Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/387

Rh Or he would climb where quiet fills With dream the shepherd on the hills, Where he could see as from high land The golden sickle of the sand Curving around the bay to where The granite cliffs were worn by air, And watch' the wind and waves at play, The heavenly gleam of falling spray, The sunlit surges foam below In wrinklings as of liquid snow. And he could breathe the airs that blew From worlds invisible he knew: How far away-now from the boy! How unassailable their joy!

So Michael would recall each place As lovers a remembered face. But, though the tender may not tire, Memory is but a fading fire. And Michael's might have sunken low, Changed to grey ash its coloured glow, Did not upon his hearing fall The mountain speech of Donegal, And that he swiftly turned to greet The tongue whose accent was so sweet; And found one of that eager kind, The army of the Gaelic mind, Still holding through the Iron Age The spiritual heritage, The story from the gods that ran Through many a cycle down to man. And soon with them had Michael read The history of the famous dead, From him who with his single sword Stayed a great army at the ford, Down to the vagrant poets, those Who gave their hearts to the Dark Rose, And of the wanderers who set sail And found a lordlier Innisfail,