When love and grief were ended
        The flower of pity grew;
By unseen hands ’twas tended
        And fed with holy dew.

Though in his heart were barred in
        The blooms of beauty blown;
Yet he who grew the garden
        Could call no flower his own.

For by the hands that watered,
        The blooms that opened fair
Through frost and pain were scattered
        To sweeten the dull air.

—­February 15, 1895

The Breath of Light

From the cool and dark-lipped furrows
        breathes a dim delight
Aureoles of joy encircle
        every blade of grass
Where the dew-fed creatures silent
        and enraptured pass: 
And the restless ploughman pauses,
        turns, and wondering
Deep beneath his rustic habit
        finds himself a king;
For a fiery moment looking
        with the eyes of God
Over fields a slave at morning
        bowed him to the sod. 
Blind and dense with revelation
        every moment flies,
And unto the Mighty Mother
        gay, eternal, rise
All the hopes we hold, the gladness,
        dreams of things to be. 
One of all they generations,
        Mother, hails to thee! 
Hail! and hail! and hail for ever: 
        though I turn again
For they joy unto the human
        vestures of pain. 
I, thy child, who went forth radiant
        in the golden prime
Find thee still the mother-hearted
        through my night in time;
Find in thee the old enchantment,
        there behind the veil
Where the Gods my brothers linger,
        Hail! for ever, Hail!

—­May 15, 1895

The Free

They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;
        Life girdled them round and about;
They slept in the clefts of the mountains: 
        The stars called them forth with a shout.

They prayed, but their worship was only
        The wonder at nights and at days,
As still as the lips of the lonely
        Though burning with dumbness of praise.

No sadness of earth ever captured
        Their spirits who bowed at the shrine;
They fled to the Lonely enraptured
        And hid in the Darkness Divine.

At twilight as children may gather
        They met at the doorway of death,
The smile of the dark hidden Father
        The Mother with magical breath.

Untold of in song or in story,
        In days long forgotten of men,
Their eyes were yet blind with a glory
        Time will not remember again.

—­November 15, 1895

Songs of Olden Magic—­IV

The Magi

“The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan.” 
—­Old Celtic Poem