LULLABY OF ADVENTUROUS LOVE

The Sleepsong that Grania made for Dermot
when they fled into the mountains from Finn.

Sleep a little, little yet,
little love, who needs may fret;
you I give my heart to keep
now as ever, therefore sleep.

Sleep a little. Let night pace
out unhindered, for your grace,
for your boyish grace and you,
I shall see the darkness through.

Blessings on you, sleep-beguiled,
be to-night but as a child
in this land above the lake
where the darkened torrents wake.

Sleep thou then the eastern sleep
of that great voice whose songs we keep,
who from Lord Conall for his prey
took Morann’s lovely child away.

As in the northern land, sleep sound
the sleep that starry Fincha found,
who from the house of Falvey won
the bright-eyed Slaney for his own,

Or that fair western sleep he slept,
who from the narrow causeway stept
in Dernish, guiding in the night
his lady by the torches’ light.

Or Dega’s sleep, who in the south
laid his mouth on Coinehenn’s mouth,
all forgetting as the dead
in that sleep what arm he fled.

Light beyond the light of Greece,
I am watching. Sleep in peace.
Were we parted, for your sake
what should the heart do but break

Were we parted, then might part
children of one home and heart,
and soul and body too,
were we parted, I and you.

Now that the hounds are up and out
and the watchful spears about,
thee no deathly love come near,
nor in the long sleep hold thee dear.

The stag lays not his side to sleep
for bellowing from his mountain steep;
he walks the woods and yet no glade
lures him to sleep within its shade.

Sleep comes not upon the deer
who calls and calls her young to her,
from crag to crag she may go leap,
and climb her hills. She will not sleep.

Nor sleep will they within their house
who flutter through the twining boughs,
and start from branch to branch and peek
among the leaves. They will not sleep.

The duck that bears her brood to-night
may furrow the wide waters bright
or  e’er to any nest she creep;
among the reeds she will not sleep.

The curlew cannot rest at all
within his wild wind-haunted hall;
his voice is near us, loud and deep;
among the streams he will not sleep---
			Sleep a little.


Irish Tribune, 1926-12-03, pp. 20-21