The Man Who Dreamed Of Faeryland

He stood among a crowd at Drumahair; His heart hung all upon a silken dress, And he had known at last some tenderness, Before earth made of him her sleepy care; But when a man poured fish into a pile, It seemed they raised their little silver heads, And sang how day a Druid twilight sheds Upon a dim, green, well-beloved isle, Where people love beside star-laden seas; How Time may never mar their faery vows Under the woven roofs of quicken boughs: The singing shook him out of his new ease.

He wandered by the sands of Lisadill; His mind ran all on money cares and fears, And he had known at last some prudent years Before they heaped his grave under the hill; But while he passed before a plashy place, A lug-worm with its gray and muddy mouth Sang how somewhere to north or west or south There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race; And how beneath those three times blessed skies A Danaan fruitage makes a shower of moons, And as it falls awakens leafy tunes: And at that singing he was no more wise.

He mused beside the well of Scanavin, He mused upon his mockers: without fail His sudden vengeance were a country tale, Now that deep earth has drunk his body in; But one small knot-grass growing by the pool Told where, ah, little, all-unneeded voice! Old Silence bids a lonely folk rejoice, And chaplet their calm brows with leafage cool, And how, when fades the sea-strewn rose of day, A gentle feeling wraps them like a fleece, And all their trouble dies into its peace: The tale drove his fine angry mood away.

He slept under the hill of Lugnagall; And might have known at last unhaunted sleep Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep, Now that old earth had taken man and all: Were not the worms that spired about his bones A-telling with their low and reedy cry, Of how God leans His hands out of the sky, To bless that isle with honey in His tones; That none may feel the power of squall and wave And no one any leaf-crowned dancer miss Until He burn up Nature with a kiss: The man has found no comfort in the grave.

THE DEDICATION TO A BOOK OF STORIES SELECTED FROM THE IRISH NOVELISTS

There was a green branch hung with many a bell When her own people ruled in wave-worn Eire; And from its murmuring greenness, calm of faery, A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile, And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle, And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle, For all who heard it dreamed a little while.

Ah, Exiles wandering over many seas, Spinning at all times Eire's good to-morrow! Ah, worldwide Nation, always growing Sorrow! I also bear a bell branch full of ease.

I tore it from green boughs winds tossed and hurled, Green boughs of tossing always, weary, weary! I tore it from the green boughs of old Eire, The willow of the many-sorrowed world.

Ah, Exiles, wandering over many lands! My bell branch murmurs: the gay bells bring laughter, Leaping to shake a cobweb from the rafter; The sad bells bow the forehead on the hands.

A honeyed ringing: under the new skies They bring you memories of old village faces, Cabins gone now, old well-sides, old dear places; And men who loved the cause that never dies.