Page:The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, 1919.djvu/156

150 But I have not loved Artemis the less

For loving these, but deem it noble love

To sing of live or dead things in distress

And wake memorial memories above.

Such is the soul that comes to plead with you

Oh, Artemis, to tend you in your needs.

At mornings I will bring you bells of dew

From honey places, and wild fish from streams

Flowing in secret places. I will brew

Sweet wine of alder for your evening dreams,

And pipe you music in the dusky reeds

When the four distances give up their blue.

And when the white procession of the stars

Crosses the night, and on their tattered wings,

Above the forest, cry the loud night-jars,

We'll hunt the stag upon the mountain-side,