The pain of loving you
Is almost more than I can bear.

I walk in fear of you.
The darkness starts up where
You stand, and the night comes through
Your eyes when you look at me.

Ah never before did I see
The shadows that live in the sun!

Now every tall glad tree
Turns round its back to the sun
And looks down on the ground, to see
The shadow it used to shun.

At the foot of each glowing thing
A night lies looking up.

Oh, and I want to sing
And dance, but I can't lift up
My eyes from the shadows: dark

Pain is a blacksmith,
Hard is his hammer;
With flying flames
His hearth is hot;
A straining storm
Of forces ferocious
Blows his bellows.
He hammers hearts
And tinkers them,
With blows tremendous,
Till hard they hold. —
Well, well forges Pain. —
No storm destroys,
No frost consumes,
No rust corrodes,
What pain has forged.

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

Pain and labor of oppression gave the Western world its birth,
From such shores the love of freedom ne'er should perish from the earth;
To a conscience that's awakened, these are words to make it start,
“Each oppressor of a human buys himself a hardened heart!”

'Twas the sixties broke the shackles from the body of the slave,
Which was only half his freedom, for his mind we now must save.
Liberty of his opinion, such as other people use
Give him all that makes for manhood, and the same he'll not abuse.

Paddy, I have but stol'n your living,
And call'd you names beside:
Why are not you content and thankful,
If I am satisfied?
As I have done, so did my father,
And full of peace he died.

I

The Ox he openeth wide the Doore,
And from the Snowe he calls her inne,
And he hath seen her Smile therefor,
Our Ladye without Sinne.
Now soone from Sleep
A Starre shall leap,
And soone arrive both King and Hinde:
Amen, Amen:
But O, the Place co'd I but finde!

The Ox hath hush'd his voyce and bent
Trewe eyes of Pitty ore the Mow,
And on his lovelie Neck, forspent,
The Blessed layes her Browe.
Around her feet
Full Warme and Sweete

Ox driver in a sudden shower,
sentenced to his

Noel, noel, noel,
Noel, noel, noel!

Out of your sleep arise and wake,
For God mankind now hath i-take,
All of a maid without any make:
Of all women she beareth the bell.

Noel, noel, noel ...

And through a maide fair and wise
Now man is made of full great price;
Now angels kneel to man's servise.
And at this time all this befell.

Noel, noel, noel ...

Now man is brighter than the sun;
Now man in heaven on high shall wone;
Blessed be God this game is begun,
And his mother empress of hell.

Owen's praise demands my song,
Owen swift, and Owen strong;
Fairest flower of Roderic's stem,
Gwyneth's shield, and Britain's gem.
He nor heaps his brooded stores,
Nor on all profusely pours;
Lord of every regal art,
Liberal hand, and open heart.

Big with hosts of mighty name,
Squadrons three against him came;
This the force of Eirin hiding,
Side by side as proudly riding,
On her shadow long and gay
Lochlin plows the watry way;
There the Norman sails afar
Catch the winds, and join the war:

Overlooking the water, a desolate city
where wind-swept sand gets in your eyes.
Half the people here are refugees,
behind the closed gates of their thatched huts.