But ah, the tide of life that flows unceasing
Into the luring West
Returns no more, to swell with kindlier fulness
The Mother’s breast!
[SONNET]
On reading a Dublin newspaper in the train,
April 16, 1904
Night falls: the emerald pastures turn to grey,
Young stars appear, a mystic beauty thrills
The dusk above the line of far-off hills,
Where late the splendours of the end of Day,
Sad and majestic, flamed and passed away.
In dust and thunder speeding to the Sea
The train flies on, yet eve’s serenity,
Great and untroubled, holds the world in sway.
Then, turning from that realm of lofty life,
Again my eyes upon the printed page
Fall, and again I hear but cries of rage,
Brawlers and bigots, every word a knife;
While Thought, the fair land’s fairest heritage,
Lies drowned in clamour of ignoble strife.
[A RAILWAY JOURNEY]
We’ve cleared the station—free at last
From darkness, din, and worry;
By red-brick villas, shady roads
And garden-plots we hurry.
And now green miles of pasture-land
Flit by, with budding hedges,
And far to Southward I can see
The purple mountain ridges.
My fellow-travellers pretermit,
Seeing there is no danger,
That anxious glance with which we greet
The presence of a stranger.
Whom have we? First, some man of means
(I guess), brow-wrinkled, dull-eyed,
His face the index of a soul
By cares unworthy sullied.