Folk Song
When merry milkmaids to their cattle callAt evenfallAnd voices rangeLoud through the gloam from grange to quiet grange,
Wild waif-songs from long distant lands and loves,Like migrant doves,Wake and give wingTo passion dust-dumb lips were wont to sing.
The new still holds the old moon in her arms;The ancient charmsOf dew and duskStill lure her nomad odors from the musk,
And, at each day’s millennial eclipse,On new men’s lips,Some old song starts,Made of the music of millennial hearts,
Whereto one listens as from long agoAnd learns to knowThat one day’s tearsAnd love and life are as a thousand years’,
And that some simple shepherd, singing ofHis pain and love,May haply findHis heart-song speaks the heart of all his kind.