Thomas MacDonagh

Over all the mountains is rest;
In all the tree tops the faint west
Scarce stirs a bough.
The nestlings hush their song.…

Time on her face has writ
A hundred years,
And all the page of it
Blurred with his tears;Yet in his holiest crypt…

I heard a music sweet to-day,
A simple olden tune,
And thought of yellow leaves of May
And bursting buds of June,…

The yellow bittern that never broke out
In a drinking bout, might as well have drunk;
His bones are thrown on a naked stone
Where he lived alone like a hermit monk.…

In summer time, under the leaves, in Calm
Of middle country, sweet it is to be
Alone amid the old monotony
Of sabbath Peace, which, holy as a Psalm…

To her who first unmade a poet and gave
Love and unrest instead of barren art,
Who dared to bring him joy and then to brave
The anger and the anguish of his heart,Knowing the heart would serve her still; and then…

The house in the wood beside the lake
That I once knew well I must know no more
My slow feet other paths must take --
How soon would they reach the old known door!…

O bursting bud of joy
I pluck thee in thy flower!
Fast I plant thee in my breast
To bloom and bloom for ever.I lived without thee long,…

Love is cruel, love is sweet,--
Cruel, sweet.
Lovers sigh till lovers meet,
Sigh and meet--…

An old man weeps
And a young man sorrows
While a child is busy with his gladness.
The old shall cheer…

At home the doves are sporting, the Summer is nigh--
Oh, blossoms of April set in the crowns of the trees!--
On the streams the cresses, clustering, knotted, lie,
And the hives are bursting with spoil of the honey bees.Rich there in worth and in fruit is a forest fine;…

Last night I dreamt I was in hell;
In waking dread I dream it yet;
I feel the gloom, my brow is wet;
My soul is prisoner of the spell.Hell, gloomy, still, -- no fire, no cry.…

Will you gaze after the dead, gaze into the grave?--
Strain your eyes in the darkness, knowing it vain?
Strain your voice in the silence that never gave
To any voice of yours an answer again?She whom you loved long years is dead, and you…

Crave no more that antique rapture
Now in alien song to reach:
Here uncouth you cannot capture
Gracious truth of Attic speech.Utterly the flowers perish,…

After a year of love
Death of love in a day;
And I who ever strove
To hold love in sure life…

I love thee, April! for thou art the Spring
When Spring is Summer; and thy wayward showers,
Sudden and short, soothly do bring May flowers,
Thus making thee a harbinger, whose wing…

I stood beside the postern here,
High up above the trampling sea,
In shadow, shrinking from the spear
Of light, not daring hence to flee.The moon beyond the western cliff…

My love to-night, her arm across her face,
Has wept for me, wandering she knows not where,
And wept the while she suffered his embrace,
Letting him think she wept for other care.Weep, O my love, for your own piteous fate,…

I, Adam, saw this life begin
And lived in Eden without sin,
Until the fruit of knowledge I ate
And lost my gracious primal state.I, Nero, fiddled while Rome burned:…

-- O Druimfhionn Donn Dilis!
O Silk of the Kine!
Where goest thou for sleeping?
What pastures are thine?…

I wish I were to-day on the hill behind the wood,--
My eyes on the brown bog there and the Shannon river,--
Behind the wood at home, a quickened solitude
When the winds from Slieve Bloom set the branches there a-quiver.The winds are there now and the green of May…

Babylon is passed away,
Dublin's day must now begin;
On the hill above the bay
Make your mansion, pray and sin.Pray for grace yourself to be,…

There was a young king who was sad,
And a young queen who was lonely:
They lived together their busy life,
Known to each other only,--Known to each other with strange love,…

O spirits heaven born!
O kind De Danann souls,
Whose music down our story rolls,
And holds it near the morn,You stir the poet heart…