Ghosts of Past Time Some were builders, and they cry, "Build like me!" And some were wiseacres, and they demand, "Think like me!" And some were poets, and they whisper, "Sing like me!" I throw you off, O you ghosts of past time! As for me, I will work along your tiresome squares and cubes, I will eat your nauseous wisdoms, O wiseacres, I will move in your deepest rhythms, But I will not sing like you, O poets! Like myself only will I think and build and sing- Even you, my veritable brothers Who died but yesterday, I am not thinking of you But of some one to be born tomorrow. Martha Foote Crow THE COUNSELS OF O'RIORDAN, THE The choirs of Heaven are tokened in a harp-string, My heart is shaken by the crying of the lapwing, There's gold on the whin-bush every summer morning. There's struggling discourse in the grunting of a pig: Yet churls will be scheming, and churls will be scorning, And half the dim world is ruled by thimblerig. The luck of God is in two strangers meeting, My heart is the seed of time, my veins are star-dust, Why should my august soul be worn or care-tost?— There's little to be known, and that not kindly, T. D. O'Bolger MODERN LAMENTATIONS. I gave you everything: GIVE AND TAKE My sorrows amused you and my fame. I gave you everything; I let you daub my love with filthy lust. You gave me everything again: Ashes and bitter dust. I gave you everything: Children, toil, gold. You gave me everything again- I gave you everything: With jewels of song I made and left you fair. You gave me everything again: Old age, despair. Now there is nothing more that I can give- poe THE EVERLASTING CONTRADICTION Yesterday I borrowed thirty silver pence Yesterday the Magdalen came to me and said, "I am starving." I answered, "First, to bed." Today, O Christ, I kneel before your cross. Yesterday the Virgin passed sorrowing in the street: I flung a brick at her. Then, as was meet, I bore her to the house of Caiphas. Today, O Christ, I kneel before your cross. Yesterday Pilate asked me for water: I must go. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, I am vile: You hang there motionless and dead long while- BLIND PEOPLE Blind People Each day when I try to cross the street, I find I cannot go my way: The street is too crowded with blind people. They jostle me into gutters, They fling me curses from livid lips, Yet they huddle and press upon me, 1 WHY THE WAR? They went to a field, and there lay two swords and two ploughshares; And the first man said, "Plow, brother." But the second man frowned, and growled, tossing his head, "We must kill each other." |