The laborer looks up to see our shallop speed away.

When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? When shall we find the bay?

Now are the clouds like fiery shrouds; the sun, superbly large,

Slow as an oak to woodman's stroke sinks flaming at their marge.

The waves are bright with mirror'd light as jacinths on our way.

When shall the sandy bar be cross'd? When shall we find the bay?

The moon is high up in the sky, and now

no more we see

The spreading river's either bank, and surging distantly

There booms a sullen thunder as of breakers far away.

Now shall the sandy bar be cross'd, now shall we find the bay!

The seagull shrieks high overhead, and dimly to our sight

The moonlit crests of foaming waves gleam towering through the night. We'll steal upon the mermaid soon, and start her from her lay,

When once the sandy bar is cross'd, and we are in the bay.

What rises white and awful as a shroudenfolded ghost?

What roar of rampant tumult bursts in clangor on the coast?

Pull back! pull back! The raging flood sweeps every oar away. O stream, is this thy bar of sand? O boat, is this the bay?

THE LYRICAL POEM

PASSION the fathomless spring, and words the precipitate waters,

Rhythm the bank that binds these to their musical bed.

THE DIDACTIC POEM

SOULLESS, colorless strain, thy words are the words of wisdom.

Is not a mule a mule, bear he a burden of

gold?

GREEN, in the wizard arms
Of the foam-bearded Atlantic,
An isle of old enchantment,
A melancholy isle,

Enchanted and dreaming lies:
And there, by Shannon's flowing,
In the moonlight, spectre-thin,
The spectre Erin sits.

An aged desolation,

She sits by old Shannon's flowing,
A mother of many children,
Of children exil'd and dead,

In her home, with bent head, homeless,
Clasping her knees she sits,
Keening, keening!

And at her keene the fairy-grass Trembles on dun and barrow;

Around the foot of her ancient crosses
The grave-grass shakes and the nettle
swings;

In haunted glens the meadow-sweet
Flings to the night wind

Her mystic mournful perfume ;
The sad spearmint by holy wells
Breathes melancholy balm.
Sometimes she lifts her head,
With blue eyes tearless,

And gazes athwart the reck of night
Upon things long past,
Upon things to come.

And sometimes, when the moon
Brings tempest upon the deep,

And rous'd Atlantic thunders from his caverns in the west,

The wolfhound at her feet

Springs up with a mighty bay,