CELTIC

I love the wild not less than the good.

'T

The Fairy Fiddler

"IS I go fiddling, fiddling,
By weedy ways forlorn ;

I make the blackbird's music
Ere in his breast 'tis born:
The sleeping larks I waken
"Twixt the midnight and the morn.

No man alive has seen me,
But women hear me play
Sometimes at door or window,
Fiddling the souls away,-

The child's soul and the colleen's
Out of the covering clay.

None of my fairy kinsmen

Make music with me now:
Alone the raths I wander

Or ride the whitethorn bough,

But the wild swans they know me,

And the horse that draws the plough.

NORA HOPPER.

The Dawning of the Day

(From the Irish).

AT early dawn I once had been

Where Lene's blue waters flow,

When summer bid the groves be green,
The lamp of light to glow.

As on by bower, and town, and tower,
And wide-spread fields I stray,
I meet a maid in the greenwood shade,
At the dawning of the day.

Her feet and beauteous head were bare,
No mantle fair she wore,

But down her waist fell golden hair
That swept the tall grass o'er;
With milking-pail she sought the vale,
And bright her charms' display,
Outshining far the morning star,
At the dawning of the day.

Beside me sat that maid divine,
Where grassy banks outspread-
'Oh, let me call thee ever mine,
Dear maid,' I sportive said.

'False man, for shame, why bring me blame?' She cried, and burst away —

The sun's first light pursued her flight,

At the dawning of the day.

EDWARD WALsh.

The Wind on the Hills

Go not to the hills of Erinn

When the night winds are about,

Put up your bar and shutter,
And so keep the danger out.

For the good-folk whirl within it,
And they pull you by the hand,
And they push you on the shoulder,
Till you move to their command.

THE WIND ON THE HILLS

you

And lo! you have forgotten
What have known of tears,
And you will not remember
That the world goes full of years.

A year there is a lifetime,
And a second but a day,

And an older world will meet you
Each morn you come away.

Your wife grows old with weeping,
And
your children one by one
Grow grey with nights of watching,
Before your dance is done.

And it will chance some morning
You will come home no more;
Your wife sees but a withered leaf
In the wind about the door.

And your children will inherit
The unrest of the wind,

They shall seek some face elusive,
And some land they never find.

When the wind is loud, they sighing
Go with hearts unsatisfied,

For some joy beyond remembrance,
For some memory denied.

And all your children's children,

They cannot sleep or rest,
When the wind is out in Erinn

And the sun is in the west.

DORA SIGERSON.