WIDE IS THE SHANNON
Wide is the Shannon, very wide and spacious,
Wild is the Shannon, home of every gale,
Dull is the Shannon, leagues of open water,
Leagues of open water, scarce a single sail.
Tawny brown wavelets, sea-salt and white-tipped,
Rolling in for ever, streaming from the west,
Meeting with the current, beaten back, embracing,
Salt and fresh commingling in one grey and troubled breast.
River-way or sea-way, by what name we call you,
Little recks the trader of your wealth of idle waves.
Tiny rivers mock you, reckoning up their navies,
Skiff, and barge, and wherry, busy plying slaves;
East and west I view you, ever greyly speeding,
Home and vacant playground of the idle, wind-torn clouds,
Wastes of roving darkness, streaks of glowing brightness,
Dusky depths of shadowland, hid in scrolling shrouds.
Steeply the meadows slip down to your pebbles,
Battered elm and thorn-tree shoulder rock and ledge,
Here a sudden curve, tender green, beswitching,
There a bare and barren stretch, void of tree or hedge.
Swift fly the shadows, darting down the reaches,
Cloud-races run on a wide aerial course;
Lights born and fading on your solitary vastness,
Shining but to bring to light some fading patch of gorse.
Ancient battered oaks, sere, and bald and sapless,
Through their lichened branches your current twists and heaves,
Mossy green or olive, the sheeny ripples glitter,
Smooth as polished agate betwixt the bristling leaves.
Little flitting creatures, dragon-fly or day-moth,
Sipping at your waters mount in small alarms,
Start to fly across you, fly and fly for ever,
Beaten back and dying in your bitter, sea-cold arms.
Off away to seaward, where you spread your widest,
Clare leans out to meet you, stretches forth an arm,
Infinitely lonely, desolately stony,
Scarce a waving sky-line, scarce a field or farm.
Swift the nimble Fancy leaps that narrow rampart,
Lands upon the further side with blithe and beating breast,
Looks around and onward, clapping hands and hailing
All the light and glory of the living, moving West!
Ho! the living West, with its moving, moving, waters!
Ho! the golden West, where the sunsets dance and play
Limits hath it never, rolling on for ever
To the never-fading sun-fields, the Motherlands of day.
Out of it comes freshness, out of it comes gladness,
In it sleep the breezes that set the soul awhirl,
Hope and all enchantments, Love the wily wizard,
Memory with her deep caves, and open gates of pearl.
Therefore idle Shannon, spendthrift amongst rivers,
Pourer forth of treasure to the waste indifferent night,
Love we you, and cherish, bringer to our thresholds
Harsh and bitter weather—melody and light.
High road to bewitchment, open gate of sunset,
Strewn with restless fires, with islands of the blest,
From whose steel-grey bosom spreads as from a mirror
Light and lovely colour, the wild wealth of the West.