The Yellow Book/Volume 8/Two Songs
Two Songs
By Nora Hopper
I—Ma Creevin O!
Ma Creevin O, with your breast of snow,Why would you go through the convent door?Why stand apart with a folded heart,Feeding the hungry poor?
Let others kneel and give milk and meal,While the grey hours steal their youth away,What grief have you known that you leave us, lone,Gra, to a sunless day?
Your hands like silk gave meal and milkTo all the ilk of the wandering shee:Stay here and learn how your own fires burnAnd let the grey nuns be.
Kind loves to your door we'll bring galore,And the best love, asthore, that is not kind:No blast shall wither your quicken-treeSo you leave cold saints for the kindly shee,And the nunnery door behind!
II—Phyllis and Damon
Phyllis and Damon met one day:(Heigho!)Phyllis was sad and Damon grey,Tired with treading a separate way.
Damon sighed for his broken flute:(Heigho!)Phyllis went with a noiseless foot,Under the olives stripped of fruit.
Met they, parted they, all unsaid?(Heigho!)Ah, but a ghost's lips are not red:Damon was old, and Phyllis dead—(Heigho, heigho!)