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13

TO TEAGUE O'TOOLE OF THE BURREN

(SONNET)

Those daystars of our life, Pathos and Mirth,
Have met, friend Teague, in thy unconscious face;
No classic profile thine, yet some past race
Hath sure impressed those features ere thy birth.
Dusky Iberians, wild-eyed sons of Dearth
And Fear, on those dark eyes have left their trace;
Scythians, who knows? fierce Celts in any case,
First-hand explorers of our procreant earth.
And, listening to thy fluent friendly speech,
Shrewd, garrulous, irresponsible, untaught,
Fashioned and coloured like some formless rhyme,
Back with a flash mine own soul seems to reach,
Till I too hear, all else becoming naught,
Those first wild flutings of unlessoned Time!