Norah M. Holland

“ Still in our dreams we see her,
Noble and wise and strong.
Once in a far-off country
We named her great and fair,
They mocked us with scornful laughter,
"Lo, these are the sons she bare!"
Do we not feel our bondage,
We, who have owned her name,
When we dare not whisper her praises
Lest we whelm her in our shame?
Yet do the outcasts love her,
Who once were bone of her bone,
Pray for her life and honour
Who dare not pray for their own;
Out of the hell we have chosen
Watch her, with longing eyes—
She, who was once our Mother,
Excellent, just and wise. ”

“ And turning homeward yearning eyes that ne'er shall see her strand,
We tune our harps and strike once more the chords with faltering hand,
And sing again the song of home, far in a lonely land.
"If we forget Jerusalem!" Ah, well we know the song—
Our waters of captivity, bitter their waves and strong,
And faint our hearts for weariness, how long, O Lord, how long?
A SONG OF MEMORY Here as I sit in the dark and ponder,
Watching the firelight dance and gleam,
What brings them back to my mind, I wonder?
Those old days of laughter and dream. ”

“ On the last and longest voyage that shall never reach the shore,
O Thou Master of the Ocean, send no tranquil tides to me,
But 'mid all Thy floods and thunders let my vessel put to sea.
Let her lie within no tropic sea, dead rotten to the bone,
Till the lisping, sluggish waters claim my vessel for their own;
Till the sun shall scar her timbers, and the slimy weed shall crawl
O'er her planks that gape and widen, and the slow sea swallow all.
Let her not go down in darkness, where the smoking mist-wreaths hide
The white signal of the breakers, dimly guessed at, overside ”

“ From the ghostly harbours where your sea-beat galleons lie,
Say, do your dreams go back across the sea-line
Where cliffs of England rise grey against the sky?
Say, do you dream of the pleasant ports of old-time,
Orchards of old Devon, all afoam with snowy bloom?
Or have the mists that veil the Sea of Shadows
Closed from your eyes all the memories of home?
Feet of the Captains hurry through the stillness,
Ghostly sails of galleons are drifting to and fro,
Voices of mariners sound across the shadows,
Waiting the word that shall bid them up and go. ”

“ A SONG OF ERIN
Far to westward in the sunset tall and bare her cliffs arise,
Mother Erin, with the tender love and laughter in her eyes,
Looking out across the waters, dreaming of her argosies.
Argosies that sail forever, laden down with hopes and fears,
Ships of dream, returning never, though she waits throughout the years,
Waits, with eyes wherein the laughter grows more sorrowful than tears.
One by one her children leave her—stalwart sons and daughters fair,
Straining eyes grown dim with anguish as her hilltops melt in air ”

“ And dreams that his master's call he hears.
And I know, when at length his master waits
Outside in the dark and cold
For the hand of Death to ope the gates
That lead to those courts of gold,
The little dog-angel's eager bark
Will comfort his soul in the shivering dark.
SHULE AROON
Fair are the fields of Canada, and broad her rivers flow,
But my heart's away from Canada to seek the hills I know,
Far, far away o'er billows grey, where western breezes sweep,
And—it's not the songs of Canada go sounding through my sleep. ”

“ We are the lords of the land,
We built us towns and towers,
The sea has felt our hand—
Soon shall the sky be ours.
THE DEFEATED
Cheer if you will the brave deed done, with laurels the victor crown,
But keep one leaf of your wreath of bay for the men who lost and are
down—
For the fight in vain, for the cankered grain that in blood and tears
was sown.
Honour the strong of heart and hand, the sure of will and of sight,
But what of the stumbling feet, the eyes that strain in vain for light?
Is there no gain for the tears and pain of the men who fell in the fight? ”

“ Longships of the Northmen, galleons of Spain,
Tall, gleaming caravels, swinging in the tideway,
Never shall the sunlight gild their sails again.
Never shall those white sails, lifting on the sea-line,
Swoop like a swallow across the blinding blue,
Caracque and caravel, lying 'neath the waters,
Wait till the bugles shall call the last review.
There in the darkness lie friend and foe together,
Drake's English pinnaces, the great Armada's host;
Quiet they lie in the silence of the sea-depths,
Waiting the call that shall sound from coast to coast. ”

“ Drake's drum is beating along the coasts of Devon,
Calling, as in days of old it called to vanquish Spain;
Drake and Blake and Raleigh, they have left the ports of Heaven,
Homing back across the stars to England's cliffs again.
OUR DEAD
Not where the English turf grows green we laid them,
Where their forefathers lie;
O'er the rude trench and rough-built mound we made them
Arches an alien sky.
No chime of bells from old-time towers above them;
No sound of English streams,
Calling of rooks, or voice of those who love them,
Ever shall break their dreams. ”

“ Poor, shadowy, silent God,
Who once had been so fair.
"O Love, great Love," I cried,
"Why come you thus to me?"
"I am Love's ghost," he said;
"Men name me Memory."
A SONG OF LOVE
Love came loitering down the way,
(Heart, but we two were young!)
Laughter light in his eyes there lay,
Music was on his tongue;
"Stay, Love, stay—walk with us, pray!
(Sweet were the songs he sung.)
Love with us goes wandering still,
(Heart, but his songs are sweet!)
Suns may shine, or the rains beat chill,
What matter cold or heat?
Blue or grey, Love goes our way ”

“ Bending from her cliffs she watches, drinking deep of their despair.
Yet she showers her gifts upon them—gifts of laughter and of tears;
Gives their eyes the Vision Splendid, fairy music to their ears,
Weaves around their feet her magic—spells that strengthen through
the years,
So her children, unforgetting, howsoe'er their footsteps roam,
Turn their hearts forever westward, longing for the day to come
When once more they see her stooping from her heights to call them home. ”

“ And the winds they do be blowing and the snows be lying there,
And unchristened childer's souls, they say, may ne'er see
Heaven's light—
O lone one, my own one, where strays your soul to-night?
TO AUDREY, AGED FOUR
Light feet, white feet, dancing down the ways,
Spilling out the honey from the flowery days,
May your paths forever flowery be and sweet,
Stony roads of sorrow wait not for your feet.
Light feet, white feet, as you older grow,
Fain are we to keep you from all care and woe ”

“ Death gave. His mighty hand set free
My wild sea-maid, that could not live
Without her waters' liberty.
And I?—To me the fields are dear;
The steadfast earth is home to me.
Yet night by night in dreams I hear
Her spirit call me from the sea.
A STORM AT NIGHT All night the waves broke in upon the shore
Beneath my window, and I heard the rain
With querulous, weak fingers, evermore
Beating against the pane. ”

“ They leave their windless, glassy sea,
The angel songs and melody
Of Paradise,
To walk again the old-time way
Once dear to mortal eyes.
With beating heart I watch them ride
Across the gathering shades that hide
That country bright;
The faces that I loved of yore,
Eyes that shall smile on me no more
With mortal light;
Shadows of all good things and fair
Come from the past to-night.
So, when the dying sunset gleams
Behind the hills, the Gate of Dreams
Stands open wide ”

“ And forever through my dreaming come the great waves' lash and leap,
And the salt wind, the sea-wind, the wind upon the deep.
Should I die here in this country, and its stifling turf be pressed
Hot and heavy o'er my bosom, O 'tis never I could rest;
Let me lie beneath the washing of the green and silent wave,
With the salt wind, the sea-wind, to sing above my grave.
MY PHILOSOPHY
Life is a game that all must play ”

“ The little winds are dancing with the shadows
The young leaves make; once more the world is fain
Of life and laughter—but he shall not see
The leaf-strewn hollows where the violets grow,
Or watch the hawthorn buds foam into snow,
No more shall feel the warm, soft, springtime rain,
For he has died for thee. ”

“ But out in the open ocean, where the great waves call and cry,
Leap and thunder at her taffrail, while the scud blows stinging by,
With the life still strong within her, struggling onward through
the blast,
Till one last long wave shall whelm her, and our voyaging is past.
BALLADE OF DREAMS
We dreamed our dreams in full many lands,
By mount and forest, by stream and lea,
Dreams of the touch of old-time hands,
Dreams of a future destiny,
Dreams of battle and victory,
Laughter and love and wealth and fame ”

“ Laugh, though the world upon you frown,
Laugh, though the deeps your soul shall drown,
Many a better man goes down—
Throw back your head and laugh.
And when Death's hand on your shoulder lies
And the world grows dim to your failing eyes,
Let him not say: "A coward dies."
Throw back your head and laugh.
EASTER, 1917
I. M. Thomas MacDonagh
He died for thee, O mournful Mother Erin! ”

“ Haste across the jasper sea, and drive them home again."
All the streets of Paradise echo to its rattle—
Golden roads a-tremble to the chime of tramping feet;
Hawkins, Drake and Frobisher are marching forth to battle:
"Peter, open wide the gates. We're out to join the fleet."
Pinnace, caravel, caracque—many a galleon drifting—
Shadowy sails of old renown upon the shadowy sea;
Ghostly voices through the mists; "Lo, the white cliffs lifting;
Heaven's streets for those who will, but Devon's shores for me." ”

“ Till, as I sit in the firelight dreaming,
Watching the shadows grow apace,
Out of the long dead years comes gleaming
There in the flames your laughing face;
All the days that are past and over
Gone in the turf smoke, curling blue,
And from their wreckage I recover
Song and sunshine and youth and you.
IN MEMORY OF A FAILURE
O Kathaleen ni Houlihan, in blood and ashes lie
The dreams we dreamed, the faith we held, the hopes we builded high;
Once more the path that Emmet trod our bleeding feet must press,
Once more our hearts must bear the load of failure and distress ”

“ Somewhere within the shadowy land
Waiting his master he will stand
Until my summons comes to go.
And, in that life so strange and new,
We'll tramp the fields of heaven through,
Loiter the crystal river by;
Together walk the hills of God
As when the hills of earth we trod,
Forever friends, my dog and I.
SNOWDROPS
February fair maids,
All along the lane,
Dancing with the breezes,
Nodding to the rain,
Whispering tales of Springtime
Through the snow and sleet,
February fair maids,
Brave and bright and sweet. ”

“ Little brown head, on my shoulder lying,
Night is coming and day is dead;
Mother will sing you songs, that shall bring you
Childhood's soft sleep, quiet and deep;
Sweet be your dreams, O dear brown head. ”

“ Yet sometimes, so 'twas told to me,
The children playing in the meadows
May hear her song, that mournfully
Comes floating through the shadows,
And sometimes see, through boughs grown bare,
The moonlit brightness of her hair. ”

“ From France they come, and Flanders,
From Mons, and Marne and Aisne,
From Greece and from Gallipoli
They come to her again;
From the North Sea's grey waters,
From many a grave unknown,
The Gentlemen of Oxford
Come back to claim their own.
The dark is full of laughter,
Boy laughter, glad and young,
They tell the old-time stories,
The old-time songs are sung ”

“ And lulls them into dreams.
Even so, when life is over,
And the long day's march is past,
We wait in gathering shadows
Till the Sandman comes at last.
Sad are our hearts and weary,
And long the waiting seems;
Lord, we are tired children;
Touch Thou our eyes with dreams. ”

“ Waits, with the dreams in his hands.
DIANE AU BOIS
Through the sere woods she walks alone,
With bow unstrung and empty quiver;
Her hounds are dead, her maidens gone,
She walks alone forever;
Watching the while with wistful eyes
Her crescent shining in the skies.
The flutes of Pan are silent now,
Hushed is the sound of Faunus' singing;
Through winds that shake the withering bough
No dryad's voice is ringing. ”

“ The King of Erin's daughter, for the bridegroom's name was Death.
KITTY O'NEIL
O a bit of a dance in an Irish street—
Hogan was there, and Hennessy,
Many a colleen fair and sweet,
And Kitty O'Neil she danced with me;
Kitty O'Neil, with eyes of brown,
And feet as light as the flakes o' snow. ”