At ten years old he went to sea, To bring us news, and she never came back. Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more Since that old ship went out of the bay With my great-hearted brother on her deck: I watched him till he shrank to a speck, And his face was toward me all the way. Bright his hair was, a golden brown, The time we stood at our mother's knee; That beauteous head, if it did go down, Carried sunshine into the sea! Out in the fields one summer night, We were together, half afraid Of the corn leaves' rustling, and of the shade Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,Loitering till after the low, little light Of the candle shone through the open door, And over the haystack's pointed top, All of a tremble, and ready to drop, The first half-hour, the great yellow star That we, with our staring, ignorant eyes, Had often and often watched to see Propped and held in its place in the skies By the fork of a tall, red mulberry tree, Which close in the edge of our flax field grew,— Dead at the top-just one branch full Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool From which it tenderly shook the dew Over our heads, when we came to play In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day. Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs; The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, Not so big as a straw of wheat; The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat, At last we stood at our mother's knee. I think 'twas solely mine, indeed; But that's no matter - paint it so: Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though That you on the canvas are to repeat You, sir, know Things that are fairest, things most sweet, Woods, and cornfields, and mulberry tree, The mother her lads, with their bird, at her knee; But, oh! that look of reproachful woe! High as the heavens your name I'll shout, THE FAIRIES. (SONG FOR CHILDREN.) BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. [Irish songwright; born Ballyshannon, County Donegal, in 1828; son of a local banker, clerk in the bank some years, then in the customs; assistant editor Fraser's Magazine, 1870–1874, then chief editor succeeding Froude; died 1889. He published "Poems" (1850); "Day and Night Songs" (1854); "Lawrence Bloomfield; or, Richard Poor in Ireland" (1864); two anthologies (1862 and 1865); "The Rambles of Patricius Walker" (1872), in Fraser's Magazine; Ashby Manor," a play (1882); etc.] 66 UP THE airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, And white owl's feather. |