The dark is full of whispers. Now A fox-hound howls: and through the night, Like some old ghost from out its grave, The moon comes misty white. Madison Cawein THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow And they sigh if the wind but lift up a tress. And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. · William Butler Yeats I AM THE MOUNTAINY SINGER I am the mountainy singer The voice of the peasant's dream, The cry of the wind on the wooded hill, Quiet and love I sing The carn on the mountain crest, The child at its mother's breast. Beauty and peace I sing The fire on the open hearth, The cailleach spinning at her wheel, Travail and pain I sing The bride on the childing bed, The dark man laboring at his rhymes, Sorrow and death I sing The canker come on the corn, The fisher lost in the mountain loch, No other life I sing, For I am sprung of the stock That broke the hilly land for bread, And built the nest in the rock! Her brood gone from her, Under a ruined mill. ·Joseph Campbell (Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil) TRANSIENCE Nay, do not grieve tho' life be full of sadness, Nay, do not pine, tho' life be dark with trouble, Nay, do not weep; new hopes, new dreams, new faces, Will prove your heart a traitor to its sorrow, Sarojini Naidu ENAMORED ARCHITECT OF AIRY RHYME Enamored architect of airy rhyme, Build as thou wilt, heed not what each man says: Good souls, but innocent of dreamers' ways, Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time; Others, beholding how thy turrets climb 'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days; But most beware of those who come to praise. And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all; I SHALL BE LOVED AS QUIET THINGS I shall be loved as quiet things Are loved-white pigeons in the sun, The silver reticence of smoke That tells no secret of its birth Among the fiery agonies. That turn the earth; Cloud-islands; reaching arms of trees; The thunder of my heart must go For it has hammered loud enough, When I am dead. Karle Wilson Baker FALLING ASLEEP1 Voices moving about in the quiet house: Out in the night there's autumn-smelling gloom That roared in wild wet gales: across the park The hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon, The low, red, rising moon. The herons call And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these; 1 By permission, from Picture-Show. Copyright by E. P. Dutton & Company. |