| |
| I WILL row my boat on Muckross Lake when the grey of the dove | |
| Comes down at the end of the day; and a quiet like prayer | |
| Grows soft in your eyes, and among your fluttering hair | |
| The red of the sun is mixed with the red of your cheek. | |
| I will row you, O boat of my heart! till our mouths have forgotten to speak | 5 |
| In the silence of love, broken only by trout that spring | |
| And are gone, like a fairy’s finger that casts a ring | |
| With the luck of the world for the hand that can hold it fast. | |
| I will rest on my oars, my eyes on your eyes, till our thoughts have passed | |
| From the lake and the sky and the rings of the jumping fish; | 10 |
| Till our ears are filled from the reeds with a sudden swish, | |
| And a sound like the beating of flails in the time of corn. | |
| We shall hold our breath while a wonderful thing is born | |
| From the songs that were chanted by bards in the days gone by; | |
| For a wild white swan shall be leaving the lake for the sky, | 15 |
| With the curve of her neck stretched out in a silver spear. | |
| Oh! then when the creak of her wings shall have brought her near, | |
| We shall hear again a swish, and a beating of flails, | |
| And a creaking of oars, and a sound like the wind in sails, | |
| As the mate of her heart shall follow her into the air. | 20 |
| O wings of my soul! we shall think of Angus and Caer, | |
| And Etain and Midir, that were changed into wild white swans | |
| To fly round the ring of the heavens, through the dusks and the dawns, | |
| Unseen by all but true lovers, till judgment day, | |
| Because they had loved for love only. O love! I will say, | 25 |
| For a woman and man with eternity ringing them round, | |
| And the heavens above and below them, a poor thing it is to be bound | |
| To four low walls that will spill like a pedlar’s pack, | |
| And a quilt that will run into holes, and a churn that will dry and crack. | |
| Oh! better than these, a dream in the night, or our heart’s mute prayer | 30 |
| That O’Donoghue, the enchanted man, should pass between water and air, | |
| And say, I will change them each to a wild white swan, | |
| Like the lovers Angus and Midir, and their loved ones, Caer and Etain, | |
| Because they have loved for love only, and have searched through the shadows of things | |
| For the Heart of all hearts, through the fire of love, and the wine of love, and the wings. | 35 |
| |
