Acceptation ESTABLISH in some better way My life, thou Godhead! that I may Know it as virtue ranks To scorn Thy gifts, or give Thee thanks. For now I feel Thee near, unsought. No mountings of the spirit please; JOHN EGLINTON. The Wings of Love I WILL row my boat on Muckross Lake when the grey of the dove Comes down at the end of the day; and a quiet like prayer In the silence of love, broken only by trout that spring And are gone, like a fairy's finger that casts a ring With the luck of the world for the hand that can hold it fast. I will rest on my oars, my eyes on your eyes, till our thoughts have passed From the lake and the sky and the rings of the jumping fish; Till our ears are filled from the reeds with a sudden swish, And a sound like the beating of flails in the time of corn. We shall hold our breath while a wonderful thing is born From the songs that were chanted by bards in the days gone by; For a wild white swan shall be leaving the lake for the sky, With the curve of her neck stretched out in a silver spear. Oh! then when the creak of her wings shall have brought her near, We shall hear again a swish, and a beating of flails, And a creaking of oars, and a sound like the wind in sails, swans To fly round the ring of the heavens, through the dusks and the dawns, Unseen by all but true lovers, till judgment day, Because they had loved for love only. O love! I will say, For a woman and man with eternity ringing them round, And the heavens above and below them, a poor thing it is to be bound To four low walls that will spill like a pedlar's pack, And a quilt that will run into holes, and a churn that will dry and crack. Oh! better than these, a dream in the night, or our heart's mute prayer That O'Donoghue, the enchanted man, should pass between water and air, And say, I will change them each to a wild white swan, Like the lovers Angus and Midir, and their loved ones, Caer and Etain, Because they have loved for love only, and have searched through the shadows of things For the Heart of all hearts, through the fire of love, and the wine of love, and the wings. JAMES H. COUSINS. |