| IF you have revisited the town, thin Shade, | |
| Whether to look upon your monument | |
| (I wonder if the builder has been paid) | |
| Or happier thoughted when the day is spent | |
| To drink of that salt breath out of the sea | 5 |
| When grey gulls flit about instead of men, | |
| And the gaunt houses put on majesty: | |
| Let these content you and be gone again; | |
For they are at their old tricks yet.
A man | |
| Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought | 10 |
| In his full hands what, had they only known, | |
| Had given their children’s children loftier thought, | |
| Sweeter emotion, working in their veins | |
| Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place, | |
| And insult heaped upon him for his pains | 15 |
| And for his open-handedness, disgrace; | |
| An old foul mouth that slandered you had set | |
The pack upon him.
Go, unquiet wanderer | |
| And gather the Glasnevin coverlet | |
| About your head till the dust stops your ear, | 20 |
| The time for you to taste of that salt breath | |
| And listen at the corners has not come; | |
| You had enough of sorrow before death— | |
Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.
September 29th, 1913. | |
