The Mountainy Singer. Campbell Joseph
sleep among the hills,
The heather is my bed;
I dip the termon-well for drink,
And pull the sloe for bread.
No eye has ever seen me,
But shepherds hear me pass,
Singing at fall of even
Along the shadowed grass.
The beetle is my bellman,
The meadow-fire my guide,
The bee and bat my ambling nags
When I have need to ride.
All know me only the Stranger,
Who sits on the Saxon’s height;
He burned the bacach’s little house
On last Saint Brigid’s Night.
He sups off silver dishes,
And drinks in a golden horn,
But he will wake a wiser man
Upon the Judgment Morn!
I am the gilly of Christ,
The mate of Mary’s Son;
I run the roads at seeding time,
And when the harvest’s done.
The seed I sow is lucky,
The corn I reap is red,
And whoso sings the Gilly’s Rann
Will never cry for bread.
GO, PLOUGHMAN, PLOUGH
Go, ploughman, plough
The mearing lands,
The meadow lands,
The mountain lands:
All life is bare
Beneath your share,
All love is in your lusty hands.
Up, horses, now!
And straight and true
Let every broken furrow run:
The strength you sweat
Shall blossom yet
In golden glory to the sun.
GO, REAPER
Go, reaper,
Speed and reap,
Go take the harvest
Of the plough:
The wheat is standing
Broad and deep,
The barley glumes
Are golden now.
Labour is hard,
But it endures
Like love:
The land is yours:
Go reap the life
It gives you now,
O sunbrowned master
Of the plough!
THE GOOD PEOPLE
The millway path looks like a wraith,
The lock is black as ink,
And silently in stream and sky
The stars begin to blink.
I see them pass along the grass
With slow and solemn tread:
Aoibheall, their queen, is in between —
A corpse is at their head!
They wander on with faces wan,
And dirges sad as wind.
I know not, but it may be that
The dead’s of human kind.
THE STORM IS STILL, THE RAIN HATH CEASED
The storm is still, the rain hath ceased
To vex the beauty of the east:
A linnet singeth in the wood
His hermit song of gratitude.
So shall I sing when life is done
To greet the glory of the sun;
And cloud and star and stream and sea
Shall dance for very ecstasy!
SCARE-THE-CROWS
Twopence a day for scaring crows —
Tho’ the rain beats and the wind blows!
The scholars think I’ve little wit,
But, God! I’ve got my share of it.
Why does the gorbing land-shark
Leave ploughed rigs for the green park?
Where little’s to find, and nothing’s to eat
But rabbits’ droppings and pheasants’ meat.
He knows better than come my way
Between the mouth and the tail of day.
For one lick of my hurding wattle
Would lay him out like a showman’s bottle!
And the thoughts that rise in my crazed head
When the cloud is low and the wind’s dead.
Where you see only clay and stones
I see swords and blanching bones..
But I’ll leave you now – it’s gone six,
And the smoke is curling over the ricks.
And it’s hardly like that the land-shark
Will trouble the furrows after dark.
A CRADLE-SONG
Sleep, white love, sleep,
A cedarn cradle holds thee,
And twilight, like a silver-woven coverlid,
Enfolds thee.
Moon and star keep charmèd watch
Upon thy lying;
Water plovers thro’ the dusk
Are tremulously crying.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.
Sleep, white love, sleep,
The daylight wanes, and deeper
Gathers the blue darkness
O’er the cradle of the sleeper.
Cliodhna’s curachs, carmine-oared,
On Loch-da-linn are gleaming;
Blind bats flutter thro’ the night,
And carrion birds are screaming.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.
Sleep, white love, sleep,
The holy mothers, Anne and Mary,
Sit high in heaven, dreaming
On the seven ends of Eire.
Brigid sits beside them,
Spinning lamb-white wool on whorls,
Singing fragrant songs of love
To little naked boys and girls.
Sleep,