The waning moon looks upward; this grey night
Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve
Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve
To show where the ships at sea move out of sight.

The place is palpable me, for here I was born
Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below
Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know
I have come, I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn.

My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn
And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear
No sound from the strangers, the place is dark, and fear
Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seem torn.

Can I go no nearer, never towards the door?
The ghosts and I we mourn together, and shrink
In the shadow of the cart-shed…Must we hover on the brink
For ever, and never enter the homestead any more?

Is it irrevocable? Can I really not go
Through the open yard-way? Can I not go past the sheds
And through to the mowie?— Only the dead in their beds
Can know the fearful anguish that this is so.

I kiss the stones, I kiss the moss on the wall,
And wish I could pass impregnate into the place.
I wish I could take it all in a last embrace.
I wish with my breast I here could annihilate it all.

All the mills in the world are grinding gold grain, 
All hearts in the world like my heart should be fain 
For my foot goes in time to a holiday measure 
And the bird in my bosom is singing for pleasure. 

Tall soldiers in gold stand the plumed ranks of corn, 
And the poppies are dancing for joy of the morn: 
They're gipsies and vagrants, the home-keepers say, 
But my heart is at one with the poppies to-day. 

I know not what end to my travel shall be, 
Or what fairy Prince rides a-seeking for me — 
He may be a Sheogue in graithing of gold, 
Or a graybeard who tarries for young maids and old. 

Meanwhile I go tramping the merry world over, 
With the flower of my heart folded close for my lover: 
Folded safely and close till my Prince come and claim 
The bud long asleep, and the flower turn a flame. 

Meanwhile I go tramping, a masterless maid, 
With flowers blowing for me in sunshine and shade, 
White poppies, red poppies, sea-poppies of amber, 
And a wreath for my head of all wild vines that clamber. 

I am one with the wind and the flowers in the corn 
And I and the wind laugh aloud in our scorn 
At the bedesmen who quarrel earth's meadow-lands over, 
While there's roses on bushes and honey in clover.