| If you have revisited the town, thin Shade, |
| Whether to look upon your monument |
| (I wonder if the builder
has been paid) |
| Or happier-thoughted when the day is spent |
| To drink of that salt breath out of the sea |
| When grey gulls flit about instead of men, |
| And the gaunt houses put on majesty: |
| Let these content you
and be gone again; |
| For they are at their old tricks yet. |
|
|
|
|
| A man |
| Of your own passionate serving kind
who had brought |
| In his full hands what, had they only known, |
| Had given their children’s children loftier
thought, |
| Sweeter emotion, working in their veins |
| Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place, |
| And
insult heaped upon him for his pains, |
| And for his open-handedness, disgrace; |
| Your enemy, an old foul
mouth, had set |
| The pack upon him. |
|
|
|
|
| Go, unquiet wanderer, |
| And gather the Glasnevin coverlet |
| About
your head till the dust stops your ear, |
| The time for you to taste of that salt breath |
| And listen at the corners
has not come; |
| You had enough of sorrow before death— |
| Away, away! You are safer in the tomb. |
| September
29, 1913 |