O, colleens, kneeling by your altar rails long hence, When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer, And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense; Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song, Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry, And call to my beloved and me: 'No longer fly 'Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.' AEDH PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows Have pulled the Immortal Rose; And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept, The Polar Dragon slept, His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep: When will he wake from sleep? Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, With your harmonious choir Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, That my old care may cease; Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight The nets of day and night. Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be Like the pale cup of the sea, When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim Above its cloudy rim; But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow Whither her footsteps go. AEDH WISHES HIS BELOVED WERE DEAD Were you but lying cold and dead, And lights were paling out of the West, You would come hither, and bend your head, And I would lay my head on your breast; And you would murmur tender words, Forgiving me, because you were dead: Nor would you rise and hasten away, Though you have the will of the wild birds, But know your hair was bound and wound About the stars and moon and sun: O would beloved that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one. AEDH WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. MONGAN THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young And weep because I know all things now: I have been a hazel tree and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough Among my leaves in times out of mind: I became a rush that horses tread: I became a man, a hater of the wind, Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair Of the woman that he loves, until he dies; Although the rushes and the fowl of the air Cry of his love with their pitiful cries. NOTES THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE.