In Memory of Major Robert Gregory

Now that we're almost settled in our houseI'll name the friends that cannot sup with usBeside a fire of turf in the ancient tower,And having talked to some late hourClimb up the narrow winding stair to bed:Discoverers of forgotten truthOr mere companions of my youth,All, all are in my thoughts to-night, being dead.

Always we'd have the new friend meet the old,And we are hurt if either friend seem cold,And there is salt to lengthen out the smartIn the affections of our heart,And quarrels are blown up upon that head;But not a friend that I would bringThis night can set us quarrelling,For all that come into my mind are dead.

Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,That loved his learning better than mankind,Though courteous to the worst; much falling heBrooded upon sanctityTill all his Greek and Latin learning seemedA long blast upon the horn that broughtA little nearer to his thoughtA measureless consummation that he dreamed.

And that enquiring man John Synge comes next,That dying chose the living world for textAnd never could have rested in the tombBut that, long travelling, he had comeTowards nightfall upon certain set apartIn a most desolate stony place,Towards nightfall upon a racePassionate and simple like his heart.

And then I think of old George Pollexfen,In muscular youth well known to Mayo menFor horsemanship at meets or at race-courses,That could have shown how purebred horsesAnd solid men, for all their passion, liveBut as the outrageous stars inclineBy opposition, square and trine;Having grown sluggish and contemplative.

They were my close companions many a year,A portion of my mind and life, as it were,And now their breathless faces seem to lookOut of some old picture-book;I am accustomed to their lack of breath,But not that my dear friend's dear son,Our Sidney and our perfect man,Could share in that discourtesy of death.

For all things the delighted eye now seesWere loved by him; the old storm-broken treesThat cast their shadows upon road and bridge;The tower set on the stream's edge;The ford where drinking cattle make a stirNightly, and startled by that soundThe water-hen must change her ground;He might have been your heartiest welcomer.

When with the Galway foxhounds he would rideFrom Castle Taylor to the Roxborough sideOr Esserkelly plain, few kept his pace;At Mooneen he had leaped a placeSo perilous that half the astonished meetHad shut their eyes, and where was itHe rode a race without a bit?And yet his mind outran the horses' feet.

We dreamed that a great painter had been bornTo cold Clare rock and Galway rock and thorn,To that stern colour and that delicate lineThat are our secret disciplineWherein the gazing heart doubles her might.Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,And yet he had the intensityTo have published all to be a world's delight.

What other could so well have counselled usIn all lovely intricacies of a houseAs he that practised or that understoodAll work in metal or in wood,In moulded plaster or in carven stone?Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,And all he did done perfectlyAs though he had but that one trade alone.

Some burn damp fagots, others may consumeThe entire combustible world in one small roomAs though dried straw, and if we turn aboutThe bare chimney is gone black outBecause the work had finished in that flare.Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,As 'twere all life's epitome.What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?

I had thought, seeing how bitter is that windThat shakes the shutter, to have brought to mindAll those that manhood tried, or childhood loved,Or boyish intellect approved,With some appropriate commentary on each;Until imagination broughtA fitter welcome; but a thoughtOf that late death took all my heart for speech.