The Awakening Of Dermuid

IN the sleepy forest where the bluebells 
Smouldered dimly through the night, 
Dermuid saw the leaves like glad green waters 
At daybreak flowing into light, 
And exultant from his love upspringing 
Strode with the sun upon the height. 
 
Glittering on the hilltops 
He saw the sunlit rain 
Drift as around the spindle 
A silver-threaded skein, 
And the brown mist whitely breaking 
Where arrowy torrents reached the plain. 
 
A maddened moon 
Leapt in his heart and whirled the crimson tide 
Of his blood until it sang aloud of battle 
Where the querns of dark death grind, 
Till it sang and scorned in pride 
Love—the froth-pale blossom of the boglands 
That flutters on the waves of the wandering wind. 
 
Flower-quiet in the rush-strewn sheiling 
At the dawntime Grainne lay, 
While beneath the birch-topped roof the sunlight 
Groped upon its way 
And stooped above her sleeping white body 
With a wasp-yellow ray. 
 
The hot breath of the day awoke her, 
And wearied of its heat 
She wandered out by the noisy elms 
On the cool mossy peat, 
Where the shadowed leaves like pecking linnets 
Nodded around her feet. 
 
She leaned and saw in the pale-grey waters, 
By twisted hazel boughs, 
Her lips like heavy drooping poppies 
In a rich redness drowse,  35
Then swallow—lightly touched the ripples 
Until her wet lips were 
Burning as ripened rowan berries 
Through the white winter air. 
 
Lazily she lingered 
  Gazing so, 
As the slender osiers 
Where the waters flow, 
As green twings of sally 
Swaying to and fro. 
 
Sleepy moths fluttered 
In her dark eyes, 
And her lips grew quieter 
Than lullabies. 
Swaying with the reedgrass 
Over the stream 
Lazily she lingered 
Cradling a dream.