No Coward's Song

"I who am dead a thousand years,     And wrote this sweet archaic song,     Send you my words for messengers     The way I shall not pass along."

"Far out across Carnarvon bay,     Beneath the evening waves,     The ancient dead begin their day     And stream among the graves.     Listen"

"Over the moonless land of Bathrolaire     Rises at night, when revelry begins,     A white unreal orb, a sun that spins,     A sun that watches"

"I listened to the hunger-hearted clown,     Sadder than he: I heard a woman sing, -     A tall dark woman in a scarlet gown -     And saw those"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"