IRELAND

In the wild and lurid desert, in the thunder-travelled ways,

‘ Neath the night that ever hurries to the dawn that still delays,

There she clutches at illusions, and she seeks a phantom goal

With the unattaining passion that consumes the unsleeping soul:

And calamity enfolds her, like the shadow of a ban,

And the niggardness of Nature makes the misery of man:

And in vain the hand is stretched to lift her, stumbling in the gloom,

While she follows the mad fen-fire that conducts her to her doom.