The Haunted Hour | Page 9

sighed, and passed
Into the dim and shrouding mist
On Kingston Bridge.

'Twas All Souls' Night, and to and fro
The quick and dead together
walked,
The quick and dead together talked,
On Kingston Bridge.
ALL SOULS' NIGHT: LOUISA HUMPHREYS
Canice the priest went out on the Night of Souls;
"Stay, oh stay," said
the woman who served his board
"Stay, for the path is strait with pits
and holes,
And the night is dark and the way is lone abroad;
Stay
within because it is lone, at least."
"Nay, it will not be lone," said
Canice the priest.
Dim without, and a dim, low-sweeping sky;
A scent of earth in the
night, of opened mould;
A listening pause in the night--and a breath
passed by--
And its touch was cold, was cold as the graves are cold

Canice went on to the waste where no men be;
"Nay, I will not be
lone to-night," said he.
Shades that flit, besides the shades of the night;
Rustling sobs besides
the sobs of the wind;
Steps of feet that pace with his on the right,

Steps that pace on the left, and steps behind.
"Nay, no fear that I shall
be lone, at least!
Lo, there are throngs abroad," said Canice the priest.
Deathly hands that pluck at his cassock's hem;
Sighings of earthly
breath that smite his cheek;
Canice the priest swings on, atune with
them,
Hears the throbbings of pain, and hears them speak;
Hears the
word they utter, and answers "Yea!
Yea, poor souls, for I heed; I pray,
I pray."
Lo, a gleam of gray, and the dark is done;
Hark, a bird that trills a
song of the light.
Canice hies him home by the shine of the sun.

What to-day of those pallid wraiths of the night?
What of the woeful
notes that had wailed and fled?
"Maria, ora pro illis!" Canice said.

"ALL THE LITTLE SIGHING SOULS"
MARY SHEPHERDESS: MARJORIE L.C. PICKTHALL
When the heron's in the high wood and the last long furrow's sown
With the herded cloud before her and her sea-sweet raiment blown
Comes Mary, Mary Shepherdess, a-seeking for her own.
Saint James he calls the righteous folk, Saint John he calls the kind,
Saint Peter seeks the valiant men all to loose or bind,
But Mary seeks
the little souls that are so hard to find.
All the little sighing souls born of dust's despair,
They who fed on
bitter bread when the world was bare,
Frighted of the glory gates and
the starry stair.
All about the windy down, housing in the ling,
Underneath the
alder-bough linnet-light they cling,
Frighted of the shining house
where the martyrs sing.
Crying in the ivy-bloom, fingering at the pane,
Grieving in the hollow
dark, lone along the lane,
Mary, Mary Shepherdess gathers them
again.
And O the wandering women know, in workhouse and in shed,
They
dream on Mary Shepherdess with doves about her head,
And pleasant
posies in her hand, and sorrow comforted.
Saying: there's my little lass, faring fine and free,
There's the little lad
I laid by the holly tree,
Dreaming: There's my nameless bairn
laughing at her knee.
When the bracken-harvest's gathered and the frost is on the loam When
the dream goes out in silence and the ebb runs out in foam, Mary, Mary
Shepherdess, she leads the lost lambs home.
If I had a little maid to turn my tears away,
If I had a little lad to lead

me when I'm gray,
All to Mary Shepherdess they'd fold their hands
and pray.
THE LITTLE GHOST: KATHERINE TYNAN
The stars began to peep
Gone was the bitter day,
She heard the
milky ewes
Bleat to their lambs astray.
Her heart cried for her lamb

Lapped cold in the churchyard sod,
She could not think on the
happy children
At play with the Lamb of God.
She heard the calling ewes
And the lambs answer alas!
She heard
her heart's blood drip in the night,
As the ewes' milk on the grass.

Her tears that burnt like fire
So bitter and slow ran down
She could
not think on the new-washed children
Playing by Mary's gown.
Oh, who is this comes in
Over her threshold stone?
And why is the
old dog wild with joy
Who all day long made moan?
This fair little
radiant ghost,
Her one little son of seven,
New 'scaped from the
band of merry children
In the nurseries of Heaven.
He was all clad in white
Without a speck or stain;
His curls had a
ring of light,
That rose and fell again.
"Now come with me, my own
mother,
And you shall have great ease,
For you shall see the lost
children
Gathered at Mary's knees."
Oh, lightly sprang she up
Nor waked her sleeping man,
And hand in
hand with the little ghost
Through the dark night she ran.
She is
gone swift as a fawn,
As a bird homes to its nest,
She has seen them
lie, the sleepy children,
'Twixt Mary's arm and breast.
At morning she came back;
Her eyes were strange to see.
She will
not fear the long journey,

However long it be.
As she goes in and
out
She sings unto hersel';
For she has seen the mother's children

And