Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
The Musicmakers ChildMiriam Allen de Ford
A
Then, for the love of his blue eyes,
She wandered after Weir the musicmaker.
I catch the cry and moan of every breaker,
I read the secrets of the sands—
I, the child of Weir the musicmaker.
I hear a heavy calling from the ocean—
The souls of men who drowned at sea,
Aweary of its restless, flowing motion.
Says Jan the fisher.
“A pearl in each hand,”
Says Jan the fisher.
My grave to be;
One for the priest
Will pray for me.”
“Give me Christian burial, and a stone above my head!
For I’ve a wife,” says he, “and my babe is on her knee;
And she has naught to weep on but a memory of the dead.”
His white hair all matted with weeds of the sea:
“I have Shawn and Colom who watch for me—
Shall my two sons not call me from out the deep?”
That young, young lad,
Whose quick, warm heart
Was all the wealth he had,
“There on the shore
Was a girl used to walk
Who’ll never walk there more.
That Janet lies:
For my grave next hers,
I will give up Paradise.”
He has thrown his body on the white sand stretches:
And they have laid him by a grave
That’s two years overgrown with docks and vetches.
“That he alone came in upon the breaker?”
I smile my wise smile to myself—
I, the child of Weir the musicmaker.