Katherine Tynan Hinkson

Winter Sunset
The Old Love
Londonderry Air
Shamrock Song
Wild Geese
Joining the Colours

Winter Sunset

Roses in the sky,
    Roses in the sea
Bowers of scarlet sky-roses
    Take my heart and me.

God was good to make,
    This December weather,
All this sky a rose-garden,
    Rose and fire together.

To the East are burning
    Roses in a garden,
Roses in a rosy field,
    Hesper for their warden.

Yonder to the West
    Roses all afire,
Mirror now some rare splendid
    Rose of their desire.

Pulsing deeper, deeper,
    Waves of fire throb on,
Never were such red roses
    At sunset or dawn.

Roses on the hills,
    Roses in the hollow,
Roses on the wet hedges,
In the shining fallow.

West wind, blow and blow!
    That has blown ajar
Gates of God's great rose-garden,
    Where His Angels are,

Gathering up the rose-leaves
    For a shower of roses
On the night the Lord Babe
    His sweet eye uncloses.

All the sky is scarlet
    Flaming on the azure.
O, there's fire in Heaven
    My heart aches with pleasure.

Leagues of rose and scarlet,
    Roses red as blood:
All the world's a rose-garden.
    God is good, is good.

The Old Love

Out of my door I step into
The country, all her scent and dew,
Nor travel there by a hard road,
Dusty and far from my abode.

The country washes to my door
Green miles and miles in soft uproar,
The thunder of the woods, and then,
The backwash of green surf again.

Beyond the feverfew and stocks,
The guelder-rose and hollyhocks;
Outside my trellised porch a tree
Of lilac frames a sky for me.

A stretch of primrose and pale green
To hold the tender Hesper in;
Hesper that by the moon makes pale
her silver keel and silver sail.

The country silence wraps me quite,
Silence and song and pure delight;
The country beckons all the day
Smiling, and but a step away.

This is that country seen across
How many a league of love and loss,
Prayed for, and longed for, and as far
As fountains in the desert are.

This is that country at my door,
Whose fragrant airs run on before,
And call me when the first birds stir
In the green wood to walk with her.

Londonderry Air

Shamrock Song

O, the red rose may be fair,
And the lily statelier;
But my shamrock, one in three,
Takes the very heart of me!

Many a lover hath the rose
When june's musk-wind breathes and blows:
And in many a bower is heard
Her sweet praise from bee and bird.

Through the gold hours dreameth she,
In her warm heart passionately,
Her fair face hung languid-wise:
O, her breath of honey and spice!

Like a fair saint virginal
Stands your lily, silver and tall;
Over all the flowers that be
Is my shamrock dear to me.

Shines the lily like the sun,
Crystal-pure, a cold, sweet nun;
With her austere lip she sings
To her heart of heavenly things.

Gazeth through a night of June
To her sister-saint, the moon;
With the stars communeth long
Of the angels and their song.

But when summer died last year
Rose and lily died with her;
Shamrock stayeth every day,
Be the winds or gold or grey.

Irish hills, as grey as the dove,
Know the little plant I love;
Warm and fair it mantles them
Stretching down from throat to hem.

And it laughs o'er many a vale,
Sheltered safe from storm and gale;
Sky and sun and stars thereof
Love the gentle plant I love.

Soft it clothes the ruined floor
Of many an abbey, grey and hoar,
And the still home of the dead
With its green is carpeted.

Roses for an hour of love,
With the joy and pain thereof:
Stand my lilies white to see
All for prayer and purity.

These are white as the harvest moon,
Roses flush like the heart of June;
But my shamrock, brave and gay,
Glads the tired eyes every day.

O, the red rose shineth rare,
And the lily saintly fair;
But my shamrock, one in three,
Takes the inmost heart of me!

Wild Geese

(A Lament for the Irish Jacobites)

I have heard the curlew crying
    On a lonely moor and mere;
And the sea-gull's shriek in the gloaming
    Is a lonely sound in the ear:
And I've heard the brown thrush mourning
For her children stolen away;--
    But it's O for the homeless Wild Geese
That sailed ere the dawn of day!

For the curlew out on the moorland
    Hath five fine eggs in the nest;
And the thrush will get her a new love
    And sing her song with the best.
As the swallow flies to the Summer
    Will the gull return to the sea:
But never the wings of the Wild Geese
    Will flash over seas to me.

And 'tis ill to be roaming, roaming
    With homesick heart in the breast!
And how long I've looked for your coming,
    And my heart is the empty nest!
O sore in the land of the stranger
    They'll pine for the land far away!
But day of Aughrim, my sorrow,
    It was you was the bitter day!

Joining the Colours

There they go marching all in step so gay!
  Smooth-cheeked and golden, food for shells and guns.
Blithely they go as to a wedding day,
                 The mothers' sons.

The drab street stares to see them row on row
 On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark.
Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go
                 Into the dark.

With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,
 They pipe the way to glory and the graves;
Foolish abd young, the gay and golden boys
                 Love cannot save.

High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed
 Run with them: they shall kiss no more, alas!
Out of the mist they stepped - into the mist
                 Singing they pass.