  Green, in the wizard arms, Of the foam-bearded Atlantic, An isle of old enchantment, A melancholy isle, Enchanted and dreaming lies; 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, A mother of many children, Of children exiled and dead, In her home, with bent head, homeless, Clasping her knees she sits, Keening, keening! 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 Flings to the night-wind Her mystic mournful perfume; The sad spearmint by holy wells Breathes melancholy balm. Sometimes she lifts her head, With blue eyes tearless, And gazes athwart the reek of night Upon things long past, Upon things to come. And sometimes, when the moon Brings tempest upon the deep, And roused Atlantic thunders from his caverns in the West, The wolf-hound at her feet Springs up with a mighty bay, Strung from the heart of poets; And she flies on the verge of the tempest Around her shuddering isle, With grey hair streaming: A meteor of evil omen, 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 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 ghosts of her cloudy hovering heroes; And the swan, Fianoula, wails o'er the waters of Inisfail, Chanting her song of destiny, The rune of the weaving Fates. And the nations hear in the void and quaking time of night, Solemn dirges, 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. 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. John Todhunter |
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