Inscriptions

I. Of Ireland

A half of pathos is the past we know,
A half the future into which we go;
Or present joy broken with old regret,
Or sorrow saved from hell by one hope yet.
There once was pleasant water and fresh land
Where now the Sphinx gazes across the sand;
Yet may she hope, though dynasties have died,
That Change abides while Time and she abide.

II.

What of my careful ways of speech?
What are my cold words to the heart
That lives in man? They cannot reach
One passion simpler than their art.

III.

Though silence be the meed of death
In dust of death a soul doth burn :
Poet, rekindled by thy breath,
Joy flames within her funeral urn.

IV.

My poet yearns and shudders with desire
To bring to speech your music's intense thought :
It is music all, yet he in ice and fire
Excruciates till it to words is wrought.

V.

— Winter is dead ! Hark, hark, upon our hills
The voices for whose coming thou didst yearn !
Hail Spring! O Life, with happy Spring return !
O Love, revive ! Joy's laugh the dawn-tide fills.
— I shall not see him coming, Joy the vernal,
Joy the heart-wakener, with his songs and roses :
To thee the Spring : to me Death, who discloses
The splendour of another Joy, eternal !

VI.

What is white?
The soul of the sage, faith-lit,
The trust of Age,
The infant's untaught wit.

What more white?
The face of Truth made known,
The voice of Youth
Singing before her throne.