Mary Ruane by James Stephens • Simple Poetry

Mary Hynes

    She is the sky of the sun,
        She is the dart
            Of love,
    She is the love of my heart,
    She is a rune,
            She is above
    The women of the race of Eve
    As the sun is above the moon.

    Lovely and airy the view from the hill
        That looks down Ballylea;
    But no good sight is good until
        By great good luck you see
    The Blossom of the Branches walking towards you
        Airily.

James Stephens

The Water-Maid.

There she rose as white as death,
Stars above and stars beneath;
Where the ripples brake in splendor
To a million, million starlets
Twinkling on lake-lilies tender,
Rocking to the ripple barlets.
She, brow-belted with white lilies,
Rose and oared a shining shoulder
To a downward-purpling boulder:
With slim fingers soft and milky,
Haled her from the spray-sprent lilies
To a ledge, and sitting silky
Sang unto the list'ning lilies,
Sang and sang beneath the heaven,
Belted, wreathed with lilies seven;
Falsely sang a wild, wild ditty
    To a wool-white moon;
Till a child both frail and pretty
Found her singing on the boulder, -
Dark locks on a milky shoulder, -
    'Neath the wool-white moon.
And the creature singing there
Strangled h...

Madison Julius Cawein

Mary Hume. A Ballad.

"He will come to night," young Mary said,
    And checked the rising sigh;
And gazed on the stars that o'er her head
    Shone out in the deep blue sky.
"Heaven speed his voyage!--though absent long,
    The painful vigil's o'er--
The skies are clear--the breeze is strong--
    We meet to part no more!"

While yet she spoke a sudden chill
    O'er her ardent spirit crept;
A sad presentiment of ill--
    She turned away and wept.
Far off the sigh of ocean stole--
    The sweeping of the sounding surge--
In plaintive murmurs o'er her soul,
    Like wailing of a funeral dirge.

And in the wind there is a tone
    Which whispers to her sinking heart--
"Mary we meet in death alone;
    In realms of bliss no more to part."
The moon has ...

Susanna Moodie

Nancy Walsh

    It is not on her gown
    She fears to tread;
    It is her hair
    Which tumbles down
    And strays
    About her ways
    That she must care.

    And she lives nigh this place:
    The dead would rise
    If they could see her face;
    The dead would rise
    Only to hear her sing:
    But death is blind, and gives not ear nor eye
    To anything.

    We would leave behind
    Both wife and child,
    And house and home;
    And wander blind,
    And wander thus,
    And ever roam,
    If she would come to us
    In Erris.

    Softly she said to me,
    Be patient till the night comes,
    And I will go with thee.

James Stephens

Mary's Dream

    The moon had climbed the eastern hill
    Which rises o'er the sands of Dee,
    And from its highest summit shed
    A silver light on tower and tree,
    When Mary laid her down to sleep
    (Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea);
    When soft and low a voice was heard,
    Saying, 'Mary, weep no more for me.'


    She from her pillow gently raised
    Her head, to see who there might be,
    And saw young Sandy, shivering stand
    With visage pale and hollow e'e.
    'Oh Mary dear, cold is my clay;
    It lies beneath the stormy sea;
    Far, far from thee, I sleep in death.
    Dear Mary, weep no more for me.


    'Three stormy nights and stormy days
    We tossed upon the raging main.
    And long we strove our bark to sa...

Louisa May Alcott

The Fisher's Wife.

A long, low waste of yellow sand
Lay shining northward far as eye could reach,
Southward a rocky bluff rose high
Broken in wild, fantastic shapes.
Near by, one jagged rock towered high,
And o'er the waters leaned, like giant grim,
Striving to peer into the mysteries
The ocean whispers of continually,
And covers with her soft, treacherous face.
For the rest, the sun was sinking low
Like a great golden globe, into the sea;
Above the rock a bird was flying
In dizzy circles, with shrill cries,
And on a plank floated from some wreck,
With shreds of musty seaweed
Clinging to it yet, a woman sat
Holding a child within her arms;
A sweet-faced woman - looking out to sea
With dark, patient eyes, and singing to the child,
And this the song she in the sunse...

Marietta Holley

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