LUBBERLU

“Green were her eyes,—yellow were her eyes— Her eyes were like withered sedge!” —“This is holy Mass and the hour flies And there is red in the church-yard hedge. “Raise me aloft my taper’s flame, Light me my candles three, For I must call on the Baby’s name Who is born to young Mary!”— “O father, I see a blood-red streak In the reeds where first I caught her— And I hear a cry makes my heart weak— And turns my bones to water. “The marsh-bittern and lone curlew That cry comes not from them—” —“Bring me bread and wine my Lubberlu, And hold my vestments’ hem! “The candles burn—The oxen kneel. Boy, bring me my holy book— Born is the King of Israel!” —“Oh father, my father, look! “She is pressing her face ’gainst the window-pane, Where the saints stare in a row And her lips are red with the morning’s stain And her cheeks are white like snow!”— —“’Tis Christmas morn and the mass unsung For the Baby of young Mary!”— But the idiot-boy from his side had sprung. At the window prone was he. And the oxen knelt in their frozen shed And the sheep in their hurdled pen; But Lubberlu lay stark and dead, He never will come again. They sign his breast and they sign his brow With the cross to which they pray— But two lost souls are flying now Over the reeds and over the snow, Over the hills and away.