Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, 20 October 1921, Page 24

Selected Poetry

A Ballad of the Volunteers

Oil, may the fields that hide the hare Hide well our hunted men, . ' As scattered rocks conceal. the fox, And smallest trees the wren, As by the cart-wheel’s crushing track The skylark knows no fears—in vain, God grant, may England hunt The Irish Volunteers. Oh, may the winter be a spring About them where they hide, Oh, may by night the stars be bright Their silent feet to guide, AI ay streams with fish and boughs with fruit Be teeming through the years, a And evety field a harvest yield " To the Irish Volunteers. For bloody-hearted are their foes And honor’s path they spurn, They take their pay, a pound a day, To torture, kill, and burn; To rob the helpless and the poor, Rejoicing in their tears, And mercy none is ever shown To the Irish Volunteers. Oh, you that torture captive men, That hapless prisoners slay, That shoot, or drown, or sack a town In a devil’s holiday, Can do but shame your country’s name, While ours more bright appears t From scoundrel hands of “Black-and-Tans” God save the Volunteers. It was such men as these that set . America’s flag on high, It was such men that freed again Victorious Italy And Belgium fought the German foe In such a cause as theirs Then well we boast the fearless host, The Irish Volunteers. Remember well the noble dead Who died to make men free, In every land they make their stand For Ireland’s liberty. That cause has stood through pain and blood ! For seven hundred years— So till Freedom’s day we’ll sing and say ■ God bless the Volunteers! Desmond McCarthy, in the Manchester Guardian. *p Unexpressed . ** ' ' There are sweeter words than were ever said, And sweeter songs than were ever sung; And fonder tears than were ever shed, By eyes of the old or hearts of the young; For the tenderest music the spirit knows Is the music that cannot be expressed; And tho fondest tears of love are those That lie unwept in the breaking breast! For the soul is strong, and the flesh is weak, And fonder far than the words we hear Are the words our lips refuse to speak, , y When they whom our souls love best are near. ' For the love that speaks is the love that dies,

- And soonest yields unto Time’s control; • Hut the fadeless love is the love that lies ' Deeply shrined in the silent soul. Ah, God, to think that it must be so! To think dear God, in the morning light That the hearts we love must never know The tears Ave wept "thro’ the lonely night! Ah, ever thus with the old and the young, Till both are laid with the silent dead , The sweetest songs must remain ujisung, And the fondest words remain unsaid. —Sameul K. Cowan, in the Irish World. Irish Music A voice beside the dim enchanted river, Out of the twilight, where the brooding trees Hear Shannon’s druid waters chant forever Tales of dead Kings, and Bards, and Shanachies: A girl’s young voice out of the twilight, singing Old songs beside the legendary stream, A girl’s clear voice o’er the wan waters ringing, Beats with its wild wings at the Gates of Dream. The flagger-leaves, whereon shy dewdrops glisten, Are swaying, , waving gently to the sound, The meadow-sweet and spearmint as they listen, Breathe wistfully their wizard balm around; And there, alone with her lone heart and heaven, Thrush-like she sings and lets her voice go free. Her soul, of all its hidden longing shriven, Soars on wild wings with her wild melody. Sweet in its plaintive Irish modulations, Her fresh young voice tuned to old sorrow seems, The passionate cry of countless generations Keens in her breast as there she sings and dreams. No more, sad voice; for now the dawn is breaking i Through the long night, throughlreland’s night of tears New songs wake in the morn of her awaking From the enchantment of nine hundred years. — John 'Pen hunter. •? Will=’o=the=Wisps When the soul forsakes the body, Into space it upward fleets Rising to the dome celestial, Souls from other worlds it meets; Questions them, converses with them, ' To return to earth with sighs For the misery repulsive In which matter sunken lies— . ' : Misery with which in weakness ' Poor humanity each day Drags its vanities and follies, , . Purposeless in work or play, ’ ' • All forgetful of the tribute It must to the graveyard pay. There, where kings are friends with beggars, No distinctions more are found; There end vanity and rancor; He whose riches knew no bound, And the ragged man and hungry . Join to fertilise the ground. All is equal there; the charnel And the tomb no difference hold. . Tho’ . diverse may be their lineage. Men and women, young and old, With corpse candles, all together Wander ’mid night’s darkness cold. Alvaro Obeegon, in the Mexican Review.