Celtic Tree Month-Elder

Elder Moon: November 24 - December 23

The Death-Child

William Sharp (1855–1905)

SHE sits beneath the elder-tree And sings her song so sweet, And dreams o’er the burn that darksomely Runs by her moonwhite feet.   Her hair is dark as starless night,         5 Her flower-crowned face is pale, But oh, her eyes are lit with light Of dread ancestral bale.   She sings an eerie song, so wild With immemorial dule—         10 Though young and fair, Death’s mortal child That sits by that dark pool.   And oft she cries an eldritch scream, When red with human blood The burn becomes a crimson stream,         15 A wild, red, surging flood:   Or shrinks, when some swift tide of tears— The weeping of the world— Dark eddying ’neath man’s phantom-fears Is o’er the red stream hurled.         20   For hours beneath the elder-tree She broods beside the stream; Her dark eyes filled with mystery, Her dark soul rapt in dream.   The lapsing flow she heedeth not         25 Through deepest depths she scans: Life is the shade that clouds her thought, As Death ’s the eclipse of man’s.   Time seems but as a bitter thing Remembered from of yore:         30 Yet ah (she thinks) her song she ’ll sing When Time’s long reign is o’er.   Erstwhiles she bends alow to hear What the swift water sings, The torrent running darkly clear         35 With secrets of all things.   And then she smiles a strange sad smile And lets her harp lie long; The death-waves oft may rise the while, She greets them with no song.         40   Few ever cross that dreary moor, Few see that flower-crowned head; But whoso knows that wild song’s lure Knoweth that he is dead.