Clinton Scollard

Nightfall in Sligo

    I

  I heard the bells of Sligo say
  The tranquil requiem of day.

  I saw the fires of sunset burn
  Dim in the great west's golden urn.

  O'er Calvary's sharp spire afar
  Clear flowered one hyacinthine star.

  Then mother Night her children hid
  Under her purple coverlid.

    II

  Well can I recall that eve at Sligo,
  And the vacant arches of the abbey
  Framing the ethereal rose of sunset!
  Round about me silence and gray shadow
  Peopled with the wraiths of time departed,--
  Monks with back-thrown cowls who pace the cloisters
  Now deep-mounded, crumbled, clad with ivy.
  No more from the tower their chimes of silver
  Will the bells fling o'er the town and river,
  O'er the Garavogue soft-gliding seaward!
  Nevermore--save in deep dreams at midnight.
  Death, the immemorial lord of mortals,
  He is abbot in the aisles of Sligo
  Till the spheres proclaim the resurrection!