And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their ~y goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.
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COME round me, little childer;
Because I mutter as I go;But pity Moll Magee.My man was a poor fisherWith shore lines in the say;My work was saltin’ herringsThe whole of the long day.And sometimes from the Saltin’ shedI scarce could drag my feet,Under the blessed moonlight,Along thc pebbly street.I’d always been but weakly,And my baby was just born;A neighbour minded…
Now, man of croziers, shadows called our names
And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,The youth and lady and the deer and hound;‘Gaze no more on the phantoms,’ Niamh said,And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright headAnd her bright body, sang of faery and manBefore God was or my old line began;Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of oldWho wedded men with rings…
A crazy man that found a cup,
Hardly dared to wet his mouthImagining, moon-accursed,That another mouthfulAnd his beating heart would burst.October last I found it tooBut found it dry as bone,And for that reason am I crazedAnd my sleep is gone.
I
Has called up the cold spirits that are bornWhen the old moon is vanished from the skyAnd the new still hides her horn.Under blank eyes and fingers never stillThe particular is pounded till it is man.When had I my own will?O not since life began.Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbentBy these wire-jointed jaws and limbs…
A SUDDEN blow: the great wings beating still
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.How can those terrified vague fingers pushThe feathered glory from her loosening thighs?And how can body, laid in that white rush,But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?A shudder in the loins engenders thereThe broken wall, the burning…
THERE where the course is,
The riders upon the galloping horses,The crowd that closes in behind:We, too, had good attendance once,Hearers and hearteners of the work;Aye, horsemen for companions,Before the merchant and the clerkBreathed on the world with timid breath.Sing on: somewhere at some new moon,We’ll learn that sleeping is not death,Hearing the whole earth change its tune,Its flesh being…