home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- UNDER THE MOON
-
- I HAVE no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
- Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
- Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;
- Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;
- Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:
- Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's
- Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones,
- Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
- And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,
- To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier.
- Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinevere;
- And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,
- And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;
- And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore,
- Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar,
- I hear the harp-string praise them, or hear their mournful talk.
- Because of something told under the famished horn
- Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day,
- To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dis may,
- Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.
-