Page:The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, 1919.djvu/86

80 That men may live by men 'til the stars wane,

And still sweet music fill the blackbird's song.

But O for truths about the soul denied.

Shall I meet Keats in some wild isle of balm,

Dreaming beside a tarn where green and wide

Boughs of sweet cinnamon protect the calm

Of the dark water? And together walk

Thro' hills with dimples full of water where

White angels rest, and all the dead years talk

About the changes of the earth? Despair

Sometimes takes hold of me but yet I hope

To hope the old hope in the better times

When I am free to cast aside the rope

That binds me to all sadness 'till my rhymes

Cry like lost birds. But O, if I should die

Ere this millennium, and my hands be crossed