| |
| GREEN, in the wizard arms | |
| Of the foam-bearded Atlantic, | |
| An isle of old enchantment, | |
| A melancholy isle, | |
| Enchanted and dreaming lies: | 5 |
| And there, by Shannon’s flowing, | |
| In the moonlight, spectre-thin, | |
| The spectre Erin sits. | |
| |
| An aged desolation, | |
| She sits by old Shannon’s flowing, | 10 |
| A mother of many children, | |
| Of children exil’d and dead, | |
| In her home, with bent head, homeless, | |
| Clasping her knees she sits, | |
| Keening, keening! | 15 |
| |
| And at her keene the fairy-grass | |
| Trembles on dun and barrow; | |
| Around the foot of her ancient crosses | |
| The grave-grass shakes and the nettle swings; | |
| In haunted glens the meadow-sweet | 20 |
| Flings to the night wind | |
| Her mystic mournful perfume; | |
| The sad spearmint by holy wells | |
| Breathes melancholy balm. | |
| Sometimes she lifts her head, | 25 |
| With blue eyes tearless, | |
| And gazes athwart the reck of night | |
| Upon things long past, | |
| Upon things to come. | |
| |
| And sometimes, when the moon | 30 |
| Brings tempest upon the deep, | |
| And rous’d Atlantic thunders from his caverns in the west, | |
| The wolfhound at her feet | |
| Springs up with a mighty bay, | |
| And chords of mystery sound from the wild harp at her side, | 35 |
| Strung from the heart of poets; | |
| And she flies on the wings of tempest | |
| Around her shuddering isle, | |
| With gray hair streaming: | |
| A meteor of evil omen, | 40 |
| The spectre of hope forlorn, | |
| Keening, keening! | |
| |
| She keenes, and the strings of her wild harp shiver | |
| On the gusts of night: | |
| O’er the four waters she keenes—over | 45 |
| Moyle she keenes, | |
| O’er the sea of Milith, and the Strait of Strongbow, | |
| And the Ocean of Columbus. | |
| |
| And the Fianna hear, and the ghost of her cloudy hovering heroes; | |
| And the Swan, Fianoula, wails o’er the waters of Inisfail, | 50 |
| Chanting her song of destiny, | |
| The rune of the weaving Fates. | |
| And the nations hear in the void and quaking time of night, | |
| Sad unto dawning, dirges, | |
| Solemn dirges, | 55 |
| And snatches of bardic song; | |
| Their souls quake in the void and quaking time of night, | |
| And they dream of the weird of kings, | |
| And tyrannies moulting, sick | |
| In the dreadful wind of change. | 60 |
| |
| Wail no more, lonely one, mother of exiles, wail no more, | |
| Banshee of the world—no more! | |
| Thy sorrows are the world’s, thou art no more alone; | |
| Thy wrongs, the world’s. | |
| |
