Plain and mountain dream, entranced in subtle splendour;

Bog and moorland, still the same,

Gleam, through miles of glowing light and shadows tender,

In the palpitating flame.

IV.

And the sunset-wind comes wandering out of dreamland,

That dreamland where I wandered long ago— With whispering in my ear and ghostly singing,

Druid words and dirge-like music sweet and low; Comes from far away where lilies white are sailing On waters vast and cool,

Comes o'er cotton-grass and myrtle softly wailing,
And through rushes of the pool.

V.

In the bog stand three lonely pine-trees,

Waifs of fortune planted there by Fate's grim choice,

And the wind wails o'er the bog, and in their branches,

And thrills me with solitary voice;
Like the spirit of an ancient desolation
It comes wailing o'er the West,
And the burden of its ancient lamentation

Is echoed in my breast.

VI.

The wind wails o'er the bog and in the pine-trees
With an Irish note of sorrow, soft and wild,

And old memories of dead days come with its wailing,
Till the heart in me is wailing like a child.
It wafts to me the smell of turf-sods, burning
In some cabin far away,

And the home-like Irish odour leaves me yearning
For a hearth-cold many a day.

VII.

O the story of my home, the dismal story-
The story of a thousand homes like mine:

The four walls in their grave-grass, cold the hearthstone,

Dead my kin, or driven like felons o'er the brine! Raise the keene, O wind, for Ireland's ancient sorrow, O'er the desolated West!

Raise the keene for our dead hopes of her to-morrow, The pale treasures of my breast!

VIII.

Yet, like remembered kisses of my mother,

I feel each Irish sight, and scent, and sound,
Like her love I feel the tender Irish twilight
With tender consolation clasp me round.
O the magical dear beauty of this lone land!
O its welcome sad and wild!

To the mother's breast of Ireland-of my own land,
I come weeping like a child.

An Irish Love Song.

I.

Oн come to me in the morning, white Swan of a thousand Charms,

Or come to me in the passion of day, the rapture

of noon,

Or come to me in the twilight hour, sweet Longing of my Arms,

In the hush when day kisses night, our two hearts beating in tune!

II.

The owl-soft wings of Time bring parting of our feet,

But never my heart from yours will wander, come day or night,

And never my lips forget your lips that the world made sweet,

Or my heart the song of its love, in that hour of its young delight!

Ode on a Silver Birch in St. James'

Park.

I.

MUSE, I will show thee, on a grassy mound
Moving with tufted shadows, albeit bare
Herself, for yet young April primes the air
And bloom snow-laden boughs, the tree I love.
London doth compass it with shores of sound
And thrills the buds when there's no breath above
To shake its fountain beauty. Thus I came
Along the courtly mere of thicket isles,
And Spring entoil'd me in a hundred wiles,
Bringing the heart content without a name.
Broods, russet-plumed and emerald, steer'd on
With arrowy wake adown the placid tide
And in that gloomy pool there rode enskied,
Aloof, the stately languor of a swan.

But now the lake sets hither with a breeze

And crooks the peel'd bole of its planes. Ah, there
Thou shalt find audience-yon's my shadowy love!—
O'er head a rose-grey pigeon beat his wings
About his 'lighted mate, and wooed the bough
And passion born of sight of mortal things
In warmth of living, moved and moves me now
As from the careless height that sways above
Floateth his voice, the soul of greening trees.

II.

Approaching 'twixt the herald saplings pale
Whose light arrayment is a whirl of green
Of flamelets dropping for a virgin veil,

I come. Though Hades' crocus-jets are stayed,
Soft! for a golden troop instead upsprung
Gossips apart in yon unfooted glade.

Broke we on earshot of that frolic tongue Straightway would all be husht, they being afraid To sing 't to simple ear of mutest maid.

III.

But thou, still silver spirit, unappall'd
Standest alone, and with thy senses dim
Feeling the first warmth fledge the unleafed limb
Hearest not tread of mine, O sun-enthrall'd!
What buried God conceived thee, and forestall'd
In the dull depth thy white and glistening graces
That fume of netted drops and subtle laces
And listening statue-air, by men miscall'd?
Shower o'er the blue, and sister of blown surf!
Dream-daughter of the silences of turf!

Couldst thou but waken and recall the mind
Lifts thee to image, then could I reveal
Wherefore thou seem'st remember'd and I feel
In thee mine own dream risen and divined!

IV.

Surely the hymn that charm'd thee from the grass

Fashion'd me also, and the selfsame lyre

Sounded accords that out of darkness pass
And in thy beauty and my song conspire?