The Wind on the Hills

GO not to the hills of Erinn

When the night winds are about,

Put up your bar and shutter,

And so keep danger out.

For the good-folk whirl within it,

And they pull you by the hand,

And they push you on the shoulder,

Till you move to their command.

And lo! you have forgotten

What you have known of tears,

And you will not remember

That the world goes full of years.

A year there is a lifetime,

And a second but a day,

And an older world will meet you

Each morn you come away.

Your wife grows old with weeping,

And your children one by one

Grow gray with nights of watching,

Before your dance is done.

And it will chance some morning

You will come home no more;

Your wife sees but a withered leaf

In the wind about the door.

And your children will inherit

The unrest of the wind,

They shall seek some face elusive,

And some land they never find.

Where the wind is loud, they sighing

Go with hearts unsatisfied,

For some joy beyond remembrance,

For some memory denied.

And all your children's children,

They cannot sleep or rest,

When the wind is out in Erinn

And the sun is in the west.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

All-Souls' Night

O MOTHER, mother, I swept the hearth, I set his chair and the white board spread,

I prayed for his coming to our kindly Lady when Death's doors would let out the dead;

A strange wind rattled the window-pane, and down the lane a dog howled on,

I called his name and the candle flame burnt dim, pressed a hand the door-latch upon.

Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I could not sever coward flesh from fear.

I called his name and the pale ghost came; but I was afraid to meet my dear.

O mother, mother, in tears I checked the sad hours past of the year that's o'er,

Till by God's grace I might see his face and hear the sound of his voice once more;

The chair I set from the cold and wet, he took when he came from unknown skies

Of the land of the dead, on my bent brown head I felt the reproach of his saddened eyes;

I closed my lids on my heart's desire, crouched by the fire, my voice was dumb.

At my clean-swept hearth he had no mirth, and at my table he broke no crumb.

Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I could not sever coward flesh from fear.

His chair put aside when the young cock cried, and I was afraid to meet my dear.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Fair Little Maiden

THERE is one at the door, Wolfe O'Driscoll,

  At the door, who bids you to come!

"Who is he that wakes me in the darkness,

  Calling when all the world is dumb?"

Six horses has he to his carriage,

  Six horses blacker than the night,

And their twelve red eyes in the shadows--

  Twelve lamps he carries for his light;

His coach is a hearse black and mouldy,

  Within a coffin open wide:

He asks for you soul, Wolfe O'Driscoll,

  Who doth call at the door outside.

"Who let him thro' the gates of my gardens,

  Where stronger bolts have never been?"

The father of the fair little maiden

  You drove to her grave deep and green.

"And who let him pass through the courtyard,

  Loosening the bar and the chain?"

Who but the brother of the maiden

  Who lies in the cold and the rain?

"Then who drew the bolts at the portal,

  And into my house bade him go?"

The mother of the poor young maiden

  Who lies in her youth all so low.

"Who stands, that he dare not enter,

  The door of my chamber, between?"

O, the ghost of the fair little maiden

  Who lies in the churchyard green.

Dora Sigerson Shorter