梓 420

ALTHOUGH you hide in the ebb and flow  

Of the pale tide when the moon has set,  

The people of coming days will know  

About the casting out of my net,  

And how you have leaped times out of mind      

Over the little silver cords,  

And think that you were hard and unkind,  

And blame you with many bitter words.

OUT-WORN heart, in a time out-worn,  

Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;  

Laugh heart again in the gray twilight,  

Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.  
  

Your mother Eire is always young,        

Dew ever shining and twilight gray;  

Though hope fall from you and love decay,  

Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.  

I WENT out to the hazel wood, 
 
Because a fire was in my head,   

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,   

And hooked a berry to a thread;   

And when white moths were on the wing,        

I RISE in the dawn, and I kneel and blow  

Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;  

And then I must scrub and bake and sweep  

Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;  

And the young lie long and dream in their bed    

Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,  

And their day goes over in idleness,  

And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:  

While I must work because I am old,  

And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. 

I BRING you with reverent hands   

The books of my numberless dreams;   

White woman that passion has worn   

As the tide wears the dove-gray sands,   

And with heart more old than the horn