The Shadow on the Shore

A spot there is on this far-reaching bay
Where sleeps a shadow heavier than night,
A shadow of unmitigated gloom,
The undying presence of a bygone doom,
Streaked with no ray of light.
The place is fair; its white-capped wavelets gay;
Across its sand-bars the pied shadows play,
And thorn-trees, bent beneath their harvests fair,
Scatter tart fragrance to the brine-filled air.
Yet over all there hangs a sense of doom,
A shadow of impenetrable gloom,
Some leaden taint, which haunts it like a tomb.

Vanish ill-haunted spot! Which brings to birth
Visions so baneful; dreams which only come
After too many lonely hours where
The thick-strewn shadows, aliens from the sun,
Leave cold and bare
The untended bones of Mother Earth;
Where Joy runs leaping never, nor young Mirth
Nor Love, nor aught that is heart-whole and fair;
Only old Desolation and sick Care
Sit sorrowing. Where the brine-crusted shore
Slopes to a wrinkled sea-line, scattered o’er
With thin grey flakes of pale and orphaned foam,
Flicked by the jealous gusts from their own wave-filled Home.

Kind hearth you call; I come! The night is rough,
The skies inhospitable; morose this strand;
I will not, nay I dare not longer be
Where Peace, hard-pressed, strains at a nerveless hand.
And peace, fierce ghosts, to thee!
Are there not on these lone hills graves enough?
Is there not space in yonder dark-hued sea?
In yon grey mist-swept shore even for ye?
Behold the dusk brings comfort. On yon height
One silvery hovering gleam of watery light.
Sea, shore, and all these naked uplands wear
That wild wan look, that mute appealing air,
That smile--born of young Hope and old Despair--
Which Eiré’s world-wide lovers find so fair.
Oh, woman-country, weak, yet strangely strong,
What witchery doth to thy cold skies belong,
What spells are thine, all other lands apart,
Which cling so closely, madly to the heart?
Is it such wandering ghosts as hover here,
Or thine own tireless dreams that keep thee young and dear?