The rugged rock against the sky
Heaves high a tower-topped crest,
Whence widens out beneath the eye
The realms of East and West.
Here lies a land but seldom sung,—
This crude, majestic crown,
And that white sea that moves among
The fertile fields of Down!
Unsung!—save when an alien lyre
A moment’s space was strung,
And Browning fanned a little fire,
And Helen’s Tower was sung.
Yet storied homes of sept and clan
Are here, and,—dim and vague,—
Anear and far, Ben Madighan,
And Keats-sung Ailsa Craig!
Unsung!—and wherefore? lovely land!
Hast thou not ample store
For song, from yonder ocean strand,
To Strangford’s shining shore?
Hast thou not throbbed to foamy flanks,
And sound of Saxon steel,
To crash of Cromwell’s rattling ranks,
And Clansmen of O’Neill?
And yet, not all thy songful crown
Is strife of right with wrong;
Here, limpid lark-streams trickle down
A hundred peaks of song;
There, silent sheep and lambkins lie—
A white, uncertain thing—
Like lingering snow that fain would spy
The secret of the spring.
The roaming robber breezes catch,
And hither upward float,
A lusty lilt and vagrant snatch
From some far rustic throat;
And blustering bye, with strident shout,
From scenes of festive glee,
That libertine of flower and sprout,
The bacchanalian bee.
All life is song:—and song is life
To souls with these akin,
Unfettered by yon city’s strife,
Unsullied by its sin!
Some part of these fair fields and coast,
Some waft of phantom wings,
Will haunt my heart, a welcome ghost,
A hint of higher things.