Classic Poem

O far withdrawn into the lonely West,
To whom those Irish hills are as a grave
Cairn-crowned, the dead sun's monument,
And this fair English land but vaguely guessed —
Thee, lady, by the melancholy wave
I greet, where salt winds whistle through the bent,
And harsh sea-holly buds beneath thy foot are pressed.

What is thy thought? 'Tis not the obvious scene
That holds thee with its grand simplicity
Of natural forms. Thou musest rather
What larger life may be, what richer sheen
Of social gloss in lands beyond the sea,
What nobler cult than where, around thy father,
The silent fishers pray in chapel small and mean.

Yes, thou art absent far — thy soul has slipt
The visual bond, and thou art lowly kneeling
Upon a pavement with the sacred kisses
Of emerald and ruby gleamings lipped;
And down the tunnelled nave the organ, pealing,
Blows music-storm, and with far-floating blisses
Gives tremor to the bells, and shakes the dead men's crypt.

This is thy thought; for this thou heav'st the sigh.
Yet, lady, look around thee! hast thou not
The life of real men, the home,
The tribe, and for a temple that old sky,
Whereto the sea intones the polyglot
Of water-pipes antiphonal, and the dome,
Round-arched, goes up to God in lapis lazuli?