The Hollow Wood

Rêve Celtique

Grey woods and waters where the brown bird leaves
Its shadow for a moment on the pool;
Then silence, save a little wind that grieves
Among the reeds and waving grasses cool —

This dim forgotten land where no man dwells,
But ruin, desolation, and despair,
A sound of sea-drowned music, sunken bells,
The burial of all things bright and fair,

This place of old, forgotten ecstacies,
This ancient place of unremembered things,
Sad when the wind sighs through the waiting trees,
Sadder than ever when the brown bird sings—

For Danu, Lir, and Cleena with light feet,
Who tossed the bubble of the world away,
And with light laughter, music low and sweet,
Covered it over and left it till a day,

Have vanished with their softly waving spells,
Their flame-white dances and bright hair wind-tossed —
Sadder than deaths the wars of worlds have cost,
The keening of the wind in these low dells:

While we have turned from beauty and have lost
Our sense of ancient kinship with the earth,
Under the running wave the flaming host
Dance in the heart of time and know no birth.