Classic Poem

Where low rains are heavier
Than the sail in haze
And the cold sea is spread
On the soil to raise harvest,
Black calves are bred to reign over
The fair and behind their green tether,
In a bare land that halves every cloud,
There is a great house.

Men with the crowbar,
Breaking a road
From the spar of the dark land,
Have seen those far windows,
While unyoking a cart-load,
Take fire and a star
Coming over the water
Like Oisin after the heroes.

At darkrise the snipe
Strum on the rain;
But in that house, to the lighting
Of rushes, the air of the bagpipe
Blows a reel on the floor:
Big men strike in from a backward parish
And two of them carry a slain boar
Over the throating of greyhounds.

There is honey spitting from meat
And whitening of the ale there,
Brandy and wine that came from the seas,
Bright candles — and who that delight in
The mind, counting those companies
Of yellow-haired men or of women
That never had envy, would not be pleased
By the laughter, the music and chess-playing?