Through the rain stained glass,
With a sickly purple hue,
I can see early marsh orchid,
And it makes me think of you.

The gardener's son
Is looking at it too,
His sickly grey suit
Makes me think of you.

I was not born a bog child,
I was only passing through,
The Irish Lady's Tresses
Made me think of you.

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

There was a rose I saw once bloomed,
Cuddled in stone yard garden, set free,
To fire in midsummer fields maid loom,
On the village path that ends by the sea.

The wind dances with you in the sun

O rose of happiness and of sorrows,
My heart is in bloom as you are true,
I love a boy so grand and unknowing
And I have no words, or song, or tune.

My heart sings with you in the sun

Little wee flower, who danced me away,
My dear companion, for a soul set free,
Nestled within walls of stone on parade,
Till one morn gone on a walk to the sea.

*Winds and my heart break in the sun

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.

And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world's tears,
And all the trouble of her laboring ships,
And all the trouble of her myriad years.

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.

I am an island child,
Of dire rocks and thistle,
Clear lake and lone skies,
Of bonny birds who whistle,
I race the strands with tides,
Waiting for my lad to meet,
So lonely are the night stars
I dreamt in my loft to sleep,
Far is the isle of my mind,
To slip away on new voyage,
Near is the sorrow into kind,
As I wait for keep in marriage.