With eyes all untroubled she laughs as she passes, Bending beneath the creel with the seaweed brown, Till evening with pearl-dew dims the shining grasses And night lit with dreamlight enfolds the sleepy town. 

 Then she will wander, her heart all a laughter, Tracking the dream star that lights the purple gloom. She follows the proud and golden races after, As high as theirs her spirit, as high will be her doom. 

 

 

 AN IRISH FACE 

 Not her own sorrow only that hath place Upon yon gentle face. Too slight have been her childhood's years to gain The imprint of such pain. It hid behind her laughing hours, and wrought Each curve in saddest thought On brow and lips and eyes. With subtle art It made that little heart Through its young joyous beatings to prepare A quiet shelter there, Where the Immortal Sorrows might find a home. And many there have come; Bowed in a mournful mist of golden hair Deirdre hath entered there. And shrouded in a fall of pitying dew, Weeping the friend he slew, The Hound of Ulla lies, with those who shed Tears for the Wild Geese fled. And all the lovers on whom fate had warred Cutting the Silver Cord Enter, and softly breath by breath they mould The young heart to the old, The old protest, the old pity, whose power Are gathering to the hour When their knit silence shall be mightier far Than leagued empires are. And dreaming of the sorrow on this face We grow of lordlier race, Could shake the rooted rampart of the hills To shield her from all ills, And through a deep adoring pity won Grow what we dream upon. 

 

 

 HOPE IN FAILURE 

 Though now thou hast failed and art fallen, despair not because of defeat, Though lost for a while be thy heaven and weary of earth be thy feet, For all will be beauty about thee hereafter through sorrowful years, And lovely the dews for thy chilling and ruby thy heart-drip of tears. 

 The eyes that had gazed from afar on a beauty that blinded the eyes Shall call forth its image for ever, its shadow in alien skies. The heart that had striven to beat in the heart of the Mighty too soon Shall still of that beating remember some errant and faltering tune. 

 For thou hast but fallen to gather the last of the secrets of power; The beauty that breathes in thy spirit 

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