| |
| THE purple heather is the cloak | |
| God gave the bogland brown, | |
| But man has made a pall o’ smoke | |
| To hide the distant town. | |
| |
| Our lights are long and rich in change, | 5 |
| Unscreened by hill or spire, | |
| From primrose dawn, a lovely range, | |
| To sunset’s farewell fire. | |
| |
| No morning bells have we to wake | |
| Us with their monotone, | 10 |
| But windy calls of quail and crake | |
| Unto our beds are blown. | |
| |
| The lark’s wild flourish summons us | |
| To work before the sun; | |
| At eve the heart’s lone Angelus | 15 |
| Blesses our labour done. | |
| |
| We cleave the sodden, shelving bank | |
| In sunshine and in rain, | |
| That men by winter-fires may thank | |
| The wielders of the slane. | 20 |
| |
| Our lot is laid beyond the crime | |
| That sullies idle hands; | |
| So hear we through the silent time | |
| God speaking sweet commands. | |
| |
| Brave joys we have and calm delight— | 25 |
| For which tired wealth may sigh— | |
| The freedom of the fields of light, | |
| The gladness of the sky. | |
| |
| And we have music, oh, so quaint! | |
| The curlew and the plover, | 30 |
| To tease the mind with pipings faint | |
| No memory can recover; | |
| |
| The reeds that pine about the pools | |
| In wind and windless weather; | |
| The bees that have no singing-rules | 35 |
| Except to buzz together. | |
| |
| And prayer is here to give us sight | |
| To see the purest ends; | |
| Each evening through the brown-turf light | |
| The Rosary ascends. | 40 |
| |
| And all night long the cricket sings | |
| The drowsy minutes fall,— | |
| The only pendulum that swings | |
| Across the crannied wall. | |
| |
| Then we have rest, so sweet, so good, | 45 |
| The quiet rest you crave; | |
| The long, deep bogland solitude | |
| That fits a forest’s grave; | |
| |
| The long, strange stillness, wide and deep, | |
| Beneath God’s loving hand, | 50 |
| Where, wondering at the grace of sleep, | |
| The Guardian Angels stand. | |
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