Six Poems by Seumas O'Sullivan

I will go out and meet the evening hours 
And greet them one by one as friend greets friend, 
Where many a tall poplar summit towers 
On summit, shrines of quietness that send 
Their silence through the blue air like a wreath 
Of sacrificial flame unwavering 
In the deep evening stillness, when no breath 
Sets the faint tendrils floating on light wing 
Over the long dim fields mist-islanded.
I will go out and meet them one by one,
And learn the things old times have left unsaid,
And read the secrets of an age long gone,
And out of twilight and the darkening plain
Build up all that old quiet world again.

As I went dreaming
By the grey poplar trees,
They bent down and whispered
Words like these:

"In a far country
There is a lonely glen,
Hushed with the footfall
Of shadowy men.

Shadowy, and silent,
And grey amongst the trees
That have long forgotten
The sound of the breeze.

And one tall poplar
Grows in that land;
The chain of God's silence,
Held in his hand."

This I heard
As I went dreaming
By the grey poplars
In the purple evening.

The rafters blacken year by year,
And the roof beams under that once were green.
T'was himself that cut them and brought them here,
But who has count of the years between?

And Autumn comes, and its withering,
And Spring again and the fields are green.
Winter and Summer and Autumn and Spring,
Yet who has count of the years between?

The big old clock by the window screen
Keeps count of the hours both day and night.
I mind the time when its face was white,
But who has count of the years between?

At night when everyone's asleep
It must be very late! I creep
Softly down the darkened stairs
To the big room where we have prayers,
And, standing at the window,
I watch the Dustman going by.
Perched up on his high seat he looks
Like charioteers in those old books,
And his long coat, when the lights are dim,
Makes funny shadows all over him.

Husheen, the herons are crying 
Away in the rain and the sleet, 
Flying and flying and flying, 
With never a rest to their feet. 

But warm in your coverlet nestle, 
Wee Bird, till the dawn of the day, 
Nor dream of the wild wings that wrestle 
In the night and the rain and the grey. 

Come, sweetheart, the bright ones would bring you 
By the magical meadows and streams, 
With the light of your dreaming they build you 
A house on the hill of your dreams. 

But you stir in your sleep and you murmur, 
As though the wild rain and the grey 
Wet hills, with the winds ever blowing 
Had driven your dreams away. 

 ... 

O herdsman, driving your slow twilight flock 
  By darkening meadow and hedge and grassy rath, 
The trees stand shuddering as you pass by, 
  The suddenly falling silence is your path. 

Over my heart too, the shadows are creeping, 
  But on my heart for ever they will lie. 
O happy meadow and trees and raths and hedges, 
  The twilight and all its flock will pass you by.