I

THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE

T is a whisper among the hazel bushes;

It is a long, low, whispering voice that fills With a sad music the bending and swaying rushes; It is a heart-beat deep in the quiet hills.

Twilight people why will you still be crying,
Crying and calling to me out of the trees?
For under the quiet grass the wise are lying
And all the strong ones are gone over the seas.

And I am old, and in my heart at your calling
Only the old dead dreams a fluttering go,
As the wind, the forest wind, in its falling

Sets the withered leaves fluttering to and fro.

66

"A

FANNY PARNELL

(1854-1882)

ERIN MY QUEEN

S the breath of the musk-rose is sweetest 'mid flowers,

As the palm like a queen o'er the forest-trees towers,

As the pearl of the deep sea 'mid gems is the fairest, As the spice-cradled phoenix 'mid birds is the rarest, As the star that keeps guard o'er Flath-Innis shines brightest,

As the angel-twined snow-wreaths 'mid all things are whitest,

As the dream of the singer his faint speech transcendeth,

As the rapture of martyrs all agony endeth,

As the rivers of Aidenn 'mid earth's turbid waters,
As Una the Pure One 'mid Eve's fallen daughters,
So is Erin, my shining one,

So is Erin, my peerless one!"

POST-MORTEM

HALL mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country?
Shall mine eyes behold thy glory?

SH

Or shall the darkness close around them, ere the

sun-blaze

Break at last upon thy story?

When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle, As a sweet new sister hail thee,

Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence That have known but to bewail thee?

Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises
When all men their tribute bring thee?

Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor
When all poets' mouths shall sing thee?

Ah! the harpings and the salvos and the shoutings Of thy exiled sons returning

I should hear, though dead and moldered, and the grave damps

Should not chill my bosom's burning.

Ah! the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them 'Mid the shamrocks and the mosses,

And my heart should toss within the shroud and quiver,

As a captive dreamer tosses.

I should turn and rend the cere clothes round me,
Giant-sinews I should borrow,

Crying, "O my brothers I have also loved her,
In her lowliness and sorrow.

"Let me join with you the jubilant procession,
Let me chant with you her story;

Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks,
Now mine eyes have seen her glory."

THOMAS PARNELL

(1679-1717)

WHEN YOUR BEAUTY APPEARS

HEN your beauty appears,

"WH

In its graces and airs,

All bright as an angel new dropt from the
skies;

At distance I gaze and am awed by my fears,
So strangely you dazzle my eyes!

"But when without art

Your kind thoughts you impart,

When your love runs in blushes through every vein

When it darts from your eyes, when it pants at your

heart,

Then I know you are woman again."

"There's a passion and pride

In our sex," she replied;

"And thus (might I gratify both) I would do,Still an angel appear to each lover beside

But still be a lover to you."

S

PERCY SOMERS PAYNE
(1850-1874)

REST

ILENCE sleeping on a waste of ocean

Sun-down-westward traileth a red streak — One white sea-bird, poised with scarce a motion, Challenges the stillness with a shriek Challenges the stillness, upward wheeling

Where some rocky peak containeth her rude nest; For the shadows o'er the waters they come stealing, And they whisper to the silence: "There is Rest."

Down where the broad Zambesi River

Glides away into some shadowy lagoon
Lies the antelope, and hears the leaflets quiver,
Shaken by the sultry breath of noon

Hears the sluggish water ripple in its flowing;

Feels the atmosphere, with fragrance all opprest; Dreams his dreams; and the sweetest is the knowing That above him, and around him, there is Rest.

Centuries have faded into shadow.

Earth is fertile with the dust of man's decay; Pilgrims all they were to some bright El-dorado, But they wearied, and they fainted, by the way.