| Know, that I would accounted be |
| True brother of a company |
| That sang, to sweeten Ireland’s wrong, |
| Ballad and story, rann and song; |
| Nor be I any less of them, |
| Because the red-rose-bordered hem |
| Of her,
whose history began |
| Before God made the angelic clan, |
| Trails all about the written page. |
| When Time
began to rant and rage |
| The measure of her flying feet |
| Made Ireland’s heart begin to beat; |
| And Time
bade all his candles flare |
| To light a measure here and there; |
| And may the thoughts of Ireland brood |
| Upon a measured quietude. |
|
|
|
|
| Nor may I less be counted one |
| With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson, |
| Because,
to him who ponders well, |
| My rhymes more than their rhyming tell |
| Of things discovered in the deep, |
| Where
only body’s laid asleep. |
| For the elemental creatures go |
| About my table to and fro, |
| That hurry from unmeasured
mind |
| To rant and rage in flood and wind; |
| Yet he who treads in measured ways |
| May surely barter gaze
for gaze. |
| Man ever journeys on with them |
| After the red-rose-bordered hem. |
| Ah, faeries, dancing under
the moon, |
| A Druid land, a Druid tune! |
|
|
|
|
| While still I may, I write for you |
| The love I lived, the dream I knew. |
| From our birthday, until we die, |
| Is but the winking of an eye; |
| And we, our singing and our love, |
| What
measurer Time has lit above, |
| And all benighted things that go |
| About my table to and fro, |
| Are passing
on to where may be, |
| In truth’s consuming ecstasy, |
| No place for love and dream at all; |
| For God goes by
with white footfall. |
| I cast my heart into my rhymes, |
| That you, in the dim coming times, |
| May know how
my heart went with them |
| After the red-rose-bordered hem. |
