My precious grand-child, aged two,
Is eager to unlace one shoe,
And then the other;
Her cotton socks she'll deftly doff
Despite the mild reproaches of
Her mother.

Around the house she loves to fare,
And with her rosy tootsies bare,
Pit-pat the floor;
And though remonstrances we make
She presently decides to take
Off something more.

Her pinafore she next unties,
And then before we realise,
Her dress drops down;
Her panties and her brassiere,

O Music hast thou only heard
The laughing river, the singing bird,
The murmuring wind in the poplar-trees,--
Nothing but Nature's melodies?
Nay, thou hearest all her tones,
As a Queen must hear!
Sounds of wrath and fear,
Mutterings, shouts, and moans,
Madness, tumult, and despair,
All she has that shakes the air
With voices fierce and wild!
Thou art a Queen and not a dreaming child,--
Put on thy crown and let us hear thee reign
Triumphant in a world of storm and strain!

Echo the long-drawn sighs

O stony grey soil of Monaghan
The laugh from my love you thieved;
You took the gay child of my passion
And gave me your clod-conceived.

You clogged the feet of my boyhood
And I believed that my stumble
Had the poise and stride of Apollo
And his voice my thick tongued mumble.

You told me the plough was immortal!
O green-life conquering plough!
The mandril stained, your coulter blunted
In the smooth lea-field of my brow.

You sang on steaming dunghills
A song of cowards' brood,
You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,

Still falls the Rain---
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss---
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet

On the Tomb:
Still falls the Rain

In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.

Still falls the Rain

Bees may be trusted, always,
to discover the best, nay, the only

human, solution. Let me cite

an instance; an event, that,

though occurring in nature, is still
in itself wholly abnormal. I refer

to the manner in which the bees

will dispose of a mouse
or a slug

that may happen to have found its way
into the hive.

The intruder killed,

they have to deal with

I took a boat on a starry night
and went for a row on the water,
and she danced like a child on a wake of light
and bowed where the ripples caught her.

I vowed, as I rowed on the velvet blue
through the night and the starry spendour
to woo and sue a maiden I know
till she bent to my pleading tender.

My painted boat she was light and glad
and gladder my heart was wishing,
and I came in time to a little lad
who stood on the rocks a-fishing.

I said "Ahoy!" and he said "Ahoy"!

Star of the East, that long ago
Brought wise men on their way
Where, angels singing to and fro,
The Child of Bethlehem lay--
Above that Syrian hill afar
Thou shinest out to-night, O Star!

Star of the East, the night were drear
But for the tender grace
That with thy glory comes to cheer
Earth's loneliest, darkest place;
For by that charity we see
Where there is hope for all and me.

Star of the East! show us the way
In wisdom undefiled
To seek that manger out and lay
Our gifts before the child--

Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed.
O lead me to Jehovah's child
Across this dreamland lone and wild,
Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,
And kiss his little haloed head —
"My star and I, we love thee, little child."

Except the Christ be born again to-night
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,

Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?
Are we the sons by whom are borne
The mantles which the dead have worn?

And shall we crouch above these graves,
With craven soul and fettered lip?
Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,
And tremble at the driver's whip?
Bend to the earth our pliant knees,
And speak but as our masters please?

Shall outraged Nature cease to feel?
Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow?

Attend my words, my gentle knave,
And you shall learn from me
How boys at dinner may behave
With due propriety.

Guard well your hands: two things have been
Unfitly used by some;
The trencher for a tambourine,
The table for a drum.

We could not lead a pleasant life,
And 'twould be finished soon,
If peas were eaten with the knife,
And gravy with the spoon.

Eat slowly: only men in rags
And gluttons old in sin