A Seaside Portrait A GREAT, still Shape, alone, She sits (her harp has fallen) on the sand, And sees her children, one by one, depart:— Her cloak (that hides what sins beside her own!) Wrapped fold on fold about her. Lo, She comforts her fierce heart, As wailing some, and some gay-singing go, With the far vision of that Greater Land Deep in the Atlantic skies, Saint Brandan’s Paradise! Another Woman there, Mighty and wondrous fair, Stands on her shore-rock:—one uplifted hand Holds a quick-piercing light That keeps long sea-ways bright; She beckons with the other, saying “Come, O landless, shelterless, Sharp-faced with hunger, worn with long distress:— Come hither, finding home! Lo, my new fields of harvest, open, free, By winds of blessing blown, Whose golden corn-blades shake from sea to sea— Fields without walls that all the people own!”
Ireland
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