The primroses were out, The aislèd oaks were green, The cow-bells pleasantly Tinked between; The brook was beaded gold, The thorn was burgeoning, Where evil Ascobert Slew the King. He hid him in the ground, Nor washed away the dyes, Nor smoothed the fallen curls From his eyes. No father had the babe To bless his bed forlorn; No mother now to weep By the thorn. There fell upon that place A shaft of heavenly light; The thorn in Mercia spake Ere the night: “Beyond, a sister sees Her crownèd period, But at my root a lamb Seeth God.” Unto each, even so. As dew before the cloud, The guilty glory passed Of the proud. Boy Kenelm has the song, Saint Kenelm has the bower; His thorn a thousand years Is in flower! TWO IRISH PEASANT SONGS. I. IN LEINSTER. 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-coloured 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! II. IN ULSTER. ’Tis the time o’ the year, if the quicken-bough be staunch, The green, like a breaker, rolls steady up the branch, And surges in the spaces, and floods the trunk, and heaves In jets of angry spray that is the under-white of leaves; And from the thorn in companies the foamy petals fall, And waves of jolly ivy wink along a windy wall. ’Tis the time o’ the year the marsh is full of sound, And good and glorious it is to smell the living ground. The crimson-headed catkin shakes above the pasture-bars, The daisy takes the middle field, and spangles it with stars, And down the bank into the lane the primroses do crowd, All coloured like the twilight moon, and spreading like a cloud! ’Tis the time o’ the year, in early light and glad, The lark has a music to drive a lover mad; The downs are dripping nightly, the breathèd damps arise, Deliciously the freshets cool the grayling’s golden eyes, And lying in a row against the chilly north, the sheep Inclose a place without a wind for little lambs to sleep.