Thou friend so long withdrawn, so deaf, so dim, Familiar Danger, O forget not him! Repeat of thine evangel yet the whole Unto his subject soul, Who suffers no such palsy of her drouth, Nor hath so tamely worn her chain, But she may know that voice again, And shake the reefs with answer of her mouth. O give him back, before his passion fail, The singing cordage and the hollow sail, And level with those aged eyes let be The bright unsteady sea; And move like any film from off his brain The pasture wall, the boughs that run Their evening arches to the sun, The hamlet spire across the sown champaign; And on the shut space and the trivial hour, Turn the great floods! and to thy spousal bower, With rapt arrest and solemn loitering, Him whom thou lovedst bring: That he, thy faithful one, with praising lip, Not having, at the last, less grace Of thee than had his roving race, Sum up his strength to perish with a ship. IN LEINSTER BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while. Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile; Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all, Why from me that’s young should the wild tears fall? The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams, They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams; And yonder ivy fondling the broke castle-wall, It pulls upon my heart till the wild tears fall. The cabin-door looks down, a furze-lighted hill, And far as Leighlin Cross the fields are green and still; But once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin hedges call, The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall! AUNT MARY A Christmas Chant BY ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER Now, of all the trees by the king’s highway, Which do you love the best? O! the one that is green upon Christmas Day, The bush with the bleeding breast. Now the holly with her drops of blood for me: For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree. Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour’s Name, ’Tis a plant that loves the poor: Summer and winter it shines the same Beside the cottage door. O! the holly with her drops of blood for me: For that is our kind Aunt Mary’s tree. ’Tis a bush that the birds will never leave: They sing in it all day long; But sweetest of all upon Christmas Eve Is to hear the robin’s song. ’Tis the merriest sound upon earth or sea: For it comes from our own Aunt Mary’s tree. So, of all that grows by the king’s highway, I love that tree the best; ’Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day, The bush of the bleeding breast. O! the holly with her drops of blood for me: For that is our sweet Aunt Mary’s tree. KING ARTHUR’S WAES-HAEL BY ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER