The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eire, and other poems

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Title: Eire, and other poems

Author: Robin Flower

Release date: November 23, 2025 [eBook #77299]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Locke Ellis, 1910

Credits: Tim Miller, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIRE, AND OTHER POEMS ***

EIRE

And other Poems

By
ROBIN FLOWER

LONDON:
LOCKE ELLIS, 18 Whitcomb Street, Leicester Square
1910.

Certain of these Poems have appeared in “Country Life” and the “Academy,” and are reprinted here by the courtesy of the Editors.

I.M.S.

Has primitias.

CONTENTS.

Eire:		Page
	Eire’s answer	3
	Tír na n-óg	5
	Muirnín na gruaige báine	6
	The little wee lad	8
	The Charm	9
	The Sidhe	10
	The Exile	11
	Sea-Children	12
	Old Songs	13
	Morning in Glenair	14
	The Hedge-Schoolmaster to his Love	15
	The Lake of Longing	16
	To H. I. B.	17
Lyrics:
	On Ivinghoe Beacon	21
	The Sorrow of Senchan the Lonely	23
	“Chevauchons” (To a tune of Provence)	24
	The Nightingale	25
	Joy’s immortality	26
	At Golder’s Hill	28
	The Apple Tree	30
	Desideria	31
The Bacchante		35
Sonnets		41
Hymenaea		53

EIRE.

EIRE’S ANSWER.

O Eire, Eire, what of the morrow?
Speak to us who are thinking long,
O Eire, Eire, mother of sorrow,
Mother of song.

We that cling to thy knees for ever,
True to thy hills and glens and streams;
We that the years and the seas dissever
From all but dreams,

We have laid our hearts on thy high green altar,
We are made all thine till the world’s life cease;
Speak to our hopes and hearts that falter
Words of peace.

“Children dear, I have wandered, wandered,
I have faced each sorrow the years renew,
For you I have laboured, for you have pondered,
Have wept for you.

O children broken! O children weary!
The griefs that lie in your pathways strown
I, your mistress, your mother, Eire,
I, too, have known.

But of all things sure I have found none surer
Than this one wisdom the days let fall,
That the heart grown stronger, the heart grown purer
Shall master all.

You shall leave to others the lute and tabor,
You shall go your ways from the dance and song,
You shall set your hands to the daily labour
The whole year long.

You shall count no task for your toil too humble,
You shall hate no man for the times long gone,
For strifes must perish and hates must crumble,
But love lives on.

And so at the end as the light draws nearer
You shall find that labour and love are best,
And I, your mother, grown greater, dearer,
Shall give you rest.”

TÍR NA N-ÓG.

I heard the summer calling across great breadths of sea
In the landwind and the seawind and the wind of gramarie;
For the seawind speaks in thunder and the landwind whispers low,
But the little wind of faery you scarce can hear it blow.

But listen, listen, listen and you shall hear afar
A low and lovely murmur like the singing of a star;
But listen, listen, listen till all things fade and fall
And the lone and luring music is master over all.

And you shall hear it chanting in one triumphant chime
Of the life that lives for ever and the fugitives of time
Beyond the green land’s border and washing wastes of sea
In the world beyond the world’s end, where nothing is but glee.

The magic waters gird it, and skies of laughing blue
Keep always faith with summer, and summer still is true;
There is no end of dancing and sweet unceasing song,
And eyes to eyes make answer and love with love grows strong.

But close your ears and silence the crying of your heart,
Lest in the world of mortals you walk a man apart;
For O! I heard the music, I answered to the call,
And the landwind mocks my longing and the seawind saddens all.

MUIRNÍN NA GRUAIGE BÁINE.

(From the Irish).

For a year my love lies down
In a little western town
And the sun upon the corn is not so sweet.
At the chill time of the year
On the hills where roams my dear
There is honey in the traces of her feet.

If my longing I could get,
I would take her in a net
And would ease my aching sorrow for a while;
And, though all men say me nay,
I shall wed her on a day,
She my darling of the sweet and sunny smile.

I must finish with the plough
And sow my seedlands now,
I must labour in the face of wind and weather;
But in rain and frost and snow,
Always as I come and go
I am thinking she and I should be together.

O love my heart finds fair,
It is little that you care
Though I perish in the blackness of my grief;
But may you never tread
God’s Heaven overhead,
If you scorn me and refuse my love relief.

I would count them little worth,
All the women of the earth,
And myself alone to have the choice among them;
For in books I read it clear,
That the beauty of my dear
It has wrestled with their beauties and has flung them.

THE LITTLE WEE LAD.

As I travelled the road at the fall of the night
With the glimmering boglands to left and to right,
I heard him sing loud through the whispering dark,
The little wee lad with the voice of a lark.

He never is silent by night or by day,
But still he is singing at work and at play,
And, as his glad notes o’er the heather go winging,
They set all the sorrowful solitudes singing.

The wind in the grass and the lark in the sky
And the pattering rain to his music reply,
And the clouds and the streams and the mountains are glad
To hear the sweet song of the little wee lad.

O folk of the city, so proud and uplifted!
You sing from your lips, be you never so gifted;
From his heart he sings out in the daylight and dark,
The little wee lad with the voice of a lark.

THE CHARM.

The West is behind me, the East before me,
The North and the South to left and to right,
I bind to my charming the firmament o’er me,
The hosts of the day and the hosts of the night.

The sun and the moon and the wrath of ocean
And all things silent, all secret things,
The winds in their stillness, the winds in their motion,
The flying wings and the folded wings.

I have burnt his hair in the hearth fire’s burning,
I have spoken the words that are ill to be said;
I have turned three times and three times turning
I have cried the cry that awakes the dead.

And I know in the hut by the side of the river
He wakes and wonders and feels the charms
Steal into his blood. He is mine for ever,
Mine are his lips and his eyes and his arms.

The door stands open, the wide road calls him,
His feet stir softly and take the way;
He comes by night—for a charm enthralls him—
The road he never has come by day.

He comes, O God! there is naught can hold him,
He feels my arms through the mist and rain
Cherish and claim and clasp and enfold him;
He is mine and never his own again.

THE SIDHE.

We have no conscience and no care
And us no sweets can cloy;
For we are of the ancient air
And brothers born of joy.

We watch the earth-begotten men
That still must dream and toil
Vainly, until they turn again
Into their mother soil.

Light hearts are ours, light thoughts, light wings,
And yet our songs can say
The secret of the elder things
That men have lost for aye.

We have no conscience and no care,
No trouble and no tears,
And yet we envy men that fare
Sad through the saddened years.

THE EXILE.

(18th Century).

I wish I were in Ireland now, the country of the young,
For there they laugh the kindest laughs, the sweetest songs are sung,
And here it’s bitter living by trench and mound and wall
’Neath suns that brand and blister and freezing dews that fall.

I mind a glen in Ireland and just the way it goes,
I mind the babble of the burn and every wind that blows;
The winds blow over vineyards here, and proud the rivers fare,
But O! for my brown twinkling streams and heather-scented air.

The people here go mocking and laughing with their teeth,
There’s little meaning in their smile and little mirth beneath;
But when they laugh in Ireland with merry lips apart,
The honey of the lips betrays the honey of the heart.

The ready tears in Europe they fall for little things,
But still the Irish sorrow is fed from deeper springs,
And often they go weeping, and only they know why
For all the evil things that live and lovely things that die.

It’s hardly I’ll be winning back to Irish soil again,
And dead in foreign lands I’ll lie, as living I have lain;
But still for Ireland I have lived, and, when my time is sped,
For Ireland I’ll lay down my life, for Ireland gladly dead.

SEA-CHILDREN.

I tell you, men of Ireland, we
Are of the people of the sea
And restless, wind-tormented still
Have no will but the water’s will.

As the great sea-flood comes and goes
The tide within us ebbs and flows;
And high above us everywhere
Scream the wild gulls in the wild air.

They cannot cease, the lonely birds,
From moaning and the ancient words
That, heard but once by night or day,
Sweep the world’s boundaries away.

These are the words that long ago
Were the interpreters of woe
To the sad queens and sorrowing kings
That ruled above all human things

Yet went forth wandering; and we
Are waves upon the self-same sea
That the winds lift a little space
Foaming and in a breath efface.

OLD SONGS.

(To E. J.)

I think I’ll not forget them, when Ireland’s far away,
The songs you gathered in the glens, the songs you sang to-day;
And maybe you’ll remember, as I’ll remember well,
The grey land, the grey sky, and the grey sea-swell.

Below us was the castle that crumbles on Kinban
And the foam-fringes rippling up that turned and broke and ran,
And straight in front lay Rathlin and farther yet Cantire
And all away behind us the land of your desire.

The songs that you were singing were simple as the soil
And glad with Ireland’s gladness and sad with Ireland’s toil,
A dirge for some old chieftain the snake of poison slew,
Or maybe “Cuttin’ Rushes” or “Bonnie Lads are few.”

And now the words went weeping and now the words were gay
And love and death and laughter were on your lips to-day,
And still the wind sang with you and still the sea bore part
And many joys and sorrows were mingling in your heart.

So in the darkened city and far across the sea,
The songs you gathered in the glens will sing themselves to me,
And maybe you’ll remember, as I’ll remember well,
The grey land, the grey sky, and the grey sea-swell.

MORNING IN GLENAIR.

When you went abroad at morning the sun was in your hair
And the amber lights were dancing in your eyes;
The cuckoo called us from the branch, the cuckoo of Glenair,
And the lark went laughing up into the skies.

It was morning on the mountain, it was morning in my heart,
We loved and laughed and lilted as we went,
And the mists upon the valley drifted suddenly apart
And we fled into the world of our content.

The roads ran white and winding by the bogs and heather-hills
And the tramping-men were singing to the day,
The dew was on our naked feet, we waded in the rills,
And to-morrow was ten thousand years away.

It was morning, morning, morning and the sun upon Glenair:
Though the sober world was sleeping, we were wise,
When you went abroad at morning with the daylight in your hair
And the stars of amber dancing in your eyes.

THE HEDGE-SCHOOLMASTER TO HIS LOVE.

O dearest of dear ones, O sweeter than sweetness!
Than the birds on the mountains more fleet in your fleetness,
With your hair on the wind like a stream of fine amber,
You came through the mist like the sun in September.

As I went at your side in the midst of your brightness,
Like a silver swayed birch was your lithe lissom lightness,
Your hand was in mine and our hearts beat together
And little we cared for the world and its weather.

Below in the town they were wrangling and brawling,
On the high hills of heaven the soft rain was falling,
The soft rain, the sweet rain, so silverly shining,
That it charmed us and lulled us till day was declining.

Then, hand clasped in hand, with a riot of laughter,
We ran to the town and the rain followed after,
Till he tired at the last of his splashing and streaming
And the lovely lit stars through our window came dreaming.

THE LAKE OF LONGING.

In the deep glen of Loneliness the lake of Longing lies
And, when among the swaying pines the little winds arise,
Across the black calm of the lake a silver ripple flies.

Let us go up into the hills above the lonely glen,
The sunset lingers on the hills, but darkness dwells with men;
The sun will light us up the hills and we shall rest us then.

Above the tumbled mountain-world we stand and watch the sky.
What’s this that whispers in the wind and goes lamenting by?
It is the pipe of loneliness crying a silver cry—
The voice of endless longing, that dies and will not die.

TO H.I.B.

Because a dream is in our blood
And in our hearts a strange desire
Of roses of no earthly bud
And flames of not an earthly fire,

We find no rest in this closed world,
But send our vagrant thoughts astray,
Where, on the walls of darkness hurled,
Die the last onsets of the day.

There on the hills, as evening falls,
A muffled music strays and sings,
The last bird through the darkness calls
And winds have rest with folded wings.

There we shall find them in the gloom,
The children of our strong desire,
The roses of no earthly bloom,
The flames of not an earthly fire.

LYRICS.

ON IVINGHOE BEACON.

The Beacon over Ivinghoe
Lifts up into the sky
A soaring shoulder out of earth,
Where swift cloud-shadows fly
And winds in the bent grasses make
A murmured minstrelsy.

There did we lie and watch at ease
The armies of the spring
Across the winter-guarded vale
Their gallant outposts fling
By Amersham and Aylesbury,
By Wendover and Wing.

The Saxon and the Roman here
These winds and suns have felt
And underneath this arch of sky
At this green altar knelt
And the same night has gathered all,
The Roman, Saxon, Celt.

I saw your eyes turn strange, your lips
Were cold against my kiss
And far behind your speech there dwelt
Strange wavering mysteries
—The patient legions of the dead
Spoke from their world to this—

And “Ah!” you cried “you cherish now
My beauty like a flower,
But how, when the soft graces fade,
The magic lights lose power
And Time that did my body build
Unbuilds it hour by hour?

And will you, when deep winter chills
The seasons of desire,
And love, the tattered balladist,
Thrums on a ragged wire,
Past the grey hair and glazing eye
Discern the hearted fire?”
* * * * * *
Alone I climb the Beacon now
And watch the world outrolled,
The farms, the fields, the breadth of sky,
The wide unbroken wold,
And autumn’s traitor banners hung
Above the woods of gold.

It was my fault, that in Love’s wells
I troubled the clear springs
And, looking in his burning eyes,
Recked little of his wings
And, being but a mortal made,
Dreamed of immortal things.

THE SORROW OF SENCHAN THE LONELY.

The exultant hours that clamour on the wing,
Rejoicing blooms and merry birds that sing
And all the wind and wonder of the spring—
These things are good and all these things are mine.

Dreams many-hued and visions strong to fly
And over earth’s low lands continually
The wind of beauty passing in the sky—
These things are good and all these things are mine.

Thoughts that get strength above life’s night to tower
And hear beyond these clouds and glooms that lour
The ringing clarions of the morning hour—
These things are good and all these things are mine.

Strength with night’s terrors and day’s toils to cope
And far above the mortal moment’s scope
Flung heavenward, the indomitable hope—
These things are good and all these things are mine.

But, after the wild noises of the street,
The double peace that makes life’s round complete
And on my floors the sound of little feet—
These things are best and these things are not mine.

“CHEVAUCHONS.”

(To a tune of Provence.)

Let us ride out, O lady mine,
By hedges robed in eglantine,
Until we stand
Where spring has breathed his peace divine
In lilac and laburnam land.

Let us go forth and watch once more
How morning spends his sunny store
And dew begems
The leafy walls, the grassy floor,
The willows and the chestnut stems.

Let us be swift. The cuckoos cry,
The blackbirds flute a rich reply;
And down the vale
Have we not heard them, you and I,
The low sobs of the nightingale?

Let us be merry, as of old,
When song upon your lips was gold
And music made
Warm pulsing worlds of planets cold
And sunshine in a night of shade.

This is the end of spring; and spring
Has found no magic yet to bring
Lost glories back,
But, with fled blossom and flown wing,
Must travel still the appointed track.

Dorsington, 1 June, 1909.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

We heard the note
Of the last bells across the waters float;
The birds that sing
The silver secrets of the evening.

We watched the day
Pass far and far and very far away;
Saw from each farm
The silent smoke ascending into calm.

We watched expire
The fainting onsets of the waves of fire;
And, mist-enfurled,
The moon rose past the shoulder of the world.

Then loud and low,
Clear and confused, and strangely swift and slow,
We heard the wail
And passionate hunger of the nightingale.

He sang desire,
And all the darkling thickets thrilled with fire;
He sang despair,
And all the woodland wept and all the air.

And last the song
Soared in a rapture confident and strong
And was the call
Of Love triumphant always over all.

JOY’S IMMORTALITY.

These are the trees that saw them pass
The happy fields among,
When they were only lad and lass,
That now are dead so long.

When they were only lass and lad,
The nesting birds would sing
As though their little hearts were mad
With the new wine of spring.

And far across the wooded vale,
How clear and sweet and strong
The love-bedrunken nightingale
Would sing their mating song!

They saw the summer glories glow
And rain of autumn leaves,
Nor wept that earth’s own kind should go
Where earth’s own bosom heaves.

When winter waved a snowy hand
And bade the world be white,
They went about the silent land
And carolled their delight.

And they are gone! The trees remain,
The birds are singing still,
The footsteps of the wind and rain
Are silver on the hill.

But still I see them dancing on,
The bridegroom and the bride;
The pained and mortal flesh is gone,
The immortal joys abide.

Their eyes in every flower are glad,
Their voice in every song,
As they were still but lass and lad
That now are dead so long.

AT GOLDER’S HILL.

I saw a child at Golder’s Hill
Rule the wide kingdom of sweet will
And catch an innocent employ
From the abundant heart of joy.
He teased the mossy-antlered stag
And taught a puppy’s tail to wag;
He made a playful ripple shake
The water-lilies in the lake;
Smelt at a rose, tiptoed to kiss
The overarching clematis,
Ran shouting up the hill to stare
And watch the dying sunset flare;
Then from his calling mother hid
And would not answer when she chid.
So glad, he seemed no human birth,
But some wild spirit of the earth,
Some rapture of delirious mood,
Not yet betrayed to flesh and blood,
But elemental, swift and free
As sunlight dancing on the sea.

O happy heart, could you but keep
Safe from the heavy mortal sleep,
Wherein we wander, having sold
A heavenly hope for earthly gold;
Then would your morning of delight
Reach far into the realms of night,
Rich with the rapture that uncloses
Your brother lilies, sister roses,
And take for its eternal treasure
This sweet simplicity of pleasure.

THE APPLE TREE.

I am the apple-tree that stood
Ere song had raised the walls of Troy;
Round me the shepherd folk renewed
With every Spring their piping joy.

My branches swayed with every breath,
My wealth of blossom showering snowed;
They had no thought of pain and death,
For life and joy unchanged abode.

But in a strange and shadowed Spring
Sharp tremors ran through all my leaves;
Men came about me whispering,
“Destiny some dark purpose weaves.”

And as the year to Winter turned,
My leaves began to fade and fall,
A ruddy-golden apple burned
High on the topmost branch of all.

They took the golden fruit away,
And took the simple rustic joy:
Men come no longer from that day
And I am lonely after Troy.

DESIDERIA.

I know not where I heard it,
The song more sweet than all,
No music may re-word it,
So rich its rise and fall.

I know not where I saw them,
The roses red with joy,
It seemed no rain could flaw them,
Nor any wind destroy.

We are lost in worlds we know not
And faint with wandering;
For O! such roses grow not,
And no such voices sing.

THE BACCHANTE.

[Scene: The Eastward slopes of Cithaeron. A Bacchante with wine cup and thyrsus comes running up the hill. A youth follows her, and, as the first streaks of dawn line the sky, she turns and speaks.]

Eire, and other poems

About This Book

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eire, and other poems

EIRE

THE BACCHANTE.