THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF FAERYLAND
 
 HE stood among a crowd at Dromahair;
 His heart hung all upon a silken dress,
 And he had known at last some tenderness,
 Before earth took him to her stony care;
 But when a man poured fish into a pile,
 It Seemed they raised their little silver heads,
 And sang what gold morning or evening sheds
 Upon a woven world-forgotten isle
 Where people love beside the ravelled seas;
 That Time can never mar a lover's vows
 Under that woven changeless roof of boughs:
 The singing shook him out of his new ease.
 He wandered by the sands of Lissadell;
 His mind ran all on money cares and fears,
 And he had known at last some prudent years
 Before they heaped his grave under the hill;
 But while he passed before a plashy place,
 A lug-worm with its grey and muddy mouth
 Sang that somewhere to north or west or south
 There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race
 Under the golden or the silver skies;
 That if a dancer stayed his hungry foot
 It seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit:
 And at that singing he was no more wise.
 He mused beside the well of Scanavin,
 He mused upon his mockers:  without fail
 His sudden vengeance were a country tale,
 When earthy night had drunk his body in;
 But one small knot-grass growing by the pool
 Sang where – unnecessary cruel voice –
 Old silence bids its chosen race rejoice,
 Whatever ravelled waters rise and fall
 Or stormy silver fret the gold of day,
 And midnight there enfold them like a fleece
 And lover there by lover be at peace.
 The tale drove his fine angry mood away.
 He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;
 And might have known at last unhaunted sleep
 Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,
 Now that the earth had taken man and all:
 Did not the worms that spired about his bones
 proclaim with that unwearied, reedy cry
 That God has laid His fingers on the sky,
 That from those fingers glittering summer runs
 Upon the dancer by the dreamless wave.
 Why should those lovers that no lovers miss
 Dream, until God burn Nature with a kiss?
 The man has found no comfort in the grave.