قراءة كتاب Sprays of Shamrock
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 3
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This is the hill of Maeve, the queen,
A mighty bulwark of gray-green
Whereon was set, by hands unknown,
A rugged monument of stone.
The great winds mourn, and sobs the wave
Beneath the lichened cairn of Maeve.
II
From many a rocky Leitrim height
O’er Lough Gill’s waters, blue and bright,
From where Benbulbin fronts the foam,
And sees the Sligo ships put home,
Maeve’s hill is like a pharos flame,
As is eternally her name!
III
’Neath azure tides of morning air
Ripple the waves of Ballysadare
Looks far to sea, remembering
Maeve’s loveliness, a vanished thing.
IV
The cromlechs, gray with eld, below,
Recall the dreams of long ago,—
The dreams of kern and king, both slave
To beauty, and the white Queen Maeve;
And though she slumbers, deep, so deep,
Her golden memory may not sleep!
[p 7]
AT KILLYBEGS
At Killybegs above the crags
The gray gulls pipe with voices thinned,
And all the green trees are like flags
That wave and waver in the wind.
At Killybegs about the dunes
Rustle the crispy grass and whin,
And low the long tide croons and croons
As it creeps out, as it creeps in.
At Killybegs the white sails race
When the blue sea is like a floor;
Like doubt night falls with haggard face;
Sometimes the ships return no more.
The brown bee drains the cottage flowers
Of honey to their crimson dregs,
And love hath many happy hours
’Twixt birth and death at Killybegs!
[p 8]
THE CRIPPLE
I have dreams of the outer islands,
Firths and forths of the Far-Away;
I have dreams of the heathery highlands
Under the golden day.
I have dreams of a sliding river—
Shannon—under the stars and sun;
I have dreams how the oar-blades quiver,
And the silvery salmon run.
I have dreams of a blithe lad striding
Out through the streets of Limerick-town;
I have dreams of a sweet maid biding
Under a thatch of brown.
But here I lie all huddled and hidden,
(Oh, the eternity it seems!)
Brooding desolate and bed-ridden,
Living only in dreams!
[p 9]
AN EXILE
I can remember the plaint of the wind on the moor,
Crying at dawning, and crying at shut of the day,
And the call of the gulls that is eerie and dreary and dour,
And the sound of the surge as it breaks on the beach of the bay.
I can remember the thatch of the cot and the byre,
And the green of the garth just under the dip of the fells,
And the low of the kine, and the settle that stood by the fire,
And the reek of the peat, and the redolent heathery smells.
And I long for it all though the roses around me are red,
And the arch of the sky overhead has bright blue for a lure,
And glad were the heart of me, glad, if my feet could but tread
The path, as of old, that led upward and over the moor!
[p 10]
ABBEYDORNEY
Abbeydorney, Abbeydorney,
Long ago thy race was run,
Prone thou art ’mid thickets thorny,
Shrine of Kyrie Eleison!
Scarcely now a wild rose petal
The neglected cloister owns,
And the flaunting dock and nettle
Wave above the chancel stones.
Once through Kerry twilights tender
Vesper bells their anthems tolled,
And ’mid chants, in churchly splendor,
Princely abbots were enrolled.
Tall Fitz Maurice with his crozier,
O’Clonarchy of Lismore,
They are less now than the osier
Swaying by the Cashen’s shore!
Only when the moon is hidden,
Only when the moor-winds rave,
Eerily arise unbidden
Ghostly transept, ghostly nave.
March the bent monks one by one,
Singing to the sway of censer,
Kyrie—Kyrie Eleison!
So, amid thy thickets thorny,
All thy state and glory seem,
Abbeydorney, Abbeydorney,
Like a dim and fleeting dream!
[p 12]
A SONG FOR JOYCE’S COUNTRY
O a song for Joyce’s Country, where the grim wild mountains be,
And the wind wails over the moorland as the wind wails over the sea,
Where the new moon’s silver sickle sees little of grain to reap,
And the wraith of the mist goes creeping as soft as the feet of sleep!
O a song for Joyce’s Country, and the lonely loughs that lie,
Wrapt in the cloak of silence, under the great gray sky;
For the glens that have held in keeping for more than a thousand springs
The ancient Druid wonders and the secrets of the kings!