To be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleam There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stone In the City as the sun sinks low; There's a portly man of business with a balance of his own, There's a clerk and there's a butcher of a soft reposeful tone, And they're all of them returning to the heavens they have known: They are crammed and jammed in busses and—they're each of them alone In the land where the dead dreams go. There's a labourer that listens to the voices of the dead In the City as the sun sinks low; And his hand begins to tremble and his face is rather red As he sees a loafer watching him and there he turns his head And stares into the sunset where his April love is fled, For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is led Through the land where the dead dreams go There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweet Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat In the land where the dead dreams go. So it's Jeremiah, Jeremiah, What have you to say All around my gala hat I wear a wreath of roses (A long and lonely year it is My own love, my true love is coming And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady While the sky burns blue above: On the other side the street you'll find it shady (It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!) But buy a bunch of violets for the lady, And tell her she's your own true love. There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song com plete In the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet, As it dies into the sunset glow; And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain And there, as the music changes, And the wheeling world remembers all Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with Love in summer's wonderland, Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) EPILOGUE (From “The Flower of Old Japan”) Carol, every violet has Heaven for a looking-glass! Every little valley lies Under many-clouded skies; Every little cottage stands Girt about with boundless lands. Every little glimmering pond Claims the mighty shores beyond - Seas no ship has ever sailed. All the shores when day is done More than can be told in speech. Beauty is a fading flower, We have come by curious ways Padraic Colum was born at Longford, Ireland (in the same county as Oliver Goldsmith), December 8, 1881, and was educated at the local schools. At twenty he was a member of a group that created the Irish National Theatre, afterwards called The Abbey Theatre. He has lived in America since 1914. Colum began as a dramatist with Broken Soil (1904), The Land (1905), Thomas Muskerry (1910), and this early dramatic influence has colored much of his work, his best poetry being in the form of dramatic lyrics. Wild Earth, his most notable collection of verse, first appeared in 1909, and an amplified edition of it was published in America in 1916. His Dramatic Poems appeared in 1922, Creatures, beautifully illustrated, in 1927. Besides his other gifts, Colum is eminently successful as an adapter, sensitive as a critic, and deservedly popular as a teller of tales for children. THE PLOUGHER Sunset and silence! A man: around him earth savage, earth broken; Beside him two horses- a plough! Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn man there in the sunset, And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that is founder of cities! "Brute-tamer, plough-maker, earth-breaker! Can'st hear? There are ages between us. 66 Is it praying you are as you stand there alone in the sunset? "Surely our sky-born gods can be naught to you, earth child and earth master? 66 Surely your thoughts are of Pan, or of Wotan, or Dana? 1 "Yet, why give thought to the gods? Has Pan led your brutes where they stumble? 66 Has Dana numbed pain of the child-bed, or Wotan put hands to your plough? "What matter your foolish reply! O, man, standing lone and bowed earthward, "Your task is a day near its close. Give thanks to the nightgiving God." Slowly the darkness falls, the broken lands blend with the savage; The brute-tamer stands by the brutes, a head's breadth only above them. A head's breadth? Ay, but therein is hell's depth, and the height up to heaven, And the thrones of the gods and their halls, their chariots, purples, and splendors. JOSEPH CAMPBELL Joseph Campbell was born in Belfast in 1881, and is not only a poet but an artist; he made all the illustrations for The Rushlight (1906), a volume of his own poems. Writing under the Gaelic form of his name, he has published half a dozen books of verse, the most striking of which is The Mountainy Singer, first published in Dublin in 1909. THE OLD WOMAN As a white candle In a holy place, 1 Dana is an Irish mythological deity. |