Now my strength is gone from me, I that was adviser to the Fenians, my whole body is tired to-night, my hands, my feet, and my head; tired, tired, tired.

It is bad the way I am after Finn of the Fenians; since he is gone away, every good is behind me.

Without great people, without mannerly ways; it is sorrowful I am after our king that is gone.

I am a shaking tree, my leaves gone from me; an empty nut, a horse without a bridle; a people without a dwelling-place, I Oisin, son of Finn.

It is long the clouds are over me to-night! it is long last night was; although this day is long, yesterday was longer again to me; every day that comes is long to me.

That is not the way I used to be, without fighting, without battles, without learning feats, without young girls, without music, without h...

Long are the days, and three times long the nights.
The weary hours are a heavy chain
Upon the feet of all Earth's dear delights,
Holding them ever prisoners to pain.
What shall beguile me to believe again
In hope, that faith within her parable writes
Of life, care reads with eyes whose tear-drops stain?
Shall such assist me to subdue the heights?
Long is the night, and over long the day. -
The burden of all being! - is it worse
Or better, lo! that they who toil and pray
May win not more than they who toil and curse?
A little sleep, a little love, ah me!
And the slow weigh up the soul's Calvary!

When colour goes home into the eyes,
And lights that shine are shut again
With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries
Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:

Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I'll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them; as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.

My father! Oh! I cannot dwell
On hours when we shall meet again;
I only feel, I only know
That all my prayers for thee were vain.

"Come, brother, take a last farewell;
Soon, soon they'll bear him far away."
"No, sister, no, he is not there,
I parted with him yesterday.

"Our father is in Heaven now,
Forever free from care and pain;
And, if a half-formed wish could bring
His sainted spirit back again,

"The selfish wish I would not breathe;
'Twould cloud with woe that placid brow,
Round which a seraph seems to wreathe
A crown of glory even now.

"How deep the gloom that mantled there!
How sweetly, too, 'twas all withdrawn!
Thus, ever thus, night's darkest hour
Precedes the day's triumphant dawn.

"Oh! while h...

    Invitingly, the sea shines her stars,
    captive flames within an impatient heart
    as darkness loads the pleasent isles with coarseness,
    slow sparks rise over a roaring fire.

    And strolling beaches near dawn
    when the sand fleas & crabs are seen to flee,
    one catches upon the imperfect stillness
    a song of one - wind with sea
    drawning near
    inward, such stars turn
    as bonds at last
    worked free.

Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops,
Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass.
A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing,
Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant,
And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass.

And one old man looks down from a dusty window
And sees the pigeons circling about the fountain
And desires once more to walk among those trees.
Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain.
Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water.
And soon the pond must freeze.

The light wind blows to his ears a sound of laughter,
Young men shuffle their feet, loaf in the sunlight;
A girl’s laugh rings like a silver bell.
But clearer than all these sounds is a sound he hears
More in his secret heart than in his ears,

You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.

The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.

But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true,
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.

Pure as an angel's dream shone Paradise.
Blue mountains hemmed it round; and airy sighs
Of rippling waters haunted it. Dim glades,
And wayward paths o'erflecked with shimmering shades,
And tangled dells, and wilding pleasances,
Hung moist with odors strange from scented trees.
Sweet sounds o'erbrimmed the place; and rare perfumes,
Faint as far sunshine, fell 'mong verdant glooms.
In that fair land, all hues, all leafage green
Wrapt flawless days in endless summer-sheen.
Bright eyes, the violet waking, lifted up
Where bent the lily her deep, fragrant cup;
And folded buds, 'gainst many a leafy spray--
The wild-woods' voiceless nuns--knelt down to pray.
There roses, deep in greenest mosses swathed,
Kept happy tryst with tropic blooms, sun-bathed.
No sounds of sad...

An heritage of hopes and fears
And dreams and memory,
And vices of ten thousand years
God gives to thee.

A house of clay, the home of Fate,
Haunted of Love and Sin,
Where Death stands knocking at the gate
To let him in.

The last walls of shame fell,
And we rejoiced...
And we danced...
And we were blessed with the signing of the peace of the cowards...
Nothing terrifies us any more.
And nothing shames us.
For the veins of pride have dried within us.


Fell...
For the fiftieth time our virginity...
Without being shaken...or crying...
Or being terrified with the sight of blood...
We entered the age of haste...
And stood in lines, like sheep before the guillotine
We ran...and panted..
And raced to kiss the boots of the murderers..


For fifty years they starved our children
And at the end of the fast, they threw to us...
An onion..


Grenada fell
For the fiftieth time
From the Arabs' hands.
History fell from the Arabs' hands....

There is a garden where the seeded stems of thin long grass are bowed
Beneath July's slow rains and heat and tired children's trailing feet;
And the trees' neglected branches droop and make a cloud beneath the cloud,
And in that dark the crimson dew of raspberries shines more sweet than sweet.

The flower of the tall acacia's gone, the acacia's flower is white no more,
The aspen lifts his pithless arms, the aspen leaves are close and still;
The wind that tossed the clouds along, gray clouds and white like feathers bore,
Lets even a feather faintly fall and smoke spread hugely where it will.

But though the acacia's flower is gone and raspberries bear bright fruit untasted,
Beauty lives there, oh rich and rare, past the sum of eager June.
The lime tree's pyramid of flower and leaf...

She knelt upon her brother's grave,
My little girl of six years old,
He used to be so good and brave,
The sweetest lamb of all our fold;
He used to shout, he used to sing,
Of all our tribe the little king,
And so unto the turf her ear she laid,
To hark if still in that dark place he play'd.
No sound! no sound!
Death's silence was profound;
And horror crept
Into her aching heart, and Dora wept.
If this is as it ought to be,
My God, I leave it unto Thee.

When, like a garment flung aside at night,
This body lies, or sculpture of cold rest;
When through its shaded windows comes no light,
And the white hands are folded on its breast;

How will it be with Me, its tenant now?
How shall I feel when first I wander out?
How look on tears from loved eyes falling? How
Look forth upon dim mysteries round about?

Shall I go forth, slow-floating like a mist,
Over the city with its crowded walls?
Over the trees and meadows where I list?
Over the mountains and their ceaseless falls?

Over the red cliffs and fantastic rocks;
Over the sea, far-down, fleeting away;
White sea-birds shining, and the billowy shocks
Heaving unheard their shore-besieging spray?

Or will a veil, o'er all material things
Slow-...

Ah, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
    Ah, woe is me for glory that is past:
    Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,
Glory that at the last bringeth no gain!
So saith the sinking heart; and so again
    It shall say till the mighty angel-blast
    Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast
And showering down the stars like sudden rain.
And evermore men shall go fearfully
    Bending beneath their weight of heaviness;
And ancient men shall lie down wearily,
    And strong men shall rise up in weariness;
Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly
    Saying one to another: How vain it is!

Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on -
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track:
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o'er-brimming deep;
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun,
He is ever drifted on

The narrow, thorny path he trod.
“Enter into My joy,” said God.
The sad ascetic shook his head;
“I’ve lost all taste for joy,” he said.

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing -
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

Oh, unhappy stars! your fate I mourn,

Ye by whom the sea-toss'd sailor's lighted,
Who with radiant beams the heav'ns adorn,

But by gods and men are unrequited:
For ye love not, ne'er have learnt to love!
Ceaselessly in endless dance ye move,
In the spacious sky your charms displaying,

What far travels ye have hasten'd through,
Since, within my loved one's arms delaying,

I've forgotten you and midnight too!