The Stars sang in God’s Garden

The stars sang in God’s garden;
The stars are the birds of God;
The night-time is God’s harvest,
Its fruits are the words of God.

God ploughed His fields at morning,
God sowed His seed at noon,
God reaped and gathered in His corn
With the rising of the moon.

The sun rose up at midnight,
The sun rose red as blood,
It showed the Reaper, the dead Christ,
Upon His cross of wood.

For many live that one may die,
And one must die that many live—
The stars are silent in the sky
Lest my poor songs be fugitive.

I saw the Sun at Midnight

I saw the Sun at midnight, rising red,
Deep-hued yet glowing, heavy with the stain
Of blood-compassion, and I saw It gain
Swiftly in size and growing till It spread
Over the stars; the heavens bowed their head
As from Its heart slow dripped a crimson rain,
Then a great tremor shook It, as of pain—
The night fell, moaning, as It hung there dead.

O Sun, O Christ, O bleeding Heart of flame!
Thou givest Thine agony as our life’s worth,
And makest it infinite, lest we have dearth
Of rights wherewith to call upon Thy Name;
Thou pawnest Heaven as a pledge for Earth
And for our glory sufferest all shame.

It is her Voice who dwells
within the Emerald Wall and Sapphire House of Flame:

Behold! a white Hawk tangled in a twisted net of dreams
Struggles no more, but lines the cords with feathers from her breast
Seeing herself within the mystic circle of my voice,
Whereat forthwith its music turns to blades and tongues of fire
Rending the bonds and weaving round the Hawk a skein of light
Raising the work and the Toiler to the never-ending Day.

A Wave of the Sea

I am a wave of the sea
And the foam of the wave
And the wind of the foam
And the wings of the wind.

My soul’s in the salt of the sea
In the weight of the wave
In the bubbles of foam
In the ways of the wind.

My gift is the depth of the sea
The strength of the wave
The lightness of foam
The speed of the wind.

White Waves on the Water

White waves on the water,
Gold leaves on the tree,
As Mananan’s daughter
Arose from the sea.

The bud and the blossom,
The fruit of the foam
From Ocean’s dark bosom
Arose, from her home.

She came at your calling,
O winds of the world,
When the ripe fruit was falling
And the flowers unfurled.

She came at your crying
O creatures of earth,
And the sound of your sighing
Made music and mirth.

She came at your keening
O dreamers of doom,
And your sleep had new dreaming
And splendour and bloom.

The Heritage to the Race of Kings

This heritage to the race of kings
Their children and their children’s seed
Have wrought their prophecies in deed
Of terrible and splendid things.

The hands that fought, the hearts that broke
In old immortal tragedies,
These have not failed beneath the skies,
Their children’s heads refuse the yoke.

And still their hands shall guard the sod
That holds their father’s funeral urn,
Still shall their hearts volcanic burn
With anger of the sons of God.

No alien sword shall earn as wage
The entail of their blood and tears,
No shameful price for peaceful years
Shall ever part this heritage.

1841—1891

The wind rose, the sea rose
A wave rose on the sea,
It sang the mournful singing
Of a sad centenary;

It sang the song of an old man
Whose heart had died of grief,
Whose soul had dried and withered
At the falling of the leaf.

It sang the song of a young man
Whose heart had died of pain
When Spring was black and withered
And the winter come again.

The wind rose, the sea rose
A wave rose on the sea
Swelled with the mournful singing
Of a sad centenary.

All our best ye have branded
When the people were choosing them,
When ’twas Death they demanded
Ye laughed! Ye were losing them.
But the blood that ye spilt in the night
Crieth loudly to God,
And their name hath the strength and the might
Of a sword for the sod.

In the days of our doom and our dread
Ye were cruel and callous,
Grim Death with our fighters ye fed
Through the jaws of the gallows;
But a blasting and blight was the fee
For which ye had bartered them,
And we smite with the sword that from ye
We had gained when ye martyred them!

THE LITTLE BLACK ROSE SHALL BE RED
AT LAST

Because we share our sorrows and our joys
And all your dear and intimate thoughts are mine
We shall not fear the trumpets and the noise
Of battle, for we know our dreams divine,
And when my heart is pillowed on your heart
And ebb and flowing of their passionate flood
Shall beat in concord love through every part
Of brain and body—when at last the blood
O’erleaps the final barrier to find
Only one source wherein to spend its strength
And we two lovers, long but one in mind
And soul, are made one only flesh at length;
Praise God if this my blood fulfils the doom
When you, dark rose, shall redden into bloom.