Classic Poem

The hour of the player
Begins with a star
And men built a blaze
To double the pillar
In the house of mead:
But the music of Craftinë
Was blown with the laughter
Of his wife as she fled.

Evening was paler
Than leaves of the foxglove,
When from sedges of forest,
It happened those lovers,
Who had come to the water
Where moonlight was mooring,
Unfastened the saddle
And thought to have rest.

Where the otter
Sank into jewels,
By the ferries of forest
They heard strange music
Cross: one of them wept
For, at Tara, she knew
Her husband was playing on
The hole-headed flute.

She wept, for her lover
Was drawn by the music
Halfway to the shore,
Where pebbles had thickened
The moonlight, and knew
That shadowy women,
With pale lips imploring
Him, rose from the lake.

They hurry, forever,
Where forests are felled
By lake-water, they
Have no rest from the fluting
And though they are shadows,
He dreams of strange beauty
And she weeps to herself
As they fade in the dew.