Part 32 (1/2)

Before I joined the Army I lived in Donegal, Where every night the Fairies Would hold their carnival.

But now I'm out in Flanders, Where men like wheat-ears fall, And it's Death and not the Fairies Who is holding carnival.

_Francis Ledwidge_

Francis Ledwidge was born in Slane, County Meath, Ireland, in 1891.

His brief life was fitful and romantic. He was, at various times, a miner, a grocer's clerk, a farmer, a scavenger, an experimenter in hypnotism, and, at the end, a soldier. He served as a lance-corporal on the Flanders front and was killed in July, 1917, at the age of 26 years.

Ledwidge's poetry is rich in nature imagery; his lines are full of color, in the manner of Keats, and unaffectedly melodious.

AN EVENING IN ENGLAND

From its blue vase the rose of evening drops; Upon the streams its petals float away.

The hills all blue with distance hide their tops In the dim silence falling on the grey.

A little wind said ”Hus.h.!.+” and shook a spray Heavy with May's white crop of opening bloom; A silent bat went dipping in the gloom.

Night tells her rosary of stars full soon, They drop from out her dark hand to her knees.

Upon a silhouette of woods, the moon Leans on one horn as if beseeching ease From all her changes which have stirred the seas.

Across the ears of Toil, Rest throws her veil.

I and a marsh bird only make a wail.

EVENING CLOUDS

A little flock of clouds go down to rest In some blue corner off the moon's highway, With shepherd-winds that shook them in the West To borrowed shapes of earth, in bright array, Perhaps to weave a rainbow's gay festoons Around the lonesome isle which Brooke has made A little England full of lovely noons, Or dot it with his country's mountain shade.

Ah, little wanderers, when you reach that isle[22]

Tell him, with dripping dew, they have not failed, What he loved most; for late I roamed a while Thro' English fields and down her rivers sailed; And they remember him with beauty caught From old desires of Oriental Spring Heard in his heart with singing overwrought; And still on Purley Common gooseboys sing.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] The island of Skyros where Rupert Brooke was buried. (See page 194.)

_Irene Rutherford McLeod_

Irene Rutherford McLeod, born August 21, 1891, has written three volumes of direct and often distinguished verse, the best of which may be found in _Songs to Save a Soul_ (1915) and _Before Dawn_ (1918).

The latter volume is dedicated to A. de Selincourt, to whom she was married in 1919.

”IS LOVE, THEN, SO SIMPLE”

Is love, then, so simple my dear?