thrilled the blossomed bough,
And stilled the happy singing bird
That none can silence now.

The weary nightingale may sob
With her bleeding breast against a thorn,
And the wild white rose with every throb
Grow red as the laugh of morn;

With wings outspread she sinks her head
But Love returns no more, no more;
And the sea is breaking its old grey heart
Against the golden shore.

Born in the City of Pain;
Ah, who knows, who knows
When Death shall turn to delight again
Or a wound to a red, red rose?

Eight years old that day,
Full of laughter and play;
Eight years old and Anwyl nine,--
Two young lovers were they.

VII

And down the scented heather-drowsy hills
The barefoot children wandered, hand in hand,
And paddled through the laughing silver rills
In quest of fairyland;
And in each little sunburnt hand a spray,
A purple fox-glove bell-branch lightly swung,
And Anwyl told Etain how, far away,
One day he wandered through the dreamland dells
And watched the moonlit fairies as they sung
And tolled the fox-glove bells;
And oh, how sweetly, sweetly to and fro
The fragrance of the music reeled and rung
Under the loaded boughs of starry May.

And God sighed in the sunset, and the sea
Grew quieter than the hills: the mystery
Of ocean, earth and sky was like a word
Uttered, but all unheard,
Uttered by every wave and cloud and leaf
With all the immortal glory of mortal grief;
And every wave that broke its heart of gold
In music on the rainbow-dazzled shore
Seemed telling, strangely telling, evermore
A story that must still remain untold.

Oh, _Once upon a time_, and o'er and o'er
As aye the _Happy ever after_ came
The enchanted waves lavished their faery lore

And tossed a foam-bow and a rosy flame
Around the whispers of the creaming foam,
Till the old rapture with the new sweet name

Through all the old romance began to roam,
And Anwyl, gazing out across the sea,
Dreamed that he heard the distance whisper "Come."

"Etain," he murmured softly and wistfully,
With the soul's wakening wonder in his eyes,
"Is it not strange to think that there can be

"No end for ever and ever to those skies,
No shore beyond, or if there be a shore