James Stephens Poems

The sun is always in the sky
Whenever I get out of bed,
And I often wonder why
It's never late.—My sister said
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In the winter time we go
Walking in the fields of snow;

Where there is no grass at all;
Where the top of every wall,
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There was a giant by the Orchard Wall
Peeping about on this side and on that,
And feeling in the trees: he was as tall
As the big apple tree, and twice as fat:
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Behind the hill I met a man in green
Who asked me if my mother had gone out?
I said she had. He asked me had I seen
His castle where the people sing and shout
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The moon comes every night to peep
Through the window where I lie,
And I pretend to be asleep;
But I watch the moon as it goes by,
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To-day i felt as poor O’Brien did
When, turning from all else that was not his,
He took himself to that which was his own
— He took him to his verse — for other all he had not,
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We thought at first, this man is a king for sure,
Or the branch of a mighty and ancient and famous lineage—
That silly, sulky, illiterate, black-avised boor
Who was hatched by foreign vulgarity under a hedge.
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I went to the Wood of Flowers
(No one was with me):
I was there alone for hours.
I was happy as could be
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And then I wakened up in such a fright;
I thought I heard a movement in the room
But did not dare to look; I snuggled right
Down underneath the bedclothes—then the boom
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A little girl and a big ugly man
Went down the road. The girl was crying
And asking to go home, but when she ran
He hit her on the head and sent her flying,
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