And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear! That only I remember, that only you admire,

Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

847.

IN

In the Highlands

N the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens

Quiet eyes;

Where essential silence chills and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
Her more lovely music

Broods and dies

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
And the low green meadows
Bright with sward;

And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo, the valley hollow
Lamp-bestarr'd!

O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,

Quiet breath!

Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,

Life and death.

UNDER the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

;

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

T. W. ROLLESTON

The Dead at Clonmacnois

b. 1857

849.

FROM THE IRISH OF ANGUS O'GILLAN

Na quiet water'd land, a land of roses,

IN

Stands Saint Kieran's city fair;

And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations
Slumber there.

There beneath the dewy hillside sleep the noblest
Of the clan of Conn,

Each below his stone with name in branching Ogham
And the sacred knot thereon.

There they laid to rest the seven Kings of Tara,
There the sons of Cairbrè sleep—

Battle-banners of the Gael that in Kieran's plain of crosses
Now their final hosting keep.

And in Clonmacnois they laid the men of Teffia,
And right many a lord of Breagh ;

Deep the sod above Clan Creidè and Clan Conaill,
Kind in hall and fierce in fray.

2246

1025

Many and many a son of Conn the Hundred-Fighter
In the red earth lies at rest;

Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers,
Many a swan-white breast.

JOHN DAVIDSON

850.

THE

Song

HE boat is chafing at our long delay,
And we must leave too soon

The spicy sea-pinks and the inborne spray,

The tawny sands, the moon.

Keep us, O Thetis, in our western flight!
Watch from thy pearly throne
Our vessel, plunging deeper into night
To reach a land unknown.

851.

The Last Rose

WHICH is the last rose ? '
A blossom of no name.

At midnight the snow came;
At daybreak a vast rose,
In darkness unfurl'd,
O'er-petall'd the world.

Its odourless pallor
Blossom'd forlorn,
Till radiant valour

Establish'd the morn

1857-1909

Till the night
Was undone

In her fight

With the sun.

The brave orb in state rose,
And crimson he shone first;
While from the high vine
Of heaven the dawn burst,
Staining the great rose
From sky-line to sky-line.

The red rose of morn

A white rose at noon turn'd;

But at sunset reborn

All red again soon burn'd.
Then the pale rose of noonday
Rebloom'd in the night,
And spectrally white
In the light

Of the moon lay.

But the vast rose

Was scentless,

And this is the reason:

When the blast rose

Relentless,

And brought in due season
The snow rose, the last rose

Congeal'd in its breath,

Then came with it treason;
The traitor was Death.

In lee-valleys crowded,
The sheep and the birds