I-Breasil Poem by Anna Johnston MacManus

There is a way I am fain to go–
To the mystical land where all are young,
Where the silver branches have buds of snow.
And every leaf is a singing tongue.

It lies beyond the night and day,
Over shadowy hill, and moorland wide,
And whoso enters casts care away,
And wistful longings unsatisfied.

There arc sweet white women, a radiant throng
Swaying like flowers in a scented wind:
But between us the veil of earth is strong,
And my eyes to their luring eyes are blind.

A blossom of fire is each beauteous bird,
Scarlet and gold on melodious wings,
And never so haunting a strain was heard
From royal harp in the Hall of Kings.

The sacred trees stand in rainbow dew,
Apple and ash and the twisted thorn,
Quicken and holly and dusky yew,
Ancient ere ever gray Time was born.

The oak spreads mighty beneath the sun
In a wonderful dazzle of moonlight green–
O would I might hasten from tasks undone,
And journey whither no grief hath been!

Were I past the mountains of opal flame,
I would seek a couch of the king-fern brown,
And when from its seed glad slumber came,
A flock of rare dreams would flutter down.

But I move without in an endless fret,
While somewhere beyond earth's brink, afar,
Forgotten of men, in a rose-rim set,
I-Breasil shines like a beckoning star.