The Irish Book

He had played by the cottage fire
Till the dancing all was done,
But his heart kept up the music
When the last folk had gone.

So he came through the half-door softly
And wandered up the hill,
In the glow of his heart's desire
That was on the music still.

And he passed the blackthorn thicket,
And he heard the branches groan,
As they bowed beneath the burden
Of the white fruit of the moon.

And he came to the fairy circle
Where none but the wise may sit:
And blindness was on him surely
For he sat in the midst of it.

And maybe his heart went dreaming,
Or maybe his thoughts went wide,
But he took his battered old fiddle
And he took the bow from his side.

And he said, "I will play them such music
As never a fairy heard."
He said, "I will play them the music
I stole from the throat of a bird."

And the sound of his lilt went straying
By valley and stream and sedge
Till the little white stars went dancing
Along the mountain's edge.

And things came out of the bushes
And out of the grassy mound
And joined their hands in a circle
And danced to the fiddle's sound.

And quicker and sweeter and stranger
The notes came hurrying out
And joined with a shriek and a whistle
In the dance of the Goblin Rout.

And all night long on the green lands
They danced in a 'wildered ring.
And every note of the fiddle
Was the shriek of a godless thing.

And when the winter morning
Came whitely up the glen,
The Fiddler's soul fled whistling
In the rout of the Fairy Men.

Slowly they pass 
In the grey of the evening 
Over the wet road, 
A flock of sheep.
Slowly they wend 
In the grey of the gloaming 
Over the wet road 
That winds through the town. 
Slowly they pass, 
And gleaming whitely 
Vanish away 
In the grey of the evening. 
Ah, what memories 
Loom for a moment, 
Gleam for a moment, 
And vanish away, 
Of the white days 
When we two together 
Went in the evening, 
Where the sheep lay, 
We two together, 
Went with slow feet 
In the grey of the evening 
Where the sheep lay. 
Whitely they gleam 
For a moment and vanish.

For all my sorrow I have been more glad
 . . . . . . . . . .

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Des voluptés intérieures,
  Le sourire mystérieux.
       -- Victor Hugo

A common folk I walk among;
I speak dull things in their own tongue:
  But all the while within I hear 
  A song I do not sing for fear --
How sweet, how different a thing! 
  And when I come where none are near
I open all my heart and sing.

I am made one with these indeed,
And give them all the love they need --
  Such love as they would have of me :
  But in my heart -- ah, let it be! --
I think of it when none is nigh --
  There is a love they shall not see;
For it I live -- for it will die.

And ofttimes, though I share their joys,
And seem to praise them with my voice,
  Do I not celebrate my own,
  Ay, down in some far inward zone
Of thoughts in which they have no part?
  Do I not feel -- ah, quite alone
With all the secret of my heart?

O when the shroud of night is spread
On these, as Death is on the dead,
  So that no sight of them shall mar
  The blessed rapture of a star --
Then I draw forth those thoughts at will;
  And like the stars those bright thoughts are;
And boundless seems the heart they fill:

For every one is as a link;
And I enchain them as I think;
  Till present and remembered bliss,
  And better worlds on after this,
I have -- led on from each to each
  Athwart the limitless abyss --
In some surpassing sphere I reach.

I draw a veil across my face
Before I come back to the place
  And dull obscurity of these;
  I hide my face, and no man sees;
I learn to smile a lighter smile,
  And change and look just what they please.
It is but for a little while.

I go with them; and in their sight
I would not scorn their little light,
  Nor mock the things they hold divine;
  But when I kneel before the shrine
Of some base deity of theirs, 
  I pray all inwardly to mine,
And send my soul up with my prayers:

For I -- ah, to myself I say --
I have a heaven though far away;
  And there my love went long ago,
  With all the things my heart loves so ;
And there my songs fly, every one:
  And I shall find them there I know
When this sad pilgrimage is done.