Eyes of Youth A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O.

Excerpt

FRANCIS THOMPSON

Threatened Tears

Do not loose those rains thy wet
Eyes, my Fair, unsurely threat;
Do not, Sweet, do not so;
Thou canst not have a single woe,
But this sad and doubtful weatlier
Overcasts us both together.
In the aspect of those known eyes
My soul's a captain weatherwise.
Ah me! what presages it sees
In those watery Hyades.

Arab Love Song

The hunchèd camels of the night*
Trouble the bright
And silver waters of the moon.
The Maiden of the Morn will soon
Through Heaven stray and sing,
Star gathering.

Now while the dark about our loves is strewn,
Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come!
And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb.

Leave thy father, leave thy mother
And thy brother;
Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!
Am I not thy father and thy brother,
And thy mother?

And thou—what needest with thy tribe's black tents
Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?

* The cloud-shapes often observed by travellers in the East.

Buona Notte

Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: "Why do you talk of never enjoying moments like the past? Are you going to join your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona Notte." This letter was dated July 6th, and Shelley was drowned on the 8th. The following is his imagined reply from, another world:—

Ariel to Miranda:—hear
This good-night the sea-winds bear;
And let thine unacquainted ear
Take grief for their interpreter.

Good-night; I have risen so high
Into slumber's rarity,
Not a dream can beat its feather
Through the unsustaining ether.
Let the sea-winds make avouch
How thunder summoned me to couch,
Tempest curtained me about
And turned the sun with his own hand out:
And though I toss upon my bed
My dream is not disquieted;
Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep,
And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep;
And I fell to sleep so suddenly
That my lips are moist yet—could'st thou see
With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee.
Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was Death
Damped my lips that has dried my breath.
A little while—it is not long—
The salt shall dry on them like the song.

Now know'st thou, that voice desolate,
Mourning ruined joy's estate,
Reached thee through a closing gate.
"Go'st thou to Plato?" Ah, girl, no!
It is to Pluto that I go.

The Passion of Mary

O Lady Mary, thy bright crown
Is no mere crown of majesty;
For with the reflex of His own
Resplendent thorns Christ circled thee.

The red rose of this passion tide
Doth take a deeper hue from thee,
In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed,
And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary.

The soldier struck a triple stroke
That smote thy Jesus on the tree;
He broke the Heart of hearts, and broke
The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee.

Thy Son went up the Angels' ways,
His passion ended; but, ah me!
Thou found'st the road of further days
A longer way of Calvary.

On the hard cross of hopes deferred
Thou hung'st in loving agony,
Until the mortal dreaded word,
Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee.

The Angel Death from this cold tomb
Of life did roll the stone away;
And He thou barest in thy womb
Caught thee at last into the day—
Before the living throne of Whom
The lights of heaven burning pray....