| |
| IN the sleepy forest where the bluebells | |
| Smouldered dimly through the night, | |
| Dermuid saw the leaves like glad green waters | |
| At daybreak flowing into light, | |
| And exultant from his love upspringing | 5 |
| Strode with the sun upon the height. | |
| |
| Glittering on the hilltops | |
| He saw the sunlit rain | |
| Drift as around the spindle | |
| A silver-threaded skein, | 10 |
| And the brown mist whitely breaking | |
| Where arrowy torrents reached the plain. | |
| |
| A maddened moon | |
| Leapt in his heart and whirled the crimson tide | |
| Of his blood until it sang aloud of battle | 15 |
| Where the querns of dark death grind, | |
| Till it sang and scorned in pride | |
| Love—the froth-pale blossom of the boglands | |
| That flutters on the waves of the wandering wind. | |
| |
| Flower-quiet in the rush-strewn sheiling | 20 |
| At the dawntime Grainne lay, | |
| While beneath the birch-topped roof the sunlight | |
| Groped upon its way | |
| And stooped above her sleeping white body | |
| With a wasp-yellow ray. | 25 |
| |
| The hot breath of the day awoke her, | |
| And wearied of its heat | |
| She wandered out by the noisy elms | |
| On the cool mossy peat, | |
| Where the shadowed leaves like pecking linnets | 30 |
| Nodded around her feet. | |
| |
| She leaned and saw in the pale-grey waters, | |
| By twisted hazel boughs, | |
| Her lips like heavy drooping poppies | |
| In a rich redness drowse, | 35 |
| Then swallow—lightly touched the ripples | |
| Until her wet lips were | |
| Burning as ripened rowan berries | |
| Through the white winter air. | |
| |
| Lazily she lingered | 40 |
| Gazing so, | |
| As the slender osiers | |
| Where the waters flow, | |
| As green twings of sally | |
| Swaying to and fro. | 45 |
| |
| Sleepy moths fluttered | |
| In her dark eyes, | |
| And her lips grew quieter | |
| Than lullabies. | |
| Swaying with the reedgrass | 50 |
| Over the stream | |
| Lazily she lingered | |
| Cradling a dream. | |
| |
