I followed down the seaward stream,

By silent pool and singing fall;
Till with a quiet, keen content,
I watched the sun, a crimson ball,
Shoot through grey seas a fiery gleam,
Then sink in opal deeps from sight.

And with the coming on of night,
The wind had dropped: and as I lay,
Retracing all the happy day,
And gazing long and dreamily
Across the dim, unsounding sea,
Over the far horizon came

A sudden sail of amber flame;
And soon the new moon rode on high
Through cloudless deeps of crystal sky.

Too holy seemed the night for sleep;
And yet, I must have slept, it seems;
For, suddenly, I woke to hear
A strange voice singing, shrill and clear,
Down in a gully black and deep
That cleft the beetling crag in twain.
It seemed the very voice of dreams
That drive hag-ridden souls in fear
Through echoing, unearthly vales,
To plunge in black, slow-crawling
streams,

Seeking to drown that cry, in vain . .
Or some sea creature's voice that wails
Through blind, white banks of fog un-
lifting

To God-forgotten sailors drifting
Rudderless to death . . .

Until the coming of the light
Brought day's familiar presence back.

Down by the harbour-mouth that day,
A fisher told the tale to me.

Three months before, while out at sea,
Young Philip Burn was lost, though how,
None knew, and none would ever know.
The boat becalmed at noonday lay
And not a ripple on the sea
And Philip standing in the bow,
When his six comrades went below
To sleep away an hour or so,
Dog-tired with working day and night,
While he kept watch . . . and not
sound

...

a

They heard, until, at set of sun
They woke; and coming up they found
The deck was empty, Philip gone. . .
Yet not another boat in sight.
And not a ripple on the sea.
How he had vanished, none could tell.
They only knew the lad was dead
They'd left but now, alive and well . . .
And he, poor fellow, newly-wed . . .
And when they broke the news to her,
She spoke no word to anyone:
But sat all day, and would not stir-
Just staring, staring in the fire,
With eyes that never seemed to tire;
Until, at last, the day was done,
And darkness came; when she would rise,
And seek the door with queer, wild eyes;
And wander singing all the night
Unearthly songs beside the sea:
But always the first blink of light
Would find her back at her own door.

'Twas Winter when I came once more
To that old village by the shore;
And as, at night, I climbed the street,
I heard a singing, low and sweet,
Within a cottage near at hand:
And I was glad awhile to stand
And listen by the glowing pane:
And as I hearkened, that sweet strain
Brought back the night when I had lain
Awake on Devil's Edge ...

And now I knew the voice again,

So different, free of pain and fear-
Its terror turned to tenderness-
And yet the same voice none the less,
Though singing now so true and clear:
And drawing nigh the window-ledge,
I watched the mother sing to rest
The baby snuggling to her breast.

PADRAIC COLUM

An Old Woman of the Roads
O, To have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave

The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark, And roads where there's never a house nor bush,

And tired I am of bog and road,

And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house-a house of my own-
Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

JAMES STEPHENS
The Snare

I HEAR a sudden cry of pain!
There is a rabbit in a snare:
Now I hear the cry again,

But I cannot tell from where.

But I cannot tell from where
He is calling out for aid;
Crying on the frightened air,
Making everything afraid.
Making everything afraid,
Wrinkling up his little face,
As he cries again for aid;
And I cannot find the place!
And I cannot find the place
Where his paw is in the snare:
Little one! Oh, little one!

I am searching everywhere.

JAMES ELROY FLECKER (1884-1915)

Gates of Damascus

FOUR great gates has the city of Da

mascus,

And four Grand Wardens, on their

spears reclining,

All day long stand like tall stone men

And sleep on the towers when the

moon is shining.

This is the song of the East Gate Warden

When he locks the great gate and smokes in his garden.

Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear, The Portal of Bagdad am I, the Doorway of Diarbekir.

The Persian Dawn with new desires may net the flushing mountain spires: But my gaunt buttress still rejects the suppliance of those mellow fires. Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird?

Pass not beneath! Men say there blows in stony deserts still a rose But with no scarlet to her leaf-and from whose heart no perfume flows.

Wilt thou bloom red where she buds pale,

thy sister rose? Wilt thou not fail When noonday flashes like a flail? Leave nightingale the caravan!

Pass then, pass all! "Bagdad!" ye cry, and down the billows of blue sky Ye beat the bell that beats to hell, and who shall thrust ye back? Not I. The Sun who flashes through the head and paints the shadows green and red;

The Sun shall eat thy fleshless dead, O

Caravan, O Caravan!

And one who licks his lips for thirst with

fevered eyes shall face in fear The palms that wave, the streams that burst, his last mirage, O Caravan! And one-the bird-voiced Singing-man

shall fall behind thee, Caravan! And God shall meet him in the night, and

he shall sing as best he can.

And one the Bedouin shall slay, and one, sand-stricken on the way,

Go dark and blind; and one shall say—

"How lonely is the Caravan!"

Pass out beneath, O Caravan, Doom's

Caravan, Death's Caravan!

I had not told ye, fools, so much, save

that I heard your Singing-man.

This was sung by the West Gate's keeper When heaven's hollow dome grew deeper.

I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me!

I hear you high on Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea.

The dragon-green, the luminous, the

dark, the serpent-haunted sea, The snow-besprinkled wine of earth, the white-and-blue-flower foaming sea. Beyond the sea are towns with towers, carved with lions and lily flowers, And not a soul in all those lonely streets to while away the hours.

Beyond the towns, an isle where, bound, a naked giant bites the ground: The shadow of a monstrous wing looms on his back: and still no sound.

Beyond the isle a rock that screams like madmen shouting in their dreams, From whose dark issues night and day blood crashes in a thousand streams.

Beyond the rock is Restful Bay, where no wind breathes or ripple stirs, And there on Roman ships, they say, stand rows of metal mariners.

Beyond the bay in utmost West old Solomon the Jewish King

Sits with his beard upon his breast, and grips and guards his magic ring:

And when that ring is stolen, he will rise in outraged majesty,

And take the World upon his back, and fling the World beyond the sea.

This is the song of the North Gate's master,

Who singeth fast, but drinketh faster.

I am the gay Aleppo Gate: a dawn, a dawn and thou art there:

Eat not thy heart with fear and care, O brother of the beast we hate!

Thou hast not many miles to tread, nor other foes than fleas to dread; Homs shall behold thy morning meal and Hama see thee safe in bed.

Take to Aleppo filigrane, and take them paste of apricots,

And coffee tables botched with pearl, and little beaten brassware pots:

And thou shalt sell thy wares for thrice the Damascene retailers' price, And buy a fat Armenian slave who smelleth odorous and nice.

Some men of noble stock were made: some glory in the murder-blade: Some praise a Science or an Art, but I like honourable Trade!

Sell them the rotten, buy the ripe! Their

heads are weak; their pockets burn. Aleppo men are mighty fools. Salaam Aleikum! Safe return!

This is the song of the South Gate Holder,

A silver man, but his song is older.

I am the Gate that fears no fall: the Mihrab of Damascus wall,

The bridge of booming Sinai: the Arch of Allah all in all.

O spiritual pilgrim rise: the night has grown her single horn:

The voices of the souls unborn are half adream with Paradise.

To Meccah thou hast turned in prayer with aching heart and eyes that burn:

Ah Hajji, whither wilt thou turn when

thou art there, when thou art there? God be thy guide from camp to camp:

God be thy shade from well to well; God grant beneath the desert stars thou

hear the Prophet's camel bell.

And God shall make thy body pure, and

give thee knowledge to endure This ghost-life's piercing phantom-pain, and bring thee out to Life again. And God shall make thy soul a Glass

where eighteen thousand ons pass, And thou shalt see the gleaming Worlds as men see dew upon the grass.

And son of Islam, it may be that thou

shalt learn at journey's end

Who walks thy garden eve on eve, and bows his head, and calls thee Friend.

The Burial in England

THESE then we honour: these in fragrant earth

Of their own country in great peace forget

Death's lion-roar and gust of nostril

flame

Breathing souls across to the Evening Shore.

Soon over these the flowers of our hillsides

Shall wake and wave and nod beneath the bee

And whisper love to Zephyr year on year, Till the red war gleam like a dim red

rose

Lost in the garden of the Sons of Time. But ah what thousands no such friendly doom

Awaits,-whom silent comrades in full night

Gazing right and left shall bury swiftly By the cold flicker of an alien moon.

Ye veiled women, ye with folded hands,

Mourning those you half hoped for Death too dear,

I claim no heed of you. Broader than earth

Love stands eclipsing nations with his wings,

While Pain, his shadow, delves as black and deep

As he e'er flamed or flew. Citizens draw Back from their dead awhile. Salute the

flag!

If this flag though royally always borne, Deceived not dastard, ever served base gold;

If the dark children of the old Forest Once feared it, or ill Sultans mocked it furled,

Yet now as on a thousand death-reaped days

It takes once more the unquestionable road.

O bright with blood of heroes, not a star Of all the north shines purer on the sea! Our foes-the hardest men a state can forge,

An army wrenched and hammered like a blade

Toledo-wrought neither to break nor bend,

Dipped in that ice the pedantry of power, And toughened with wry gospels of dis

may;

Such are these who brake down the door

of France,

Wolves worrying at the old World's honour,

Hunting Peace not to prison but her tomb.

But ever as some brown song-bird whose torn nest

Gapes robbery, darts on the hawk like fire,

So Peace hath answered, angry and in

arms.

And from each grey hamlet and bright town of France

From where the apple or the olive grows Or thin tall strings of poplars on the plains,

From the rough castle of the central hills, From the three coasts-of mist and storm

and sun,

And meadows of the four deep-rolling

streams,

From every house whose windows hear God's bell

Crowding the twilight with the wings of

prayer

And flash their answer in a golden haze, Stream the young soldiers who are never tired.

For all the foul mists vanished when that land

Called clear, as in the sunny Alpine morn
The jodeler awakes the frosty slopes
To thunderous replies,-soon fading far
Among the vales like songs of dead chil-
dren.

But the French guns' answer, ne'er to

echoes weak Diminished, bursts from the deep

trenches yet;

And its least light vibration blew to dust The weary factions,-priest's or guild's or king's,

And side by side troop up the old parti

sans,

The same laughing, invincible, tough men Who gave Napoleon Europe like a loaf, For slice and portion,-not so long ago! Either to Alsace or loved lost Lorraine They pass, or inexpugnable Verdun Ceintured with steel, or stung with faith's old cry

Assume God's vengeance for his temple

stones.

But you maybe best wish them for the north

Beside you 'neath low skies in loamèd fields,

Or where the great line hard on the duned shore

Ends and night leaps to England's seaborne flame.

Never one drop of Lethe's stagnant cup Dare dim the fountains of the Marne

and Aisne

Since still the flowers and meadow-grass

unmown

Lie broken with the imprint of those who fell,

Briton and Gaul-but fell immortal friends

And fell victorious and like tall trees fell.

But young men, you who loiter in the

town,

Need you be roused with overshouted words,

Country, Empire, Honour, Liége, Louvain?

Pay your own Youth the duty of her dreams.

For what sleep shall keep her from the thrill

Of War's star-smiting music, with its swell

Of shore and forest and horns high in the wind,

(Yet pierced with that too sharp piping which if man

Hear and not fear he shall face God unscathed)?

What, are you poets whose vain souls contrive