AN OLD SONG RESUNG

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet ;

She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

THE ROSE OF THE WORLD

WHO dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

For these red lips with all their mournful pride,

Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,

And Usna's children died.

We and the laboring world are passing by:

Amid men's souls that day by day gives place,

More fleeting than the sea's foam-fickle face,

Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode :
Before ye were or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one stood beside His
seat;

He made the world, to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

THE WHITE BIRDS

I WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea:

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can pass by and flee;

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that never may die.

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose,

Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes, Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew: For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam-I and you.

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more : Soon far from the rose and the lily, the fret of the flames, would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea.

THE FOLK OF THE AIR O'DRISCOLL drove with a song

The wild duck and the drake From the tall and the tufted weeds Of the drear Heart Lake.

And he saw how the weeds grew dark
At the coming of night tide,
And he dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.

He heard while he sang and dreamed
A piper piping away,

And never was piping so sad,

And never was piping so gay.

And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place,
And Bridget his bride among them,
With a sad and a gay face.

The dancers crowded about him,
And many a sweet thing said,
And a young man brought him red wine,
And a young girl white bread.

But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,
Away from the merry bands,
To old men playing at cards

With a twinkling of ancient hands.

THE MUSIC-HALL

THE curtain on the grouping dancers falls, The heaven of color has vanished from our eyes;

Stirred in our seats we wait with vague

surmise

What haply comes that pleases or that palls.

Touched on the stand the thrice-struck baton calls,

Once more I watch the unfolding curtain rise,

I hear the exultant violins premise The well-known tune that thrills me and enthralls.

Then trembling in my joy I see you flash Before the footlights to the cymbals' clash, With laughing lips, swift feet, and brilliant glance,

You, fair as heaven and as a rainbow bright,

You, queen of song and empress of the dance,

Flower of mine eyes, my love, my heart's delight!

EXPECTATION

COME while the afternoon of May Is sweet with many a lilac-spray,

607

Come while the sparrows chirping fare From branch to branch across the square.

Come like the dawn and bring to me
The fresh winds of an open sea,
Come like the stars of night and bear
All consolation in thine hair.

Bring me release from ancient pain, Bring me the hopes of joy found vain, Bring me thy sweetness of the dove, Come, sweet, and bring thyself and love !

A VAIN DESIRE

DEAR, did you know how sweet to me Was every glance of yours, how sweet The laugh that lights your face with glee, The passing murmur of your feet,

And seeing perchance with grief how vain

The love that makes you sadly dear Did grant for my unuttered pain

A whispered word, a smile, a tear

Dropped like a star from Paradise, Then might I bless my weary state, Though you behold me from the skies And I on earth am desolate.

THE SEVEN WHISTLERS WHISTLING strangely, whistling sadly, whistling sweet and clear, The Seven Whistlers have passed thy house, Pentruan of Porthmeor;

It was not in the morning, nor the noonday's golden grace,

It was in the dead waste midnight, when the tide yelped loud in the Race ; The tide swings round in the Race, and they're plaining whisht and low, And they come from the gray sea-marshes, where the gray sea-lavenders grow; And the cotton grass sways to and fro; And the gore-sprent sundews thrive With oozy hands alive. Canst hear the curlews' whistle through thy dreamings dark and drear, How they're crying, crying, crying, Pentruan of Porthmeor?

Shall thy hatchment, mouldering grimly in yon church amid the sands,

Stay trouble from thy household? Or the carven cherub-hands

Which hold thy shield to the font? Or the gauntlets on the wall

Keep evil from its onward course, as the great tides rise and fall?

The great tides rise and fall, and the cave sucks in the breath

Of the wave when it runs with tossing spray, and the ground-sea rattles of Death; "I rise in the shallows," 'a saith,

"Where the mermaid's kettle sings, And the black shag flaps his wings!" Ay, the green sea-mountain leaping may lead horror in its rear, When thy drenched sail leans to its yawning trough Pentruan of Porthmeor!

Yet the stoup waits at thy doorway for its load of glittering ore,

And thy ships lie in the tideway, and thy flocks along the moor;

And thine arishes gleam softly when the October moonbeams wane,