| Padraic Colum (1881–1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922. |
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| 130. Roisin Dubh |
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| By Aubrey de Vere |
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| O WHO are thou with that queenly brow | |
| And uncrowned head? | |
| And why is the vest that binds thy breast, | |
| O’er the heart, blood-red? | |
| Like a rose-bud in June that spot at noon, | 5 |
| A rose-bud weak; | |
| But it deepens and grows like a July rose: | |
| Death-pale thy cheek. | |
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| “The babes I fed at my foot lay dead; | |
| I saw them die; | 10 |
| In Ramah a blast went wailing past; | |
| It was Rachel’s cry. | |
| But I stand sublime on the shores of Time, | |
| And I pour mine ode, | |
| As Miriam sang to the cymbals’ clang, | 15 |
| On the wind to God. | |
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| “Once more at my feasts my bards and priests | |
| Shall sit and eat: | |
| And the Shepherd whose sheep are on every steep | |
| Shall bless my meat; | 20 |
| Oh, sweet, men say, is the song by day, | |
| And the feast by night; | |
| But on poisons I thrive, and in death survive | |
| Through ghostly night.” | |
| | | “The Little Dark Rose.” This poem of Aubrey De Vere’s was one of a series written in time of catastrophe—during the famine of 1846–47. |
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