THE LAND O' THE LEAL

I'm wearing awa', Jean,

Like snaw when it's thaw, Jean,
I'm wearing awa'

To the land o' the leal.
There's nae sorrow there, Jean,
'There's neither cauld nor care, Jean,
The day is aye fair

In the land o' the leal.

Ye were aye leal and true, Jean,
Your task 's ended noo, Jean,
And I'll welcome you

To the land o' the leal.

Our bonnie bairn 's there, Jean,
She was baith guid and fair, Jean;
O we grudged her right sair
To the land o' the leal!

Then dry that tearfu' e'e, Jean,
My soul langs to be free, Jean,
And angels wait on me

To the land o' the leal.

Now fare ye weel, my ain Jean,
This warld's care is vain, Jean;
We'll meet and aye be fain

In the land o' the leal.

- Carolina Nairne

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:

The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sate the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;

And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,

And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sate by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, (Laughed while he sate by the river,)

"The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed." Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!

Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!

The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,

Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

EVENING IN ENGLAND

From its blue vase the rose of evening drops;
Upon the streams its petals float away.
The hills all blue with distance hide their tops
In the dim silence falling on the grey.

A little wind said "Hush!" and shook a spray
Heavy with May's white crop of opening bloom;
A silent bat went dipping up the gloom.

Night tells her rosary of stars full soon;
They drop from out her dark hand to her knees.
Upon a silhouette of woods, the moon

Leans on one horn as if beseeching ease

From all her changes which have stirred the seas Across the ears of Toil, Rest throws her veil.

I and a marsh bird only make a wail.

- Francis Ledwidge

A LITTLE BOY IN THE MORNING

He will not come, and still I wait.
He whistles at another gate
Where angels listen. Ah, I know
He will not come; yet if I go,
How shall I know he did not pass
Barefooted in the flowery grass?

The moon leans on one silver horn
Above the silhouettes of morn,

And from their nest sills, finches whistle
Or stooping pluck the downy thistle.
How is the morn so gay and fair
Without his whistling in its air?

The world is calling, I must go.
How shall I know he did not pass
Barefooted in the shining grass?

- Francis Ledwidge

BEHIND THE CLOSED EYE

I walk the old frequented ways

That wind around the tangled braes, I live again the sunny days

Ere I the city knew.

And scenes of old again are born,

The woodbine lassoing the thorn,

And drooping Ruth-like in the corn
The poppies weep the dew.

Above me in their hundred schools

The magpies bend their young to rules, And like an apron full of jewels

The dewy cobweb swings.

And frisking in the stream below

The troutlets make the circles flow,

And the hungry crane doth watch them grow
As a smoker does his rings.

Above me smokes the little town,

With its whitewashed walls and roofs of brown
And its octagon spire toned smoothly down.
As the holy minds within.

And wondrous impudently sweet,

Half of him passion, half conceit, The blackbird calls adown the street Like the piper of Hamelin.

I hear him, and I feel the lure

Drawing me back to the homely moor,

I'll go and close the mountains' door

On the city's strife and din.

- Francis Ledwidge

"FROST TO-NIGHT"

Apple-green west and an orange bar,

And the crystal eye of a lone, one star . . .
And "Child, take the shears and cut what you will.
Frost to-night- so clear and dead-still."