And when the lads (they're in Dunquin)
Have sold their crabs and fish,

Wave fawny shawls and call them in,
And call the little girls who spin,
And seven weavers from Dunquin,
To dance in Beg-Innish.

I'll play you jigs, and Maurice Kean,
Where nets are laid to dry,

I've silken strings would draw a dance

From girls are lame or shy;

Four strings I've brought from Spain and France

To make your long men skip and prance,

Till stars look out to see the dance

Where nets are laid to dry.

We'll have no priest or peeler in
To dance in Beg-Innish;

But we'll have drink from M'riarty Jim
Rowed round while gannets fish,

A keg with porter to the brim,
That every lad may have his whim,
Till we up sails with M'riarty Jim
And sail from Beg-Innish.

EVA GORE-BOOTH

Eva Gore-Booth, the second daughter of Sir Henry Gore-Booth and the sister of Countess Marcievicz, was born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1871. She first appeared in A. E.'s anthology, New Songs, in which so many of the modern Irish poets first "emerged." Her death came suddenly in 1926.

Her initial volume, Poems (1898), showed practically no distinction - not even the customary "promise." But The One and the Many (1904) and The Sorrowful Princess (1907) revealed the gift of the Celtic singer who is half mystic, half minstrel. Primarily philosophic, her verse often turns to lyrics as haunting as the example here reprinted.

THE WAVES OF BREFFNY

The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea, And there is traffic on it and many a horse and cart,

But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me

And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.

A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o'er the hill,
And there is glory in it; and terror on the wind:
But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still,

And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.

The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their

way,

Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal; But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in

spray,

And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.

MOIRA O'NEILL

Moira O'Neill is known chiefly by a remarkable little collection of only twenty-five lyrics, Songs from the Glens of Antrim (1900), simple tunes as unaffected as the peasants of whom she sings. More Songs from the Glens of Antrim (1921) attempts but often fails to capture the charm of the original gathering. The best of her poetry is dramatic without being theatrical; it is melodious without falling into the tinkle of most "popular" sentimental verse.

A BROKEN SONG

"Where am I from?" From the green hills of Erin. "Have I no song then?" My songs are all sung. "What o' my love? "Tis alone I am farin'. Old grows my heart, an' my voice yet is young.

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"If she was tall?" Like a king's own daughter.

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If she was fair?" Like a mornin' o' May.

When she'd come laughin' 'twas the runnin' wather,
When she'd come blushin' 'twas the break o' day.

"Where did she dwell? "Where one'st I had my dwellin'. Who loved her best?" There's no one now will know.

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"Where is she gone?" Och, why would I be tellin'! Where she is gone there I can never go.

RALPH HODGSON

Ralph Hodgson was born in Northumberland in 1871 and, with the exception of brief intervals as professional draftsman, has devoted his life to literature. Writing little and publishing less, Hodgson was unknown until he was almost forty, his first book, The Last Blackbird and Other Lines, appearing in 1907. In 1913, he went into partnership with Lovat Fraser and Holbrook Jackson, publishing broadsides and chapbooks; many of his most famous poems appearing in the exquisite booklets issued by their press, “The Sign of Flying Fame."

In 1924, Hodgson accepted an invitation to visit Japan as lecturer in English literature, and August of that year found him at Sendai University, about two hundred miles from Tokio.

Hodgson's verses, full of the love of all natural things, a love that goes out to

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'an idle rainbow

No less than laboring seas,"

were issued in a collected Poems which appeared in America in 1918. The longer verses ("The Bull," "The Song of Honour") are powerfully sustained; the short lyrics are as fresh as any poetry ever written in English. It is impossible to question their charm or their permanence.

THE BIRDCATCHER

When flighting time is on, I go
With clap-net and decoy,
A-fowling after goldfinches
And other birds of joy;

I lurk among the thickets of
The Heart where they are bred,
And catch the twittering beauties as
They fly into my Head.

TIME, YOU OLD GYPSY MAN

Time, you old gypsy man,

Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?

All things I'll give you
Will you be my guest,
Bells for your jennet
Of silver the best,
Goldsmiths shall beat you
A great golden ring,
Peacocks shall bow to you,
Little boys sing,

Oh, and sweet girls will
Festoon you with may.
Time, you old gypsy,
Why hasten away?

Last week in Babylon,
Last night in Rome,

Morning, and in the crush

Under Paul's dome;

Under Paul's dial

You tighten your rein

Only a moment,

And off once again;

Off to some city

Now blind in the womb,

Off to another

Ere that's in the tomb.

"How fared you when you mortal were? What did you see on my peopled star? "Oh, well enough," I answered her,

It went for me where mortals are!

"I saw blue flowers and the merlin's flight,
And the rime on the wintry tree;
Blue doves I saw and summer light
On the wings of the cinnamon bee."

STUPIDITY STREET

I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For the people to eat,
Sold in the shops of
Stupidity Street.

I saw in a vision

The worm in the wheat,
And in the shops nothing
For people to eat:
Nothing for sale in
Stupidity Street.

REASON

Reason has moons, but moons not hers

Lie mirrored on her sea,

Confusing her astronomers,

But O! delighting me.