Classic Poem

Tirconail!
On the hem of the royal Hill, the Hill of Aileach,
I stood —
And the Past, the Present and the Future
Were in my eyes
As nothing —
The light foot in a forgotten dance.
A spark in the air.

Tirconail!
Of the dark-haired passes and star-high peaks,
Depths unknown, heights austere.
What have you to say?
What is the message
In the moan of the winds in your glens,
The wail of the waters on your surf-bitten shores?
In the sun-bright lustre of Croagh-an-Airgead,
The haughty coldness of Errigal,
The drum of the sea on Tory,
The white laugh of the waters in Gweebarra Bay?

Errigal has listened to the light feet
On the dancing floors of Gweedore!
Curving and curtseying
The white bones of the time-forgotten dancers
Are one with the waters
That thresh your shores, Tirconail.

For they were and are not,
They are and will not be!
And thus, I, too,
The onlooker of a moment will go.
My moment as nothing,
The strain of a fiddle in the twilight,
A low wind on the hills.