Page:The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, 1919.djvu/292

286 I tiptoed gently up and stooped

Above her looped and shining tresses,

And asked her of her kin and name,

And why she came from fairy places.

She told me of a sunny coast

Beyond the most adventurous sailor,

Where she had spent a thousand years

Out of the fears that now assail her.

And there, she told me, honey drops

Out of the tops of ash and willow,

And in the mellow shadow Sleep

Doth sweetly keep her poppy pillow.

Nor Autumn with her brown line marks

The time of larks, the length of roses,

But song-time there is over never

Nor flower-time ever, ever closes.