I WISH AND I WISH

I wish and I wish And I wish I were A golden bee In the blue of the air, Winging my way At the mouth of day To the honey marges Of Loch-ciuin-ban; Or a little green drake, Or a silver swan, Floating upon The stream of Aili, And I to be swimming Gaily, gaily!

I AM THE MAN-CHILD

I am the man-child. From a virgin womb, Begot among the hills of virgin loins, The generation of a hundred kings, I come. I am the man-child glorious, The love-son of the second birth foretold By western bards, the fruit of form and strength By nature's prophylactic forethought joined In marriage with their kind, the crown, the peak, The summit of the scheme of things, the pride And glory of the hand of G.o.d.

Behold!

Where in the s.p.a.ces of the morning world The sunrise shines my harbinger, the hills Leap up, the young winds sing, the rivers dance, The leaving forests laugh, the eagles scream; For I am one with them, a mate, a brother, Bound by nature to the human soul That thro' the accidents of nature runs.

And wherefore do they leap and laugh and sing, And dance like vestals on a holyday?

Because their hearts are glad, and maenad-like, They fain would share the frenzied cup they drink With me, the man-child glorious.

I am he, Even he, the master-mould, the paragon!

Behold me in my nonage, child and man: The ripest grape on beauty's procreant vine, The reddest apple of ingathering: Perfect in form, of peerless strength, and free As Caoilte when he roamed the primal hills (Those "wildernesses rich with liberty"), A hero that the shocks of chance might strike, But never tame, a giant druid-ringed, A G.o.d-like savage of the golden days Ere service shackled action: free itself As Oisin when he strayed in Doire-cairn, His hand upon the mountain top, his feet Fixt in the flowing sea, his holy head Crowned by a flight of birds, acclaiming him The singer of the dawn.

FRAGMENT

I stand upon the summit now: The falcon, flying from the heath, Trails darkly o'er the mountain brow And drops into the gloom beneath.

Night falls, and with it comes the wind That blew on Fionn time out of mind, When weary of love-feasts and wars He left his comrades all behind To dream upon the quiet stars.

Here on the lonely mountain height Is ecstasy and living light-- The living inner light that burns With magic caught from those white urns That wander thro' the trackless blue Forever, touching those they know With beauty, and the things that come Of beauty. Earth lies at my feet, A dumb, vast shadow, vast as dumb.

AT THE WHITENING OF THE DAWN

At the whitening of the dawn, As I came o'er the windy water, I saw the salmon-fisher's daughter, Nuala ni Cholumain.

Nuala ni Cholumain, Nuala ni Cholumain, Palest lily of the dawn Is Nuala ni Cholumain.

In the dark of evendown I went o'er the quiet water, Dreaming of the fisher's daughter And her bothy in the town.

And I made this simple rann Ere the whitening of the dawn, Singing to the beauty wan Of Nuala ni Cholumain.

WHO ARE MY FRIENDS

Who are my friends, Faithful and true?

Who but the stars That burn in the blue.

Who but the sun That sinketh so red, Who but the clay That giveth me bread.

Who but the hills, Who but the sea, Who but the flowers That fold on the tree.

Who but the moths That flutter and pa.s.s, Who but the lambs That cry in the gra.s.s.

Who but the darkness, Who but the rain, Who but the grave, the grave-- All else are vain!

All else are vain!

O GLORIOUS CHILDBEARER

O glorious childbearer, O secret womb, O gilded bridechamber, from which hath come the sightly Bridegroom forth, O amber veil, Thou sittest in heaven, the white love of the Gael.

Thy head is crowned with stars, thy radiant hair Shines like a river thro' the twilight air; Thou walkest by trodden ways and trackless seas, Immaculate of man's infirmities.

CORONACH

Come, pipes, sound A crooning coronach round, Till hill and hollow glen and shadowed lake o'erflow With welling music of our woe.

Beat, beat, ye m.u.f.fled drums, ye drones and chanters wail, With heartbreak of the baffled, battle-broken Gael.

The clay is deep on Ireland's breast: Her proud and bleeding heart is laid at last to rest . .

To rest . . to rest!

TWILIGHT FALLEN

Twilight fallen white and cold, Child in cradle, lamb in fold; Glimmering thro' the ghostly trees, Gemini and Pleiades.

Wounds of Eloim, Weep on me!

Black-winged vampires flitting by, Curlews crying in the sky; Grey mists wreathing from the ground, Wrapping rath and burial mound.

Wounds of Eloim, Weep on me!

Heard, like some sad Gaelic strain, Ocean's ancient voice in pain; Darkness folding hill and wood, Sorrow drinking at my blood.

Wounds of Eloim, Weep on me!