| I meditate upon a swallow’s flight, |
| Upon an aged woman and her house, |
| A sycamore and lime tree lost
in night |
| Although that western cloud is luminous, |
| Great works constructed there in nature’s spite |
| For
scholars and for poets after us, |
| Thoughts long knitted into a single thought, |
| A dance-like glory that those
walls begot. |
|
|
|
|
| There Hyde before he had beaten into prose |
| That noble blade the Muses buckled on, |
| There
one that ruffled in a manly pose |
| For all his timid heart, there that slow man, |
| That meditative man, John
Synge, and those |
| Impetuous men, Shaw Taylor and Hugh Lane |
| Found pride established in humility, |
| A scene well set and excellent company. |
|
|
|
|
| They came like swallows and like swallows went, |
| And yet a
woman’s powerful character |
| Could keep a swallow to its first intent; |
| And half a dozen in formation there, |
| That seemed to whirl upon a compass-point, |
| Found certainty upon the dreaming air, |
| The intellectual
sweetness of those lines |
| That cut through time or cross it withershins. |
|
|
|
|
| Here, traveller, scholar, poet,
take your stand |
| When all those rooms and passages are gone, |
| When nettles wave upon a shapeless
mound |
| And saplings root among the broken stone, |
| And dedicate—eyes bent upon the ground, |
| Back
turned upon the brightness of the sun |
| And all the sensuality of the shade— |
| A moment’s memory to that
laurelled head. |
