Page:Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry - Meyer.djvu/71

 Ale with herbs, a dish of strawberries Of good taste and colour, Haws, berries of the juniper, Sloes, nuts.

A cup with mead of hazel-nut, blue-bells, Quick-growing rushes, Dun oaklets, manes of briar, Goodly sweet tangle.

When brilliant summer-time spreads its coloured
 * mantle,

Sweet-tasting fragrance! Pignuts, wild marjoram, green leeks, Verdant pureness!

The music of the bright red-breasted men, A lovely movement! The strain of the thrush, familiar cuckoos Above my house.

Swarms of bees and chafers, the little musicians of
 * the world,

A gentle chorus: Wild geese and ducks, shortly before summer's
 * end,

The music of the dark torrent.

An active songster, a lively wren From the hazel-bough, Beautiful hooded birds, woodpeckers, A vast multitude!

Fair white birds come, herons, seagulls, The cuckoo sings between— No mournful music! dun heathpoults Out of the russet heather. D