Francis Ledwidge

I will come no more awhile, O Song-time is over. A fire is burning in my heart, I was ever a rover.

You will hear me no more awhile, The birds are dumb, And a voice in the distance calls "Come," and "Come,"

I saw her coming through the flowery grass, Round her swift ankles butterfly and bee Blent loud and silent wings; I saw her pass Where foam-bows shivered on the sunny sea.

Then came the swallow crowding up the dawn, And cuckoo-echoes filled the dewy South. I left my love upon the hill, alone, My last kiss burning on her lovely mouth.

When May is here, and every morn Is dappled with pied bells, And dewdrops glance along the thorn And wings flash in the dells, I take my pipe and play a tune Of dreams, a whispered melody, For feet that dance beneath the moon In fairy jollity.

And when the pastoral hills are grey And the dim stars are spread, A scamper fills the grass like play Of feet where fairies tread. And many a little whispering thing Is calling to the Shee. The dewy bells of evening ring, And all is melody.

The rushes nod by the river As the winds on the loud waves go, And the things they nod of are many, For it's many the secret they know.

And I think they are wise as the fairies Who lived ere the hills were high, They nod so grave by the river To everyone passing by.

If they would tell me their secrets I would go by a hidden way, To the rath when the moon retiring Dips dim horns into the gray.

And a fairy-girl out of Leinster In a long dance I should meet, My heart to her heart beating, My feet in rhyme with her feet.

These have more language than my song, Take them and let them speak for me. I whispered them a secret thing Down the green lanes of Allary.

You shall remember quiet ways Watching them fade, and quiet eyes, And two hearts given up to love, A foolish and an overwise.

Who would hear the fairy horn Calling all the hounds of Finn Must be in a lark's nest born When the moon is very thin.

I who have the gift can hear Hounds and horn and tally ho, And the tongue of Bran as clear As Christmas bells across the snow.

And beside my secret place Hurries by the fairy fox, With the moonrise on his face, Up and down the mossy rocks.

Then the music of a horn And the flash of scarlet men, Thick as poppies in the corn All across the dusky glen.

Oh! the mad delight of chase! Oh! the shouting and the cheer! Many an owl doth leave his place In the dusty tree to hear.

When you come in, it seems a brighter fire Crackles upon the hearth invitingly, The household routine which was wont to tire Grows full of novelty.

You sit upon our home-upholstered chair And talk of matters wonderful and strange, Of books, and travel, customs old which dare The gods of Time and Change.

Till we with inner word our care refute Laughing that this our bosoms yet assails, While there are maidens dancing to a flute In Andalusian vales.

And sometimes from my shelf of poems you take And secret meanings to our hearts disclose, As when the winds of June the mid bush shake We see the hidden rose.

And when the shadows muster, and each tree A moment flutters, full of shutting wings, You take the fiddle and mysteriously Wake wonders on the strings.

And in my garden, grey with misty flowers, Low echoes fainter than a beetle's horn Fill all the corners with it, like sweet showers Of bells, in the owl's morn.

Come often, friend, with welcome and surprise We'll greet you from the sea or from the town; Come when you like and from whatever skies Above you smile or frown.

I saw you and I named a flower That lights with blue a woodland space, I named a bird of the red hour And a hidden fairy place.

And then I saw you not, and knew Dead leaves were whirling down the mist, And something lost was crying through An evening of amethyst.