SYNGE'S GRAVE,

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 33, 8 February 1913, Page 13

SYNGE'S GRAVE,

My grief! that they have laid you in the town § Within the moidher «f its thousand wheels And busy feet that travel up and down. They had a right to choose a better bed Far off among the hills where silence steals In on th© soul with' comfort-bringing tread. The curlew would have keened for you all day, Tho wind across the heather cried Ochone For sorrow of his brother gone away. In, Glenmalure far off from town-born men Why would they not have let you sleep alone At peace there in the shadow of the glen? To tend your grave you should have had the sun, THe fraughan and the mow, th© heather brown, And gorse turned gold for joy of spring begun. You should have had your brothers wind and rain, And in the dark the stars all looking down To ask "When will he take the road again?" The herdsmen of the lone back hills that drive The mountain ewes to some, far-distant fair Would stand and say, "We knew him well alive, That God may rest his soul}" Then they would pass Into the silence brooding everywhere And leave you to your sleep below the grass. ' But now among these alien city graves What way are you without the wind's harsh breath, You free-born eon. of mountains and wild Waves? Ah I God knows better— here you've no abode, So long ago you had the laugh at death, And rose, and took the windswept mountain road. — W. M. Letts. Westminster Gazette.