All Souls Eve

I cried all night to you,
        I called till day was here;
Perhaps you could not come,
        Or were too tirèd, dear.

Your chair I set by mine,
        I made the dim hearth glow,
I whispered, When he comes
        I shall not let him go.

I closed the shutters tight,
        I feared the dawn of day,
I stopped the busy clock
        That timed your hours away.

Loud howled my neighbours dog,
        O glad was I to hear.
The dead are going by,
        Now you will come, my dear,

To take the chair by mine-
        Until the cock would crow-
O, if it be you came
        And could not let me know,

For once a shadow passed
        Behind me in the room,
I thought your loving eyes
        Would meet mine in the gloom.

And once I thought I heard
        A footstep by my chair,
I raised my eager hands,
        But no sweet ghost was there.

We were too wide apart-
        You in your spirit land-
I knew not when you came,
        I could not understand.

Your eyes perhaps met mine,
        Reproached me through the gloom,
Alas, for me alone
        The empty, empty room!

The dead were passing home,
        The cock crew loud and clear,
Mavourneen, if you came,
        I knew not you were here.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Dora Sigerson Shorter was an Irish poet and sculptor born in Dublin in 1866. She was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival, a movement that aimed to promote Irish literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was also a close friend of W.B. Yeats and married the writer and journalist Clement King Shorter. Dora's work often dealt with themes of Irish nationalism and folklore, and she published several volumes of poetry before her untimely death in 1918.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

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English

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The Old Maid

She walks in a lonely garden
        On the path her feet have made,
With high-heeled shoes, gold-buckled,
        And gown of a flowered brocade;

The hair that falls on her shoulders,
        Half-held with a ribbon tie,
Once glowed like the wheat in autumn,
        Now grey as a winter sky.

Time on her brow with rough fingers
        Writes his record of smiles and tears;
And her mind, like a golden timepiece,
        He stopped in the long past years.

At the foot of the lonely garden,
        When she comes to the trysting place
She knew of old, there she lingers,
        With a blush on her withered face.

The children out on the common:
        They climb to the garden wall;
And laugh: He will come to-morrow!
      ...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Ballad Of The Fairy Thorn-Tree

This is an evil night to go, my sister,
        To the fairy-tree across the fairy rath,
Will you not wait till Hallow Eve is over?
        For many are the dangers in your path!

I may not wait till Hallow Eve is over,
        I shall be there before the night is fled,
For, brother, I am weary for my lover,
        And I must see him once, alive or dead.

Ive prayed to heaven, but it would not listen,
        Ill call thrice in the devils name to-night,
Be it a live man that shall come to hear me,
        Or but a corpse, all clad in snowy white.

* * * * *

She had drawn on her silken hose and garter,
        Her crimson petticoat was kilted high,
She trod her way amid the bog and brambles,
        Until the fairy-tree she stood near-b...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Kine Of My Father

The kine of my rather, they are straying from my keeping;
        The young goats at mischief, but little can I do:
For all through the night did I hear the Banshee keening;
        O youth of my loving, and is it well with you?

All through the night sat my mother with my sorrow;
        Whisht, it is the wind, O one childeen of my heart!
My hair with the wind, and my two hands clasped in anguish;
        Black head of my darling! too long are we apart.

Were your grave at my feet, I would think it half a blessing;
        I could herd then the cattle, and drive the goats away;
Many a Paternoster I would say for your safe keeping;
        I could sleep above your heart, until the dawn of day.

I see you on the prairie, hot with thirst and faint with hunger;

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Priests Brother

Thrice in the night the priest arose
From broken sleep to kneel and pray.
Hush, poor ghost, till the red cock crows,
And I a Mass for your soul may say.

Thrice he went to the chamber cold,
Where, stiff and still uncoffinèd,
His brother lay, his beads he told,
And Rest, poor spirit, rest, he said.

Thrice lay the old priest down to sleep
Before the morning bell should toll;
But still he heard-and woke to weep-
The crying of his brothers soul.

All through the dark, till dawn was pale,
The priest tossed in his misery,
With muffled ears to hide the wail,
The voice of that ghosts agony.

At last the red cock flaps his wings
To trumpet of a day new-born.
The lark, awaking, soaring sings
Into the bosom of the morn.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Suicides Grave

This is the scene of a mans despair, and a souls release
From the difficult traits of the flesh; so, it seeking peace,
A shot rang out in the night; deaths doors were wide;
And you stood alone, a stranger, and saw inside.

Coward flesh, brave soul, which was it?    One feared the world,
The pity of men, or their scorn; yet carelessly hurled
All on the balance of Chance for a state unknown;
Fled the laughter of men for the anger of God-alone.

Perhaps when the hot blood streamed on the daisied sod,
Poor soul, you were likened to Cain, and you fled from God;
Men say you fought hard for your life, when the deed was done;
But your body would rise no more neath this worlds sun.

Id choose-should I do the act-such a night as this,
When the sea throws up white ...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

At Christmas Time

For that old love I once adored
I decked my halls and spread my board
            At Christmas time.
With all the winters flowers that grow
I wreathed my room, and mistletoe
Hung in the gloom of my doorway,
Wherein my dear lost love might stray
            When joy-bells chime.

What phantom was it entered there
And drank his wine and took his chair
            At Christmas time?
With holly boughs and mistletoe
He crowned his head, and at my woe
And tears I shed laughed long and loud;
Get back, O phantom! to thy shroud
            When joy-bells chime.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

All Souls Eve

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All Souls Eve