UNIV. OF CALIFORNI

The GOLDEN TREASURY

of IRISH SONGS and LYRICS

CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER

B

(1818-1895)

DREAMS

EYOND, beyond the mountain line,

The gray-stone and the boulder,

Beyond the growth of dark green pine,
That crowns its western shoulder,
There lies that fairy-land of mine,
Unseen of a beholder.

Its fruits are all like rubies rare;
Its streams are clear as glasses;
There golden castles hang in air,
And purple grapes in masses,
And noble knights and ladies fair
Come riding down the passes.

Ah me! they say if I could stand
Upon those mountain ledges,
I should but see on either hand
Plain fields and dusty hedges;
And yet I know my fairy-land
Lies somewhere o'er their edges.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES

Y Nebo's lonely mountain, on this side Jordan's

BY

wave,

In a vale, in the land of Moab, there lies a

lonely grave;

And no man knows that sepulchre, and no man saw

it e'er ;

For the angels of God upturned the sod, and laid the Idead man there.

That was the grandest funeral that ever passed on

earth;

But no man heard the trampling, or saw the train go forth

Noiselessly, as the Daylight comes back when Night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek grows into the great sun.

Noiselessly, as the spring-time her crown of verdure

weaves,

And all the trees on all the hills open their thousand

leaves;

So, without sound of music, or voice of them that

wept,

Silently down from the mountain's crown, the great procession swept.

Perchance the bald old eagle, on gray Beth-Peor's height,

Out of his lonely eyrie, looked on the wondrous

sight;

Perchance the lion stalking still shuns that hallowed

spot,

For beast and bird have seen and heard that which man knoweth not!

But when the Warrior dieth, his comrades in the war, With arms reversed and muffled drum, follow his funeral car;

They show the banners taken, they tell his battles won, And after him lead his masterless steed, while peals the minute-gun.

Amid the noblest of the land we lay the Sage to rest, And give the Bard an honored place, with costly marble drest,

In the great minster transept, where lights like glories fall,

And the organ rings, and the sweet choir sings, along the emblazoned wall.

This was the truest warrior that ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet that ever breathed a word; And never earth's philosopher traced with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage as he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honor,-the hillside for a pall? To lie in state, while angels wait, with stars for tapers

tall?

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, over his bier to wave !

And God's own hand, in that lonely land, to lay him in the grave!

In that strange grave without a name,-whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again, O wondrous thought! before the judgment day,

And stand, with glory wrapt around, on the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life, with the incarnate Son of God.

O lonely grave in Moab's land! O dark Beth-Peor's hill!

Speak to these curious hearts of ours, and teach them to be still.

God hath his mysteries of grace, ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep of him he loved so well.

THE IRISH MOTHER'S LAMENT

"She watched for the return of her son from America in her house by the Foyle, near Derry."

HERE'S no one on the long white road

"TH

The night is closing o'er;

O mother! cease to look abroad

And let me shut the door.

"Now here and there a twinkling light

Comes out along the bay;

The little ships lie still and white,

And no one comes this way."

She turned her straining eyes within;
She sighed both long and low.
"Shut up the door; take out the pin,
Then, if it must be so.

"But, daughter, set the wick alight,
And put it in the pane;

If any should come home to-night,
He'll see it through the rain.

"Nay, leave the pin beneath the latch;
If some one push the door,
Across my broken dreams I'll hear
His footstep on the floor."

She crouched within the ingle nook,
She spread her fingers sere,
Her failed eyes had a far-off look,
Despite her fourscore year.

And if in youth they had been fair,
'Twas not the charm they had,
Not the old beauty lingering there,
But something weird and sad.

The daughter, in the firelight pale,
A woman gray and wan,

Sat listening, while half dream, half wail,
Her words went wandering on;

"O river that dost never halt

Till down beyond the bar

Thou meet'st the breakers green and salt That bore my lads afar