County Mayo

FAINTLY the old truths are sighed and whispered
in the salt wind blowing through the thorn-tree,
roots crook-wedged in the harsh grey cairn-stones,
turning a humped back to the sea:
here we may sense in half-glimpsed knowing
that the antique far-off graces remain
as the slender facets of the spade-cut peat-face
catch the thin clear light of sunset after rain.

Or we may drink, and watching, listen,
to talk making gossip into epic fable
in the steamy lamp-light of the crowded bar,
and between the flour-sacks and the pushed-back tables
the patterning feet to the shrilling fiddle
trace out, weave round a magic story—
(so once anciently was mimed
the circled myth in the Trojan Dancing)—
now in the half-sets, Walls of Limerick,
Siege of Ennis and The Waves of Tory.

1946

NOTES

This poem also appears as Part II of The Western Edges