The Tower — Owen Aherne and His Dancers
| A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought |
| Upon the Norman upland or in
that poplar shade, |
| Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out. |
| It could not bear that
burden and therefore it went mad. |
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| The south wind brought it longing, and the east wind despair, |
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west wind made it pitiful, and the north wind afraid. |
| It feared to give its love a hurt with all the tempest
there; |
| It feared the hurt that she could give and therefore it went mad. |
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| I can exchange opinion with any
neighbouring mind, |
| I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer’s had, |
| But O! my Heart could bear
no more when the upland caught the wind; |
| I ran, I ran, from my love’s side because my Heart went
mad. |
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| The Heart behind its rib laughed out. ‘You have called me mad,’ it said. |
| ‘Because I made you
turn away and run from that young child; |
| How could she mate with fifty years that was so wildly bred? |
| Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.’ |
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| ‘You but imagine lies all
day, O murderer,’ I replied. |
| ‘And all those lies have but one end, poor wretches to betray; |
| I did not find
in any cage the woman at my side. |
| O but her heart would break to learn my thoughts are far away.’ |
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| ‘Speak all your mind,’ my Heart sang out, ‘speak all your mind; who cares, |
| Now that your tongue cannot
persuade the child till she mistake |
| Her childish gratitude for love and match your fifty years? |
| O let her
choose a young man now and all for his wild sake.’ |