English

I do not sing for Maidens. They are roses
 Blowing along the pathway I pursue:
No sweeter things the wondrous world discloses,
 And they are tender as the morning dew.
Blessed be maids and children: day and night
Their holy scent is with me as I write.

I do not sing for School-boys or School-men.
 To give them ease I have no languid theme
When, weary with the wear of book and pen,
 They seek their trim poetic Academe;
Nor can I sing them amorous ditties, bred
Of too much Ovid on an empty head.

On Inisheer, on Inisheer,
In the Spring-tide of the year,
You sought me, in your eyes love's rapture burning;
And for the words you said,
Above my drooping head,
My heart flew to you on the wings of yearning.

On Inisheer, on Inisheer,
I had never known a fear,
Nor a sorrow, nor a sigh to mar my laughter;
Until that saddest day,
When my true love sailed away,
And the sun grew dim, and darkness followed after.

Why did you go, oh love,

To-night we drink but a sorrowful cup. .
Hush! silence! and fill your glasses up.
Christ be with us! Hold out and say:
" Here's to the Boy that died this day!"

Wasn't he bold as the boldest here?
Red coat or black did he ever fear?
With the bite and the drop, too, ever free?
He died like a man. ... I was there to see!

The gallows was black, our cheeks were white
All underneath in the morning light;
The bell ceased tolling swift as thought,
And out the murdered Boy was brought.

Because you brought the hills to me —
The dear hills I had never seen,
All sweet with heather down the braes,
And golden gorse between —

Where sings the blackbird in the dawn,
And where the blue lake-water stirs,
And where the slender wind-blown sedge
Shakes all its silver spurs.

Because you loved the country ways,
Whereon your happy feet were set.
Nor was the calmness of your days.
Stirred by one vexed regret.

But in your every homely word
I heard my unknown kinsfolk call

I would build myself a nest, a little downy nest,
And a warbler of the woodland I would wed —
Oh, not the blackbird bold, nor the thrush with voice so cold,
But the Yorlin with the yellow on his head.

I would keep him safe and warm, I would screen him from the storm;
Together we would greet the golden sun —
We would mount the greening stair of the slender larch and fir,
And sing our love until the day be done.

Vein o' my heart, can you hear me crying,
Over the salt dividing sea?
Maybe you'll think 'tis the wind that's sighing —
But it comes from the heart o' me,
The heart o' me!

Oh, that happy day, and your face before me!
The blue loch lay like a silver sheet,
A blackbird swayed to its own sweet story,
And a thrush sang in the wheat.

Around us both was the radiant weather,
Over us both a blue, blue sky;
And the singing stream and the purpling heather,
Gave no thought of a sad good-bye.

Saw ye Neece O'Hagan,
By Moylena's Banks,
With his matchlock in his hand,
Foam on Rory's flanks?
Child dear! child dear!
'Twixt the night and day,
Neece will come with all his men
And carry you away.

If you do not shut your eyes
And sleep, mo paistin fionn ,
If you do not keep the sighs
Locked your lips within,
When your cradle-song I sing,

The kisses of Angus came to me —
And three bright birds on my apple-tree
Pipe their magical haunting song
That shall fill with dreaming my whole life long.

The first bird sings of my love's shut eyes,
The second her lips where silence lies,
The third her blushes for ever fled,
And the plenteous curls of her radiant head.

Night and day, asleep or awake,
I carry a heart nigh fit to break,
I carry a pain I shall not forget
Until above me the cairn is set.

For Angus the Druid sent them forth —

Fear , facing the new year,
Saith — " What shall it bring? "
And is dumb,
Dreading the hidden ways.

Faith , looking upward, saith,
" Good is in everything;
Let it come.
God ordereth the days. "

T HIS is our new year's bliss —
He is mine, and I am His,
All the ways, all the days
Lead us home.
Let us pray, let us praise.

Winter has chased away
Blue skies and songs of May.
She, too, is old now,
White-haired, with wrinkled brow;
But those eyes, dear eyes,
Are aglow with their light,
As when the day dies
Shine stars of the night.

Never alone,
A hand holds her own
Strong hand whose clasp
Thrills with its grasp;
And her heart is aflame
As love whispers her name.

Contented she waits
Till the great Temple gates
Are flung wide,
Then forth from the night
Steps the bride,