When The Dark Comes

When the dark comes,
Is this the end? I pray,
No answer from the night,
And then once more the day.
I take the world again
Upon my neck and go
Pace with the serious hours.
Since fate will have it so,
Begone dead man, unclasp
Your hands from round my heart,
I and my burden pass,
You and your peace depart.

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

Unknown Ideal

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

Love

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

The Ballad Of The Little Black Hound

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

The Fairy Changeling

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

English

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An Eclipse

Let there be an end
And all be done;
Pass over, fair eclipse,
That hides the sun.

Dear face that shades the light
And shadows me,
Begone, and give me peace,
And set me free.

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

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...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

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

A Vagrant Heart

O to be a woman! to be left to pique and pine,
When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine.
Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still?
There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill.
All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free-
O to be a sailor, and away across the sea!
When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam,
The gray-gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home,
Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale,
As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail.
There is danger on the waters-there is joy where dangers be-
Alas! to be a woman and the nomads heart in me.

Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore-
With a soul that finds a passion ...

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