Winding ever onward to a fold of peace,

So my dreams go straying in a land more fair;

Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there.

Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold;

Come, acushla, with me to the mountains old.

There the bright ones call us waving to and fro—

Come, my children, with me to the ancient go.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER

Who is that goddess to whom men should pray

But her from whom their hearts have turned away,

Out of whose virgin being they were born,

Whose mother nature they have named in scorn

Calling its holy substance common clay.

Yet from this so despised earth was made

The milky whiteness of those queens who swayed

Their generations with a light caress,

[33]

And from some image of whose loveliness

The heart built up high heaven when it prayed.

Lover, your heart, the heart on which it lies,

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