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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE DEPARTED, by PATRICK MACGILL Poet's Biography
First Line: Down from the open spaces where the banshee / wails to the moon
Last Line: Says the wind at the window pane.
Subject(s): Farewell; Parting
First Line: Down from the open spaces where the banshee / wails to the moon
Last Line: Says the wind at the window pane.
Subject(s): Farewell; Parting
DOWN from the open spaces where the banshee wails to the moon,
From the lonely moorland places where the witches hold domain,
Like a ghost of the past the midnight blast wails at my window pane,
Out of the night and the silence it comes to my window pane,
Full of a longing vain
It has wafted thro' her burial shroud, and the matted coils of her hair,
Where the ghouls of the gloom foregather over the tomb wherein
She moulders away to the senseless clay—she who was free from sin.
Heaven! the grave and its horrors, ugly and dark as sin,
And the beautiful maid therein!
Sunlight and moonlight and starlight, interblent with the dew,
The modesty of the passion flower, the youthful, hopeful glow—
She was greater to me than the world to be, than anything mortals know,
Greater by far than life or death, or aught that the mortals know
In this evil-starred world below.
And the weeping wind in the darkness lingers around her tomb,
Presses her clay cold tresses and lips where my lips have lain,
And I hear it say in its wistful way—When do we meet again?
When do you meet your olden love and keep your tryst again?
Says the wind at the window pane.
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