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 In the City as the sun sinks low;

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
When you meet the garland girls

Tripping on their way?

All around my gala hat

I wear a wreath of roses

(A long and lonely year it is

I've waited for the May!)

If any one should ask you,

The reason why I wear it is— My own love, my true love is coming home today.

And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady

(It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)

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
In the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow;
And the music's not immortal; but the world has made
it sweet

And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song

complete

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

That surround the singing organ like a large eternal

light,

And they've given it a glory and a part to play again
In the Symphony that rules the day and night.

And there, as the music changes,

The song runs round again;
Once more it turns and ranges
Through all its joy and pain:
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets;

And the wheeling world remembers all
The wheeling song forgets.

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

Shores no seaman ever hailed,

Seas no ship has ever sailed.

All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,

So the story tries to teach

More than can be told in speech.

Beauty is a fading flower,

Truth is but a wizard's tower,

Where a solemn death-bell tolls,

And a forest round it rolls.

We have come by curious ways
To the light that holds the days;
We have sought in haunts of fear
For that all-enfolding sphere:
And lo! it was not far, but near.
We have found, O foolish-fond,
The shore that has no shore beyond.

Deep in every heart it lies.

With its untranscended skies;

For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?

Carol, Carol, we have come
Back to heaven, back to home.

Padraic Colum

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 20 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.

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.

"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?

"Surely your thoughts are of Pan, or of Wotan, or Dana?

"Yet, why give thought to the gods? Has Pan led your brutes where they stumble?

"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 night-giving 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.