THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF FAERYLAND
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e stood among a crowd at Drumahair;His heart hung all upon a silken dress,And he had known at last some tenderness,Before earth made of him her sleepy care;But when a man poured fish into a pile,It seemed they raised their little silver heads,And sang how day a Druid twilight shedsUpon a dim, green, well-beloved isle,Where people love beside star-laden seas;How Time may never mar their faery vowsUnder the woven roofs of quicken boughs:The singing shook him out of his new ease. He wandered by the sands of Lisadill;His mind ran all on money cares and fears,And he had known at last some prudent yearsBefore they heaped his grave under the hill;But while he passed before a plashy place,A lug-worm with its gray and muddy mouthSang how somewhere to north or west or southThere dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race;And how beneath those three times blessed skiesA Danaan fruitage makes a shower of moons,And as it falls awakens leafy tunes:And at that singing he was no more wise. He mused beside the well of Scanavin,He mused upon his mockers: without failHis sudden vengeance were a country tale,Now that deep earth has drunk his body in;But one small knot-grass growing by the poolTold where, ah, little, all-unneeded voice!Old Silence bids a lonely folk rejoice,And chaplet their calm brows with leafage cool,And how, when fades the sea-strewn rose of day,A gentle feeling wraps them like a fleece,And all their trouble dies into its peace:The tale drove his fine angry mood away. He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;And might have known at last unhaunted sleepUnder that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,Now that old earth had taken man and all:Were not the worms that spired about his bonesA-telling with their low and reedy cry,Of how God leans His hands out of the sky,To bless that isle with honey in His tones;That none may feel the power of squall and waveAnd no one any leaf-crowned dancer missUntil He burn up Nature with a kiss:The man has found no comfort in the grave.
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