H

LULLABY

USHEEN, the herons are crying
Away in the rain and the sleet,
Flying and flying and flying,
With never a rest for their feet.

But warm in your coverlid nestle,
Wee Bird, till the dawn of the day,

Nor dream of the wild wings that wrestle
In the night and the rain and the grey.

Come, sweetheart, the bright ones would bring you

By the magical meadows and streams,

With the light of your dreaming they build you

A house on the hill of your dreams.

But you stir in your sleep and you murmur,
As though the wild rain and the grey
Wet hills, with the wind ever blowing
Had driven your dreams away.

And dearer the wind in its crying,
And the secrets the wet hills hold,

Than the goldenest place they could find you

In the heart of a country of gold.

SEUMAS O'SULLIVAN

SLEEP

HILE sways the restless sea

WH

Beyond the shore,

And the waves sing listlessly

Their secret lore,

And the soft fragrant air

From off the deep

Scarce stirs thine outspread hair,

Sleep!

Far up in purple skies

Great lamps hang out,

White flames that fall and rise

In motley rout;

While fall their silvern rays

O'er crag and steep,

Woodlands and meadow-ways,

Sleep!

While the moon's amber gleams

Gild rock and flow'r,

Let no untimely dreams

Possess the hour;

Let no vague fears the heart 'Mid slumber keep,

In dreams love hath no smart,

Sleep!

WILLIAM SHARP

M

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

Y heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O, for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade into the forest dim.