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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. | |
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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. | |
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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 | |
Lovethe froth-pale blossom of the boglands | |
That flutters on the waves of the wandering wind. | |
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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 |
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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. | |
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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 swallowlightly touched the ripples | |
Until her wet lips were | |
Burning as ripened rowan berries | |
Through the white winter air. | |
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Lazily she lingered | 40 |
Gazing so, | |
As the slender osiers | |
Where the waters flow, | |
As green twings of sally | |
Swaying to and fro. | 45 |
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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. | |
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