Where always it found rest.
You'll speak no word for joy,
But, crooning o'er your boy,
Draw him into the Light,
Where nevermore comes Night.
IN DARK HOUR
By Seumas MacManus
I Turn my steps where the Lonely Road
Winds far as the eye can see,
And I bend my back for the burden sore
That God has reached down to me.
I have said farewell to the sun-kissed plains,
To joy I gave good-bye;
Now the bleak wide wastes of the world are mine,
And the winds that wail in the sky.
No bright flower blooms, no sweet bird calls,
Nor hermit ever abode,
Not a green thing lifts one lowly leaf,
O God, on the Lonely Road!
The thick dank mists come stealing down,
And press me on every side.
With never a voice to cheer me on,
And never a hand to guide.
I shall cry in my need for a Voice and Hand,
And the solace of love-wet eyes—
And an icy clutch will close on my heart,
When Echo, the mocker, replies.
