Little Christ was good, and lay Sleeping, smiling in the hay; Never made the cows round eyes Open wider at His cries; Never when the night was dim, Startled guardian Seraphim, Who above Him in the beams Kept their watch round His white dreams; Let the rustling brown mice creep Undisturbed about His sleep. Yet if it had not been so-- Had He been like one I know, Fought with little fumbling hands, Kicked inside His swaddling bands, Puckered wilful crimsoning face-- Mary Mother, full of grace, At that little naughty thing, Still had been a-worshipping. MEA CULPA BY ETHNA CARBERY Be pitiful, my God! No hard-won gifts I bring-- But empty, pleading hands To Thee at evening. Spring came, white-browed and young, I, too, was young with Spring. There was a blue, blue heaven Above a skylark’s wing. Youth is the time for joy, I cried, it is not meet To mount the heights of toil With child-soft feet. When Summer walked the land In Passion’s red arrayed, Under green sweeping boughs My couch I made. The noon-tide heat was sore, I slept the Summer through; An angel waked me--“Thou Hast work to do.” I rose and saw the sheaves Upstanding in a row; The reapers sang Thy praise While passing to and fro. My hands were soft with ease, Long were the Autumn hours; I left the ripened sheaves For poppy-flowers. But lo! now Winter glooms, And gray is in my hair, Whither has flown the world I found so fair? My patient God, forgive! Praying Thy pardon sweet I lay a lonely heart Before Thy feet. IN TIR-NA’N-OG BY ETHNA CARBERY _In Tir-na’n-Og, In Tir-na’n-Og,_ Summer and spring go hand in hand, and in the radiant weather Brown autumn leaves and winter snow come floating down together. _In Tir-na’n-Og, In Tir-na’n-Og,_ The sagans sway this way and that, the twisted fern uncloses, The quicken-berry hides its red above the tender roses. _In Tir-na’n-Og, In Tir-na’n-Og,_ The blackbird lilts, the robin chirps, the linnet wearies never, They pipe to dancing feet of _Sidhe_ and thus shall pipe forever. _In Tir-na’n-Og, In Tir-na’n-Og,_ All in a drift of apple blooms my true love there is roaming, He will not come although I pray from dawning until gloaming. _In Tir-na’n-Og, In Tir-na’n-Og,_ The _Sidhe_ desired my Heart’s Delight, they lured him from my keeping, He stepped within a fairy ring while all the world was sleeping.