Good-night; I have risen so high
Into slumber’s rarity,
Not a dream can beat its feather
Through the unsustaining ether. 
Let the sea-winds make avouch
How thunder summoned me to couch,
Tempest curtained me about
And turned the sun with his own hand out: 
And though I toss upon my bed
My dream is not disquieted;
Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep,
And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep;
And I fell to sleep so suddenly
That my lips are moist yet—­could’st thou see
With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee. 
Thou can’st not wipe them; for it was Death
Damped my lips that has dried my breath. 
A little while—­it is not long—­
The salt shall dry on them like the song.

Now know’st thou, that voice desolate,
Mourning ruined joy’s estate,
Reached thee through a closing gate. 
“Go’st thou to Plato?” Ah, girl, no! 
It is to Pluto that I go.

THE PASSION OF MARY

O Lady Mary, thy bright crown
  Is no mere crown of majesty;
For with the reflex of His own
  Resplendent thorns Christ circled thee.

The red rose of this passion tide
  Doth take a deeper hue from thee,
In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed,
  And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary.

The soldier struck a triple stroke
  That smote thy Jesus on the tree;
He broke the Heart of hearts, and broke
  The Saint’s and Mother’s hearts in thee.

Thy Son went up the Angels’ ways,
  His passion ended; but, ah me! 
Thou found’st the road of further days
  A longer way of Calvary.

On the hard cross of hopes deferred
  Thou hung’st in loving agony,
Until the mortal dreaded word,
  Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee.

The Angel Death from this cold tomb
  Of life did roll the stone away;
And He thou barest in thy womb
  Caught thee at last into the day—­
Before the living throne of Whom
  The lights of heaven burning pray.

L’ENVOY.

O thou who dwellest in the day,
  Behold, I pace amidst the gloom: 
Darkness is ever round my way,
  With little space for sunbeam room.

Yet Christian sadness is divine,
  Even as thy patient sadness was: 
The salt tears in our life’s dark wine
  Fell in it from the saving Cross.

Bitter the bread of our repast;
  Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven: 
Our sorrow is the shadow cast
  Around it by the light of Heaven. 
  O Light in light, shine down from Heaven!

* * * * *

PADRAIC COLUM

“I SHALL NOT DIE FOR YOU”

(From the Irish)

O woman, shapely as the swan,
  On your account I shall not die. 
The men you’ve slain—­a trivial clan—­
  Were less than I.

I ask me shall I die for these: 
  For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips? 
And shall that delicate swan-shape
  Bring me eclipse?