Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LORDS OF SHADOW by WILLIAM SHARP

First Line: WHERE THE WATER WHISPERS 'MID THE SHADOWY ROWAN-TREES
Last Line: AND SEALED MY EYES WITH DEW BENEATH THE SHADOWY ROWAN-TREES.
Subject(s): COMFORT; DEATH; FAIRIES; MYTHOLOGY - CELTIC; SHADOWS; VISION; DEAD, THE; ELVES;
Where the water whispers 'mid the shadowy rowan-trees
I have heard the Hidden People like the hum of swarming bees:
And when the moon has risen and the brown burn glisters grey
I have seen the Green Host marching in laughing disarray.

Dalua then must sure have blown a sudden magic air
Or with the mystic dew have sealed my eyes from seeing fair:
For the great Lords of Shadow who tread the deeps of night
Are no frail puny folk who move in dread of mortal sight.

For sure Dalua laughed alow, Dalua the fairy Fool,
When with his wildfire eyes he saw me 'neath the rowan-shadowed pool:
His touch can make the chords of life a bitter jangling tune,
The false glows true, the true glows false, beneath his moontide rune.

The laughter of the Hidden Host is terrible to hear,
The Hounds of Death would harry me at lifting of a spear:
Mayhap Dalua made for me the hum of swarming bees
And sealed my eyes with dew beneath the shadowy rowan-trees.



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