Dora Sigerson Shorter

“What ails you that you look so pale,
O fisher of the sea?”
“’Tis for a mournful tale I own,
Fair maiden Marjorie.”

“What is the dreary tale to tell,
O toiler of the sea?”
“I cast my net into the waves,
Sweet maiden Marjorie.

“I cast my net into the tide,
Before I made for home;
Too heavy for my hands to raise,
I drew it through the foam.”

“What saw you that you look so pale,
Sad searcher of the sea?”
“A dead man’s body from the deep
My haul had brought to me!”

“And was he young, and was he fair?”
“Oh, cruel to behold!
In his white face the joy of life
Not yet was grown a-cold.”

“Oh, pale you are, and full of prayer
For one who sails the sea.”
“Because the dead looked up and spoke,
Poor maiden Ma...

At the grey dawn, amongst the felling leaves,
        A little bird outside my window swung,
High on a topmost branch he trilled his song,
        And “Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!” ever sung.

Take me, I cried, back to my island home;
        Sweet bird, my soul shall ride between thy wings;
For my lone spirit wide his pinions spread,
        And home and home and home he ever sings.

We lingered over Ulster stern and wild.
        I called: “Arise! doth none remember me?”
One turnèd in the darkness murmuring,
        “How loud upon the breakers sobs the sea!”

We rested over Connaught-whispering said:
        “Awake, awake, and welcome!    I am here.”
One woke and shivered at the morning grey;
        “The trees, I never heard them sigh so drear.”

Who has room for a friend
Who has money to spend,
And a goblet of gold
For your fingers to hold,
At the wave of whose hand
Leap the salmon to land,
Drop the birds of the air,
Fall the stag and the hare.
Who has room for a friend
Who has money to lend?
            We have room for a friend!

Who has room for a friend
Who has nothing to lend,
When the goblet of gold
Is as far from his hold
As the fleet-footed hare,
Or the birds of the air.
Who has room for a friend
Who has nothing to spend?
            We know not such a friend.

A little dog disturbed my trust in Heaven.
I praised most faithfully
All the great things that be,
Man’s pain and pleasure even,
I said though hard this weighing
Of pains and tears and praying
He will reward most just.

I said your bitter weeping man or maid,
Your tears or laughter
Shall gain a just Hereafter;
Meet you the will of God then unafraid,
Gird you to your trials for God’s abode
Is open for all sorrow;
Live for the great to-morrow.
There passed me on the road

A little dog with hungry eyes, and sad
Thin flesh all shivering,
All sore and quivering,
Whining beneath the fell disease he had.
I hurried home and praised God as before
For thus affording
To man rewarding,
The dog was whining outside my door.

I cried all night to you,
        I called till day was here;
Perhaps you could not come,
        Or were too tirèd, dear.

Your chair I set by mine,
        I made the dim hearth glow,
I whispered, “When he comes
        I shall not let him go.”

I closed the shutters tight,
        I feared the dawn of day,
I stopped the busy clock
        That timed your hours away.

Loud howled my neighbour’s dog,
        O glad was I to hear.
The dead are going by,
        Now you will come, my dear,

To take the chair by mine-
        Until the cock would crow-
O, if it be you came
        And could not let me know,

For once a shadow passed
        Behind me in the room,
I thought your loving eyes
        Would...

Here’s a meadow full of sunshine
Ripe grasses lush and high;
There’s a reaper on the roadway,
And a lark hangs in the sky.

There’s a nest of love enclosing
Three little beaks that cry;
The reapers in the meadow
And a lark hangs in the sky.

Here’s a mead all full of summer,
And tragedy goes by
With a knife amongst the grasses,
And a song up in the sky.

I saw an Eastern God to-day;
My comrades laughed; lest I betray
My secret thoughts, I mocked him too.
His many hands (he had no few,
This God of gifts and charity),
The marble race, that smiled on me,
I mocked, and said, “O God unthroned,
Lone exile from the faith you owned,
No priest to bring you sacrifice,
No censer with its breath of spice,
No land to mourn your funeral pyre.
O King, whose subjects felt your fire,
Now dead, now stone, without a slave,
Unfeared, unloved, you have no grave.
Poor God, who cannot understand,
And what of your fair Eastern land,
What dark brows brushed your dusky feet,
What warm hearts on your marble beat,
With many a prayer unanswered?”
My comrades laughed and passed.    I said,
“If in those lands you wander ...

Let there be an end
And all be done;
Pass over, fair eclipse,
That hides the sun.

Dear face that shades the light
And shadows me,
Begone, and give me peace,
And set me free.

Behold! a new white world!
        The falling snow
Has cloaked the last old year
        And bid him go.

To-morrow! cries the oak-tree
        To his heart,
My sealèd buds shall fling
        Their leaves apart.

To-morrow! pipes the robin,
        And again
How sweet the nest that long
        Was full of rain.

To-morrow! bleats the sheep,
        And one by one
My little lambs shall frolic
        ’Neath the sun.

For us, too, let some fair
        To-morrow be,
O Thou who weavest threads
        Of Destiny!

Thou wast a babe on that
        Far Christmas Day,
Let us as children follow
        In Thy way.

So that our hearts grown cold
        ’Neath time and pain,
With young ...

They crowded weeping from the teacher’s house,
Crying aloud their fear at what he taught,
Old men and young men, wives and maids unwed,
And children screaming in the crowds unsought:
Some to their temples with accustomed feet
Bent-as the oxen go beneath the rod,
To fling themselves before some pictured saint,
“Alas!    God help us if there is no God.”

Some to the bed-side of their dying kind
To clasp with arms afraid to loose their hold;
Some to a church-yard falling on a grave
To kiss the carven name with lips as cold.
Some watched from break of day into the night.
The flash of birds, the bloom of flower and tree,
The whirling worlds that glimmer in the dark,
All said: “God help us if no God there be.”

Some hid in caves and chattered mad with fear...

This is my brave singer,
        With his beak of gold;
Now my heart’s a captive
        In his song’s sweet hold.

O, the lark’s a rover,
        Seeking fields above:
But my serenader
        Hath a human love.

“Hark!” he says, “in winter
        Nests are full of snow,
But a truce to wailing
        Summer breezes blow.”

“Hush!” he sings, “with night-time
        Phantoms cease to be,
Join your serenader
        Piping on his tree.”

O, my little lover,
        Warble in the blue;
Wingless must I envy
        Skies so wide for you.

For that old love I once adored
I decked my halls and spread my board
            At Christmas time.
With all the winter’s flowers that grow
I wreathed my room, and mistletoe
Hung in the gloom of my doorway,
Wherein my dear lost love might stray
            When joy-bells chime.

What phantom was it entered there
And drank his wine and took his chair
            At Christmas time?
With holly boughs and mistletoe
He crowned his head, and at my woe
And tears I shed laughed long and loud;
“Get back, O phantom! to thy shroud
            When joy-bells chime.”

O to be a woman! to be left to pique and pine,
When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine.
Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still?
There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill.
All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free-
O to be a sailor, and away across the sea!
When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam,
The gray-gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home,
Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale,
As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail.
There is danger on the waters-there is joy where dangers be-
Alas! to be a woman and the nomad’s heart in me.

Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore-
With a soul that finds a passion ...

Why love!    I thought you were gay and fair,
Merry of mien and debonair.
What then means this brow so black,
Whose sullen gloom twin eyes give back,
Poor little god in tears, alack!

Why love!    I thought in your smiling cheek
Dainty dimples played hide and seek;
Passing by like a winter’s night,
With stormy sighs from lips all white.
Poor little god, how comes your plight?

A maiden said you were tall and bold,
With an arm of steel and a heart of gold;
Whose changing face would make her day;
When came a frown, the sunshine play
Of smiles would chase the clouds away.

A youth once said you were like a maid
With sunny hair in a golden braid;
Whose cheeks were each a rose uncurled;
And brow a lilybell unfurled;
The fairest maid in...

Banagher Rhue of Donegal,
(Holy Mary, how slow the dawn!)
This is the hour of your loss or gain:
Is go d-tigheadh do, mhûirnín slan! {21}

Banagher Rhue, but the hour was ill
(O Mary Mother, how high the price!)
When you swore you’d game with Death himself;
Aye, and win with the devil’s dice.

Banagher Rhue, you must play with Death,
(Mary, watch with him till the light!)
Through the dark hours, for the words you said,
All this strange and noisy night.

Banagher Rhue, you are pale and cold;
(How the demons laugh through the air!)
The anguish beads on your frowning brow;
Mary set on your lips a prayer!

Banagher Rhue, you have won the toss:
(Mother, pray for his soul’s release!)
Shuffle and deal ere the black cock cro...

I closed my hands upon a moth
        And when I drew my palms apart,
Instead of dusty, broken wings
        I found a bleeding human heart.

I crushed my foot upon a worm
        That had my garden for its goal,
But when I drew my foot aside
        I found a dying human soul.

Cean duv deelish, beside the sea
I stand and stretch my hands to thee
            Across the world.
The riderless horses race to shore
With thundering hoofs and shuddering, hoar,
            Blown manes uncurled.

Cean duv deelish, I cry to thee
Beyond the world, beneath the sea,
            Thou being dead.
Where hast thou hidden from the beat
Of crushing hoofs and tearing feet
            Thy dear black head?

Cean duv deelish, ’tis hard to pray
With breaking heart from day to day,
            And no reply;
When the passionate challenge of sky is cast
In the teeth of the sea and an angry blast
            Goes by.

God bless the woman, whoever she be,
From the tossing waves will recover thee
            And lashing wind.

I come from a burial;
Hush! let me be:
I have put away my love,
Fair exceedingly.

Ah! the little gold curls
Soft about his face;
Now my heart is sorrowful
For his sleeping-place.

But he would pursue me,
Never let me rest;
Till I turned and slew him,
Knowing it were best.

Laid his bow beside him,
Shovelled in the clay;
To-morrow I’ll forget him;
Let me weep to-day.