The Druids by Kenneth Morris

A poem, from the April 1926 issue of The Theosophical Path.

The Druids

Iolo told me there were men of old
Who fashioned harps of flowers and faery gold.
The hills of eve, the dew-cool vales of morn,
He said they wandered singing, gathering bloom—
­Pale cuckoo-flowers, wood-sorrel, elfin-thorn,
Dewed mountain-field cowslips, and yellow broom,
The raggedrobin bloom, the daffodil—
And would with song distil
All the virtues of these mountain-flowers
To gold, and fashion harps of such strange powers,
In them would be tunes wherewith at will
They could cure every ill.

Iolo told me, too, they were so wise
Little escaped them in the night-blue skies:
They could interpret all Ophiuchus’ moods
Ever and ever round the Pole who swings
His solemn stars. The oaks’ imaginings,
And what the wild bee, clover-drunken, broods,
And what the morning dew,
Iolo said, the gentle Druids knew,
Because they were still-hearted as deep noon
In a green, bee-loved glade where ringdoves croon—­
Still as the mirrored sudden jewel gleam
Of kingfisher wings on a dark-pooled forest stream. . . .