Classic Poem

Where these green mounds o'erlook the mingling Erne
And salt Atlantic, clay that walk'd as Man
A thousand years ago, some Vik-ing stern,
May rest, or nameless Chieftain of a Clan:
And when my dusty remnant shall return
To the great passive World, and nothing can,
With eye, or lip, or finger, any more,
O lay it there too, by the river shore.

The silver salmon shooting up the fall,
Itself at once the arrow and the bow;
The shadow of the old quay's weedy wall
Cast on the shining turbulence below;
The water-voice which ever seems to call
Far off out of my childhood's long-ago;
The gentle washing of the harbour wave;
Be these the sights and sounds around my grave.

Soothed also with thy friendly beck, my town
And near the square gray tower within whose shade
Was many of my kin's last lying-down;
Whilst, by the broad heavens changefully array'd,
Empurpling mountains its horizon crown;
And westward 'tween low hummocks is display'd,
In lightsome-hours, the level pale blue sea,
With sails upon it creeping silently:

Or, other time, beyond that tawny sand,
An ocean glooming underneath the shroud
Drawn thick atwart it by tempestuous hand;
When like a mighty fire the bar roars loud,
As though the whole sea came to whelm the land—
The gull flies white against the stormy cloud
And in the weather-gleam the breakers mark
A ghastly line upon the waters dark.

A green unfading quilt above be spread,
And freely round let all the breezes blow;
May children play beside the breathless bed,
Holiday lasses by the cliff edge go;
And manly games upon the sward be sped,
And cheerful boats beneath the headland row;
And be the thought, if any rise, of me,
What happy soul might wish that thought to be.