IF this importunate heart trouble your peace With words lighter than air, Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease; Crumple the rose in your hair; And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say, ‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame! O Winds, elder than changing of night and day, That murmuring and longing came, From marble cities loud with tabors of old In dove-gray faery lands; From battle banners, fold upon purple fold, Queens wrought with glimmering hands; That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face Above the wandering tide; And lingered in the hidden desolate place, Where the last Phœnix died And wrapped the flames above his holy head; And still murmur and long: O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead In a tumultuous song’: And cover the pale blossoms of your breast With your dim heavy hair, And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest The odorous twilight there. HE TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS I DREAMED that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood; And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes: I cried in my dream, _O women, bid the young men lay Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair, Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away_. HE TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY O CLOUD-PALE eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze And by the unlabouring brood of the skies: And therefore my heart will bow, when dew Is dropping sleep, until God burn time, Before the unlabouring stars and you. HE HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE I WANDER by the edge Of this desolate lake Where wind cries in the sedge _Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round, And hands hurl in the deep The banners of East and West, And the girdle of light is unbound, Your breast will not lie by the breast Of your beloved in sleep_. HE THINKS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SPOKEN EVIL OF HIS BELOVED HALF close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride; They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride; I made it out of a mouthful of air, Their children’s children shall say they have lied. THE BLESSED CUMHAL called out, bending his head, Till Dathi came and stood, With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth, Between the wind and the wood. And Cumhal said, bending his knees, ‘I have come by the windy way To gather the half of your blessedness And learn to pray when you pray. ‘I can bring you salmon out of the streams And heron out of the skies.’ But Dathi folded his hands and smiled With the secrets of God in his eyes.