She breathed divinity into his heart, The puny poison of its little throes. Her miracles of motion, butterflies, Seen in the mirror of a drop of dew, He loved as friends and as a friend he knew. The dust of gold and scarlet underwings More precious was to him than nuggets torn From all invaded treasure-crypts of time, And every floating, painted, silver beam Drew him to roses where it stayed to dream, Or down sweet avenues of scented lime. No cunning trill, no mazy shake that rang But in his glory, as a young pure priest He listened long, then pointed up above; Laughed a low laugh of boundless joy and love That was a plover called, he softly said, And on his wife's breast fell, serenely dead! THE COUNTRY FAITH. Her love is for her lord and child, And unto them belongs her snow; But none can rob me of her wild Young kiss of long ago! TO MY BROTHERS O BROTHERS, who must ache and stoop O'er wordy tasks in London town, How scantly Laura trips for you · A poem in a gown! How rare if Grub-street grew a lawn! How sweet if Nature's lap could spare A dandelion for the Strand, A cowslip for Mayfair ! But here, from immaterial lyres, For ploughmen wending home from toil These living lyrics you may hear Make Ragged Robin wisely bend, They quicken hedgerows with their song, Melodiously unpenned. If souls of mighty singers leave And in some blackbird's bosom still Great Tennyson may sweeten eve And whistle on the hill. Come, brothers, to this clean delight, And sturdy cuckoo-spit: What shepherds hear you shall not miss, The forest musically begs To fan you with its leafy love; O brothers, who must ache and stoop How good if Fleet-street grew a lawn! DAWN AND DARK GOD with His million cares Back from a sphere He came Looked at our world; and the dark A. T. Quiller-Couch THE SPLENDID SPUR NOT on the neck of prince or hound Nor on a woman's finger twin'd, May gold from the deriding ground Keep sacred that we sacred bind : Only the heel Of splendid steel Shall stand secure on sliding fate, When golden navies weep their freight. The scarlet hat, the laurell'd stave Are measures, not the springs, of worth ; In a wife's lap, as in a grave, Man's airy notions mix with earth. Εκλυον ἂν ἐγὼ οὐδ ̓ ἂν ἤλπισ ̓ αὐδάν. WHETHEN is it yourself, Mister Hagan? an' lookin' right hearty you are; "T is a thrate to behold you agin. You'll be waitin' to take the long car For Kilmoyna, the same as meself, sir? They 're late at the cross-roads tonight, For I mind when the days 'ud be long, they'd be here ere the droop of the light, Yet out yonder far over the bog there's the sunset beginnin' to burn Like the red of a camp-fire raked low, and no sign of thim roundin' the turn. So the dark 'll git ahead of us home on this jaunt; we 've good ten mile to go, And thin afther the rain-pours this mornin', we 're apt to be draggin' an' slowAy, you're right, sir: alongside the road I've been thravellin' you'd scarce count that far; You'll cross dark an' light times and agin between Creggan and Kandahar. And is Norah along wid you? Well, Norah jewel, how 's yourself all this year? Sure she's thin grown and white, sir, to what I remember her last time we were here. Took could in the spring? Ah, begorrah, the March win 's as bad as a blight; But the weather we git in Afghanistan, troth, 't would destroy her outright. For in summer Ould Horny seems houldin' the earth in the heat of his hand, And in winther the snow 's the great ghost of a world settled down on the land, Wid a blast keenin' over it fit to be freezin' the sun where he shone ; If they'd lease you that counthry rint-free, you'd do righter to let it alone. Glad enough to be ought of it? Well, in a way, but I've this on me mind, That I'm come like the winther's worst day, after lavin' me betthers behind; An' the nearer I git to the ould place at home, it's the stranger I seem, Missin' thim I'll behold there no more till me furlough I take in a dream. But the divil a dream's in it now, and I'd liefer dream ugly than think What Jack Connolly's folk 'll remember whinever they notice the blink Of me coat past their hedge, and I goin' their road. Jack's poor mother be like 'Ill be feedin' her hins in the door, or else gath'rin' her clothes at the dyke, And it's down to the gate she 'll be runnin' and callin', an' biddin' me step in ; And she 'll say to me : “Well, Dan, you're home, and I'm glad, sure, to see you agin.” Quare an' glad, I'll be bound, wid the thought in her heart of how long she might wait, Ere she'd see her own slip of a redcoat come route-marchin' in at her gate; He that's campin' apart from us, joined wid the throop who shift quarters no more; Crep' in under the tent that's wide worlds beyond call, tho''t was pitched at your door. Ah, the crathur: 't is poor bits of hope folk take up wid whin luck's turnin' bad! She that not so long since 'ud be thinkin' she'd soon git a sight of the lad, There she 'll stand wid her eyes on me face, till I see all as plain's if I heard How she's wond'rin', an dhreadin' to ask, have I brought her so much as a word. That's the notion's come home wid me; faix, I get thinkin' it every odd while, Maybe oft as a lamed horse shrinks his fut in the len❜th of a stony mile. You'll remember Jack Connolly, sir? Ay, for sure, 't is good neighbors you 've been Since he was n't the height of your stick, and meself but a bit of spalpeen. Great the pair of us both were; out most whiles off over the bog and away, But the end of it happint us yonder at sunset last Pathrick's Day. The way of it? Our picket was ridin' in be the wall of the little white town, That's stuck like a blaiched wasps' nest in the gap where the ridge of the hills breaks down, And the big flat plain spreads out and about, you might say 't was a bog gone dhry, Lookin' nathural enough till you notice, pricked up 'gin the light in the sky, Their two thin towers, like an ould snail's horns be the shell of their haythin dome, Peerin' out of a purpose to put you in mind where you've thravelled from home. We were ridin' too close; I remember along on the white of the wall The front men's helmets went bob, bob, bob, in blue shadow, sthretched won'erful tall, For the sunbames were raichin' their furthest aslant from the edge of the day, Where the light ran, dhrained over the earth, like a wave turnin' back to the say, All hot gold. Howane'er, when we past where their straight-archin' door opened black, Wid the dust-thracks they thramp into roads glamin' in at it, off went a crack, And ere ever an echo got rappin' the hills, or the smoke riz to float, 'Twas a plunge, and a thud, and Jack Connolly down wid him, shot in the throat. So be raison of we two bein' neighbors, they bid me mind Jack while they went To make out what the mischief at all the rapscallion that potted him meant ; Some ould objic' wisped up in his rags head and fut, the crow's notice to quit, Wid a quare carabine 'ud scarce fright e'er a bird who'd a scrumption of wit. But it was able enough for that job, and be hanged to it; Jack's business was done, As you could n't misdoubt. All the west swam clear fire round the smooth, redhot sun, Dropped down steady as a shell thro' still wather; but 't would n't be sunk out of sight Ere the lad had got finished wid dyin', and gone beyond darkness and light. And between whiles 't was divil as much could I do to be helpin' him; just Keep beside him, and dhrive the black flybuzz, and lift up his head from the dust, And hear tell had he aught in his mind. But, och man, if his heart was to break, Every whisper of voice he had in him was kilt, not a word could he spake. Sure now that was conthrary. An instant before 't was no odds what he said, And he'd laughed, and he 'd gabbed on galore, any blathers come into his head; But wid on'y a minit to hold all his speech in for ever and a day, Just one breath of a word like a hand raichin' worlds' worlds an' years' years away, 'Tis sthruck dumb he was, same as his crathur of a baste that stood watchin' us there, Wid big eyes shinin' fright, and snuffin' the throuble up out of the air. 'T was a throuble swep' nearer, an' blacker, an' surer; the whole world stood still; You'd as aisy turn back a cloud's shadow, that 's tuk to slide over a hill. There was Jack wid the life failin' out of him fast as the light from the sky, That came fingerin' the grass wid long rays, blade be blade, an' thin twinklin' up high On the gold spark atop their green dome. And I thought to meself how the same Blamed ould sunset 'ud thrapese away to the west till the shine of it came, Flarin' red in the bog-houles, an' bright past the turf-stacks, and in at the door Of the little ould place down the lonin', that Jack 'ud set fut in no more, And 't would dance on their bits of gilt jugs, till they glittered like stars in a row, And the people widin at their suppers ne'er thinkin' no great while ago It was dazzlin' Jack's eyes as he looked for me face wid the last of his sight. And sez I to him, "What is it, lad?" but I knew I might listen all night And no answer; the sorra a chance to be bringin' thim a word we'd ha' found, On'y Jack had more sinse in him yet than meself that was hearty and sound; For he looked towards the rim of the west wid the sun hangin' ready to fall, And he whistled two notes quick and lowwell I knew it: the curlew's call. I'd not aisy mistake it; sure out on these bogs scarce a minit goes by, But anear or afar on the win' comes a flicker of the crathur's cry Faith I heard wan just thin—and on many a day, ere the sun 'ud be up, And around and around stood the gray of the air like a big empty cup Fit to hold every sound ever stirred, and to catch all the light ever shone, I'd be out wid me on to our bogland, all desolit lyin', and lone As they say whin you've watched the low shore till it dips where the ridges rowl green, And I'd spy was there e'er a wan out, and belike not a sowl to be seen Save Jack whistlin' away to me down be the lough; you'd ha' swore 't was the bird, Barrin' just the laste differ; Jack done it the likest that ever I heard. And there's plenty that thry at it. Seldom a sunsit throops out of the west But some lad 'll be whistlin' his sweetheart, that's sittin' and listenin' her best, While the corners grow dark, and she 's reckonin' the shadows for 'fraid he might fail. So his call lit the world like a star. Ne'er a sweetheart had Jack, I'll go bail, For the truth is his mind was tuk up wid his own folk; it could n't be tould The opinion he had and consait of the whole of thim, young wans and ould, |