Fire and Snow

"What of the night, colleen, what of the night?" 
Oh, fires are red and the snows are white: 
But on one dear hearth that I used to know 
The fire is quenched with the drifted snow. 

"What bird is it, colleen, that cries so shrill?" 
Tis I; and I cry for a kind voice still — 
For a kind hand slipped from my clinging hold, 
For my place in a heart that to-night is cold. 

"What of the night, colleen, what of the night?" 
Oh, never a star dares show its light, 
But wildfire signals to ships at sea — 
And Miscann Many's the fire for me. 

One may sit by the wild-fire, and half forget 
The hands that parted, the lips that met: 
One may warm one's grief there; for deathly cold 
Is the heart that has never a pain to hold. 

"What pain is it, colleen, you'd win again 
By the fire that's quenched not of wind or rain? 
Why sit you silent the while you spin, 
As if your sorrow were half a sin?" 

What use of wailing? more use to spin, 
And dearest is sorrow that's half a sin — 
And the ghostly feet that I hear on the stair, 
Oh, they must walk soft though my heart go bare. 

Oh, mother, mother, one thing alone 
Keeps shut my lips that would fain make moan, 
It is that alone in the night I go 
And dree my weird betwixt snow and snow. 

Oh, sea-blue eyes of you, yellow head, 
You passed ere the flowers on the thorn were dead: 
And I give God thanks, though the ways be white, 
That His snows fall only on me to-night.