my morning poem,,,
for my niece,this poem has her name,,enjoy
aisling.

Aisling

At morning from the coldness of Mount
Brandon,
The sail is blown half-way to the light:
And islands are so small, a man may carry
Their yellow crop in one cart at low tide.
Sadly in thought, I strayed the mountain grass
To hear the breezes following their young
And by the furrow of a stream, I chanced
To find a woman airing in the sun.

Coil of her hair, in cluster and ringlet,
Had brightened round her forehead and those
curls –
Closer then she could bind them on a finger –
Were changing gleam and glitter. O she turned
So gracefully aside, I thought her clothes
Were flame and shadow while she slowly
walked,
Or that each breast was proud because it rode
The cold air as the wave stayed by the swan.

But knowing her face was fairer than in
thought,
I asked of her was she the Geraldine –
Few horsemen sheltered at the steps of water?
Or that Greek woman, lying a piled room
On tousled purple, whom the household saved,
When frescoes of strange fire concealed the
pillar:
The white coin all could spend? Might it be
Niav
And was she over wave or from our hills?

‘When shadows in wet grass are heavier
Than hay, beside dim wells the women gossip
And by the paler bushes tell the daylight;
But from what bay, uneasy with a shipping
Breeze, have you come?’ I said. ‘O do you cross
The blue thread and the crimson on the
framework,
At darkfall in a house where nobles throng
And the slow oil climbs up into the flame?’

‘Black and fair strangers leave upon the oar
And there is peace,’ she answered. ‘Companies
Are gathered in the house that I have known;
Claret is on the board and they are pleased
By story-telling. When the turf is redder
And airy packs of wonder have been told,
By women dance the bright steel that is wed,
Starlike, upon the anvil with one strike.’

‘Shall I, too, find at dark of rain,’ I cried,
‘Neighbours around a fire cast by the ocean
And in that shining mansion hear the rise
Of companies, or bide among my own –
Pleasing a noble ear? O must I wander
Without praise, without wine, in rich strange
lands?’
But with a smile the secret woman left me,
At morning in the coldness of Mount Brandon.

austin clarke