Classic Poem

" I saw you, Love, from the sheepfield that is white
With mushrooms and you like an apple bough
Blossoming by the stonewall in the bright
Early sunshine."
" It is misting now."

" The rainy seawind's gone. It will be fine.
Look! there's not any cloud but on the brow
Of Beann Gulbain. They'll climb there to-day,
And search the ancient forest of black pine
Where the night is mildewed, for the dead
Body — "
" O you are wet!"
— " The stepping-stones
In the river were slippery — They say
That there were spells on him, it was foretold
And the bacach that talks at the water's edge
All night, was pulling up the muddied sedge
In the dawnlight as I passed, and he spat out
And began to swing his hairy arms and shout
That he knew and he knew, he knew he knew
It was more than a mountainy pig that slew
Diarmuid O Duibhne."


" When I woke up
I heard two cailleachs talking from bed to bed
And one muttered " It was like the night
When we were young girls. " " And our skin was white
And we'd be washing it in the streams " the other wheezed.
" The shadows were going by all night " they said,
" And they were singing, singing, and a hurt thing
Was weeping somewhere! " Then one turned and seized
Me and cried " Be off, young pry. " "
" If I were there!"

" And I saw poor Grainne in the sunlight
Wrinkled and ugly. I do not think she slept.
My mother says that she was beautiful
Proud, white, and a queen's daughter long ago,
And that they were great lovers in the old days —
Before she was married — and lived in hilly woods
Until they wearied.
I do not want to grow so old like her.
O it is best to be young and dance and laugh
And sing all day and comb my sleepy hair
In the startime, and never, never, grow old."
" O shiny Dew
O little wild Bird of the air
Youth only is wisdom and it is love."