And there are lovers in the spring, With those, who dance, and those, who sing: The commonwealth of every day. Eastward and westward, far away. Once the sun paled; once cried aloud The Roman, from beneath the cloud: This day the Son of God is dead! Yet heed men, what the Roman said? They heed not: we then heed for them, The mindless of Jerusalem; Careless, they live and die: but we Care, in their stead, for Calvary. O joyous men and women! strong, To urge the wheel of life along, With strenuous arm, and cheerful strain, And wisdom of laborious brain: We give our life, our heart, our breath, That you may live to conquer death; That, past your tomb, with souls in health, Joy may be yours, and blessed wealth; Through vigils of the painful night, Our spirits with your tempters fight: For you, for you, we live alone, Where no joy comes, where cold winds moan: Nor friends have we, nor have we foes; Our Queen is of the lonely Snows. Ah! and sometimes, our prayers between, Come sudden thoughts of what hath been: Dreams! And from dreams, once more we fall To prayer: God save, Christ keep, them all. And thou, who knowest not these things, Hearken, what news our message brings! Our toils, thy joy of life forgot: Our lives of prayer forget thee not.

Ashen cross traced on brow! Iron cross hid in breast! Have power, bring patience, now: Bid passion be at rest.

O sad, dear, days of Lent! Now lengthen your gray hours: If so we may repent, Before the time of flowers.

Majestical, austere, The sanctuaries look stern: All silent! all severe! Save where the lone lamps burn.

Imprisoned there above The world's indifferency: Still waits Eternal Love, With wounds from Calvary.

Come! mourning companies; Come! to sad Christ draw near: Come! sin's confederacies; Lay down your malice here.

Here is the healing place, And here the place of peace: Sorrow is sweet with grace Here, and here sin hath cease.

The angels of the sunlight clothe In England the corn's golden ears, Round me: yet would that I to-day Saw sunlight on the Hill of Howth, And sunlight on the Golden Spears, And sunlight upon Dublin Bay.

In hunger of the heart I loathe These happy fields: I turn with tears Of love and longing, far away: To where the heathered Hill of Howth Stands guardian, with the Golden Spears, Above the blue of Dublin Bay.

Ah! the keen, blue-bladed sword, In the strong hands of thy lord Living, vibrating, inspired! Thou hast drunk the draught desired, Blood of battle: now, restored To the shrouding sheath, thou hatest, For the trump of war thou waitest.

But thy bright steel grows not dim, While thou hangest yet by him, In whose hands thou hast thy life. Fear not! Thou shalt swell more strife, Ere death come: last foe most grim! And shalt lie, that onset over, Close beside thy lord and lover.

Bright seas cast far upon her shore White flowers of flying spray: The blossoms of her fields are more, Than blossomed yesterday: The music of her winds and birds Alone can tell the triumph words, Her children cannot say.

The stars from solemn deeps look down In favour and delight: The glories of her day, they crown With splendours of her night: The queen of the adoring Gael, Their radiant mother, Inisfail, Reigns, by divinest right.

But all that now is over. Dreamers of dreams shall not in me discover Fallen remembrances of Holy Land; Looks in mine eyes, that seem to understand A banished secret; in my common mien, A charmed communion with high things unseen

For all that now is over. Mere merchant of earth's market-place, no lover, I keep the dusty, trodden road of all. Though broken echoes fill the mart, and call Back to my silent memories: down chill air They die away, and leave me to my care.

Since all that now is over, And not at any cost can I recover The abdicated throne, the abandoned crown: I sit me at the heart of the vast town, To wear old love looks down to the dull look, Befitting love unthought on, or forsook.

Mother of holy fire! Mother of holy dew! Thy children of the mist, the moor, the mountain side, These change not from thine heart, these to thine heart allied: These, that rely on thee, as blossoms on the blue. O passionate, dark faces, melancholy's hue! O deep, gray eyes, so tragic with the fires they hide! Sweet Mother, in whose light these live! thou dost abide, Star of the West, pale to the world: these know thee true.

No alien hearts may know that magic, which acquaints Thy soul with splendid passion, a great fire of dreams; Thine heart with lovelier sorrow, than the wistful sea. Voices of Celtic singers and of Celtic Saints Live on the ancient air: their royal sunlight gleams On moorland Merioneth and on sacred Dee.

Not now the rejoicing face of summer glows In splendour to a blue and splendid sky: For now hath died each lingering wild rose Off tangled river banks: and autumn shows Fields of red corn, that on the downside lie Beneath a gentle mist, a golden haze. So shrouded, the red cornlands take an air Trembling with warm wind: sickle-girt, forth fare Harvesting hinds, with swift arms brown and bare; Revering well toil's venerable ways.

Most golden music is among the corn, Played by the winds wavering over it: A murmuring sound, as when against the morn, Orient upon calm seas, their noise is borne Innumerably rippling and sunlit. Most golden music is in either tide: And this of radiant corn, before it fall, Wills not that summer die unmusical, By no rich surge of murmurs glorified: Nay! the fields rock and rustle, sounding all Praise of the fruitful earth on every side.

Good, through the yellow fields to ponder long: Good, long to meditate the stilly sight. Afar shone down a brazen sunlight strong, Over the harvested hillside, along The laboured meadows, burning with great light: The air trembled with overflow of heat In the low valley, where no movement was Of soft-blown wind, ruffling the scytheless grass Thick-growing by the waters, cool and sweet: No swing of boughs; there were no airs to pass Caressing them: all winds failed, when all wheat,

All fair crops murmuring their soft acclaim, Fell, golden rank on golden rank, and lay Ruddily heaped along the earth: the flame Of delicate poppies, rich and frail, became Wan dying weed; convolvulus, astray Out from its hedgerows far into the field, In clinging coils of leaf and tender bloom, Shared with the stalks it clung and clasped, their doom. So went the work: so gave the ripened weald Its fruits and pleasant flowers; and made a room, Wherein fresh winds might wave a fresh year's yield.

I thank Eternal God, that you are mine, Who are His too: courageous and divine Must friendship be, through this great grace of God; And have Eternity for period.

Fair, gracious, daughter of those skies, Wherein nor star, nor angel, flies More radiant than thy royal beauty: To thee the Hours bring all they have Of rich, and wonderful, and brave: Yet do they but their natural duty.

Excelling all, thou cancellest Their praise, and art alone the best: Alone the theme of prayers and praises. Wilt thou not bow thee, and be kind, As lilies to a pleading wind, When fragrance the wan air amazes?

The holy angels of God's court With humble men still deign consort: For dear love's piteous sake discarding Their state and their celestial home, To company poor souls, that roam Sad and distraught, for lack of guarding.

Fair, gracious, daughter of the spheres! Be not more proud than those thy peers, Citizens of so high a city! Behold the captive of thy chains: Turn from thy palace to his pains, And keep thy prisoner by pity.

Fain to know golden things, fain to grow wise, Fain to achieve the secret of fair souls: His thought, scarce other lore need solemnize, Whom Virgil calms, whom Sophocles controls:

Whose conscience Æschylus, a warrior voice, Enchaunted hath with majesties of doom: Whose melancholy mood can best rejoice, When Horace sings, and roses bower the tomb:

Who, following Caesar unto death, discerns What bitter cause was Rome's, to mourn that day: With austere Tacitus for master, learns The look of empire in its proud decay:

Whom dread Lucretius of the mighty line Hath awed, but not borne down: who loves the flame, That leaped within Catullus the divine, His glory, and his beauty, and his shame:

Who dreams with Plato and, transcending dreams, Mounts to the perfect City of true God: Who hails its marvellous and haunting gleams, Treading the steady air, as Plato trod:

Who with Thucydides pursues the way, Feeling the heart-beats of the ages gone: Till fall the clouds upon the Attic day, And Syracuse draw tears for Marathon:

To whom these golden things best give delight: The music of most sad Simonides; Propertius' ardent graces; and the might Of Pindar chaunting by the olive trees:

Livy, and Roman consuls purple swathed: Plutarch, and heroes of the ancient earth: And Aristophanes, whose laughter scathed The souls of fools, and pealed in lyric mirth:

Æolian rose-leaves blown from Sappho's isle; Secular glories of Lycean thought: Sallies of Lucian, bidding wisdom smile; Angers of Juvenal, divinely wrought:

Pleasant, and elegant, and garrulous, Pliny: crowned Marcus, wistful and still strong: Sicilian seas and their Theocritus, Pastoral singer of the last Greek song:

Herodotus, all simple and all wise: Demosthenes, a lightning flame of scorn: The surge of Cicero, that never dies: And Homer, grand against the ancient morn.

A pleasant heat breathes off the scented grass, From bright green blades, and shining daisies: Now give we joy, who sometime cried, Alas! Now set we forth our melodies, and sing Soft praises to the spring, Musical praises.

The flying winds are lovely with the sun: Now all in sweet and dainty fashion Goes life: for royal seasons are begun. Now each new day and each new promise add Fresh cause of being glad, With vernal passion.

Few leaves upon the branches dare the spring: But many buds are making ready, Trusting the sun, their perfect summer king. Likewise we put away our wintry cares: We hear but happy airs; Our hopes are steady.

Cold were the crystal rivers, bitter cold; And snows upon the iron mountains; And withering leaves upon the trodden mould. Hark to the crystal voices of the rills, Falling among the hills, From secret fountains!

Long not for June with roses: nor for nights Loud with tumultuary thunder: Those hours wax heavy with their fierce delights. But April is all bright, and gives us first, Before the roses burst, Her joy and wonder.

Clear lie the fields, and fade into blue air: Here, sweet concerted birds are singing Around this lawn of sweet grass, warm and fair. And holy music, through the waving trees, Comes gently down the breeze, Where bells are ringing.

Heart of magnificent desire: O equal of the lordly sun! Since thou hast cast on me thy fire, My cloistral peace, so hardly won, Breaks from its trance: One glance From thee hath all its joy undone.

Of lonely quiet was my dream; Day gliding into fellow day, With the mere motion of a stream: But now in vehement disarray Go time and thought, Distraught With passion kindled at thy ray.

Heart of tumultuary might, O greater than the mountain flame, That leaps upon the fearful night! On me thy devastation came, Sudden and swift; A gift Of joyous torment without name.

Thy spirit stings my spirit: thou Takest by storm and ecstasy The cloister of my soul. And now, With ardour that is agony, I do thy will; Yet still Hear voices of calm memory.

All was for you: and you are dead. For, came there sorrow, came there splendour, You still were mine, and I yours only: Then on my breast lay down your head, Triumphant in its dear surrender: One were we then: though one, not lonely.

Oh, is it you are dead, Both! both dead, since we are asunder: You, sleeping: I, for ever walking Through the dark valley, hard and dry. At times I hear the mourning thunder: And voices, in the shadows, talking.

Dear, are there dreams among the dead: Or is it all a perfect slumber? But I must dream and dream to madness. Mine eyes are dark, now yours are fled: Yet see they sorrows without number, Waiting upon one perfect sadness.

So long, the melancholy vale! So full, these weary winds, of sorrow! So harsh, all things! For what counts pity? Still, as each twilight glimmers pale Upon the borders of each morrow, I near me to your sleeping city.

The burden of the long gone years: the weight, The lifeless weight, of miserable things Done long ago, not done with: the live stings Left by old joys, follies provoking fate, Showing their sad side, when it is too late: Dread burden, that remorseless knowledge brings To men, remorseful! But the burden clings: And that remorse declares that bitter state.

Wisdom of ages! Wisdom of old age! Written, and spoken of, and prophesied, The common record of humanity! Oh, vain! The springtime is our heritage First, and the sunlight on the flowing tide: Then, that old truth's confirming misery.

She bared her spirit to her sorrow: On the circling hills the morrow Trembled, but it broke not forth: Winds blew from the snowy North.

My soul! my sorrow! What wind bloweth, Knows the wayless way, it goeth? But before all else, we know Death's way is the way to go.

She knew no more than that: she only Knew, that she was left and lonely. Left? But she had loved! And lone? She had loved! But love had gone.

So out into the wintry weather Soul and sorrow fled together: On the moor day found her dead: Snow on hands, and heart, and head.

Now these lovers twain be dead, And together buried: Masses only shall be said. Hush thee, weary melancholy! Music comes, more rich and holy: Through the aged church shall sound Words, by ancient prophets found; Burdens in an ancient tongue, By the fasting Mass-priest sung.

Gray, without, the autumn air: But pale candles here prepare, Pale as wasted golden hair. Let the quire with mourning descant Cry: In pace requiescant! For they loved the things of God. Now, where solemn feet have trod, Sleep they well: and wait the end, Lover by lover, friend by friend.

Red Wind from out the East: Red Wind of blight and blood! Ah, when wilt thou have ceased Thy bitter, stormy flood?

Red Wind from over sea, Scourging our lonely land! What Angel loosened thee Out of his iron hand?

Red Wind! whose word of might Winged thee with wings of flame? O fire of mournful night, What is thy master's name?

Red Wind! who bade thee burn, Branding our hearts? Who bade Thee on and never turn, Till waste our souls were laid?

Red Wind! from out the West Pour winds of Paradise: Winds of eternal rest, That weary souls entice.

Wind of the East! Red Wind! Thou witherest the soft breath Of Paradise the kind: Red Wind of burning death!

O Red Wind! hear God's voice: Hear thou, and fall, and cease. Let Inisfail rejoice In her Hesperian peace.

Beyond the straits of Hercules, Behold! the strange Hesperian seas, A glittering waste at break of dawn: High on the westward plunging prow, What dreams are on thy spirit now, Sertorius of the milk-white fawn?

Not sorrow, to have done with home! The mourning destinies of Rome Have exiled Rome's last hope with thee: Nor dost thou think on thy lost Spain. What stirs thee on the unknown main? What wilt thou from the virgin sea?

Hailed by the faithless voice of Spain, The lightning warrior come again, Where wilt thou seek the flash of swords, Voyaging toward the set of sun? Though Rome the splendid East hath won, Here thou wilt find no Roman lords.

No Tingis here lifts fortress walls; And here no Lusitania calls: What hath the barren sea to give? Yet high designs enchaunt thee still; The winds are loyal to thy will: Not yet art thou too tired, to live.

No trader thou, to northern isles, Whom mischief-making gold beguiles To sunless and unkindly coasts: What spirit pilots thee thus far From the tempestuous tides of war, Beyond the surging of the hosts?

Nay! this thy secret will must be. Over the visionary sea, Thy sails are set for perfect rest: Surely thy pure and holy fawn Hath whispered of an ancient lawn, Far hidden down the solemn West.

A gracious pleasaunce of calm things; There rose-leaves fall by rippling springs: And captains of the older time, Touched with mild light, or gently sleep, Or in the orchard shadows keep Old friendships of the golden prime.

The far seas brighten with gray gleams: O winds of morning! O fair dreams! Will not that land rise up at noon? There, casting Roman mail away, Age long to watch the falling day, And silvery sea, and silvern moon.

Dreams! for they slew thee: Dreams! they lured Thee down to death and doom assured: And we were proud to fall with thee. Now, shadows of the men we were, Westward indeed we voyage here, Unto the end of all the sea.

Woe! for the fatal, festal board: Woe! for the signal of the sword, The wine-cup dashed upon the ground: We are but sad, eternal ghosts, Passing far off from human coasts, To the wan land eternal bound.

Dead is Columba: the world's arch Gleams with a lighting of strange fires. They flash and run, they leap and march, Signs of a Saint's fulfilled desires.

Live is Columba: golden crowned, Sceptred with Mary lilies, shod With angel flames, and girded round With white of snow, he goes to God.

No more the gray eyes long to see The oakwoods of their Inisfail; Where the white angels hovering be: And ah, the birds in every vale!

No more for him thy fierce winds blow, Iona of the angry sea! Gone, the white glories of thy snow, And white spray flying over thee!

Now, far from the gray sea, and far From sea-worn rocks and sea-birds' cries, Columba hails the morning star, That shines in never nighted skies.

High in the perfect Land of Morn, He listens to the chaunting air: The Land, where music is not born, For music is eternal there.

There, bent before the burning Throne, He lauds the Lover of the Gael: Sweet Christ! Whom Patrick's children own: Glory be Thine from Inisfail!

From far away! from far away! But whence, you will not say: Melancholy bells, appealing chimes, Voices of lands and times!

Your toll, O melancholy bells! Over the valley swells: O touching chimes! your dying sighs Travel our tranquil skies.

But whence? And whither fade away Your echoes from our day? You take our hearts with gentle pain, Tremble, and pass again.

Could we lay hold upon your haunts, The birthplace of your chaunts: Were we in dreamland, deathland, then? We, sad and wondering men?