A Poem To Be Said on Hearing the Birds Sing

AFRAGRANT prayer upon the air
My child taught me,

Awaken there, the morn is fair,
The birds sing free;

Now dawns the day, awake and pray,
And bend the knee;

The Lamb who lay beneath the clay
Was slain for thee.

Translated by DR. DOUGLAS HYDE.

The Song of the Old Mother

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.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.

On Waking

SLEEP, gray brother of death,

Has touched me,

And passed on.

I arise, facing the east-
Pearl-doored sanctuary
From which the light,
Hand-linked with dew and fire,
Dances.

Hail, essence, hail!

Fill the windows of my soul

With beauty:

Pierce and renew my bones:
Pour knowledge into my heart
As wine.

Cualann is bright before thee.

Its rocks melt and swim:

The secret they have kept

From the ancient nights of darkness
Flies like a bird.

What mourns?

Cualann's secret flying.

A lost voice

In endless fields.

What rejoices?

My voice lifted praising thee.

Praise! Praise! Praise !

Praise out of the trumpets, whose brass Is the unyoked strength of bulls;

Praise upon the harp, whose strings
Are the light movement of birds;
Praise of leaf, praise of blossom,
Praise of the red-fibred clay;
Praise of grass,

Fire-woven veil of the temple;
Praise of the shapes of clouds;
Praise of the shadows of wells;
Praise of worms, of fetal things,
And of things in time's thought
Not yet begotten.

To thee, queller of sleep,

Looser of the snare of death.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL.

A Day in Ireland

FOUR sharp scythes sweeping-in concert keeping
The rich-robed meadow's broad bosom o'er,
Four strong men mowing, with bright health glowing
A long green swath spread each man before;
With sinews springing—my keen blade swinging,—
I strode the fourth man in that blithe band;
As stalk of corn that summer morn,

The scythe felt light in my stalwart hand.

Oh, King of Glory! How changed my story,
Since in youth's noontide-long, long ago,
I mowed that meadow-no cloudy shadow
Between my brow and the hot sun's glow;
Fair girls raking the hay-and making

The fields resound with their laugh and glee,
Their voices ringing-than cuckoo's singing,
Made music sweeter by far to me.

Bees hovered over the honied clover,
Then nestward hied upon wings of light;
No use in trying to trace them flying-
One brief low hum and they're out of sight,
On downy thistle bright insects nestle,
Or flutter skyward on painted wings,
At times alighting on flowers inviting-
'Twas pleasant watching the airy things.