Sea Spray: Verses and Translations

MAUNSEL AND CO., LIMITED, 96, MID. ABBEY ST., DUBLIN 1909 All rights reserved

TO THE LADY OF THE RING

Thanks are due to Messrs. Harrap & Co., London, for permission to include in this volume three poems which are introduced into the writer’s forthcoming prose book, “The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland.” The poems in question are Cois na Teineadh , Midir the Proud , and the Song of Finn . Some others have appeared in the Spectator , the Irish Homestead , and the Westminster Gazette , to the editors of which acknowledgments are due.



What shall we do with our day? you ask— A June day fair to the heart’s desire— Lie in the meadow, and lounge and bask Over books and tobacco? Or do you aspire To conquer the summit that yesterday We marked for our own ere your visit end? Or shall we go riding, or fishing? Nay, For the scent of the sea’s on the air, my friend. We shall go to the head of the reedy lake, And there, in a brake by a fir-grove, find Two long canoes with arching deck, Sea-riders, strong for a day of wind; And oh, what a song shall the bright wind sing us When clear of the shallows and clear of the sedge, While the narrowing stream and the ebb-tide swing us ’Twixt sea and mountain to Wicklow Bridge!
But here beware! for the ebb goes roaring Through half the arches, and half are dry, And stakes and stones are ready for goring Your Rob-Roy’s timbers as down you fly. And beyond the Bridge, in the deep sea-current, Where the rope-maze crosses from quay to quay, You’ll need your head and your arm I warrant, To fight the eddies and find your way. There lifts your prow with the long pulsation That tells how near us the glad seas are! There lifts the heart with the old elation, To meet the surf at the harbour-bar!
The North wind marshals the ranks of ocean, And on they sweep with a strength serene, Till the tide-race ruffles the mighty motion And curls the crests of the rollers green. The breakers flash on the sand-bank yonder, And the cavern’d curve of the rock-walled bay Is loud with clamour of hoarse sea-thunder As the wave recoils in a blast of spray.