The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge/Songs of the Fields/All-Hallows Eve

by Francis Ledwidge

ALL-HALLOWS EVE

The dreadful hour is sighing for a moon
To light old lovers to the place of tryst,
And old footsteps from blessed acres soon
On old known pathways will be lightly prest;
And winds that went to eavesdrop since the noon,
Kinking^[1] at some old tale told sweetly brief,
Will give a cowslick^[2] to the yarrow leaf,^[3]
And sling the round nut from the hazel down.

And there will be old yarn balls,^[4] and old spells
In broken lime-kilns, and old eyes will peer
For constant lovers in old spidery wells,^[5]
And old embraces will grow newly dear.
And some may meet old lovers in old dells,
And some in doors ajar in towns light-lorn;
But two will meet beneath a gnarly thorn
Deep in the bosom of the windy fells.

Then when the night slopes home and white-faced day
Yawns in the east there will be sad farewells;
And many feet will tap a lonely way
Back to the comfort of their chilly cells,
And eyes will backward turn and long to stay
Where love first found them in the clover bloom—
But one will never seek the lonely tomb,
And two will linger at the tryst alway.

1. Provincially a kind of laughter.
2. A curl of hair thrown back from the forehead: used metaphorically here, and itself a metaphor taken from the curl of a cow's tongue.
3. Maidens on Hallows Eve pull leaves of yarrow, and, saying over them certain words, put them under their pillows and so dream of their true-loves.
4. They also throw balls of yarn (which must be black) over their left shoulders into old lime-kilns, holding one end and then winding it in till they feel it somehow caught, and expect to see in the darkness the face of their lover.
5. Also they look for his face in old wells.