From the Land of Dreams :: :: University of Virginia Library

From the Land of Dreams

By John Todhunter. With an introduction by T. W. Rolleston

Todhunter, John (1839-1916)

THE LIANAN SHEE

UNDER THE WHITEBOY ACTS, 1800

THE SUNBURST

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THE LIANAN SHEE

THE LIANAN SHEE. “The Lianan Shee” is an evil demon, half siren and half vampire, and is a type of jealousy in the poem that bears her name. She is said to have been originally a Nature Goddess.

(A Tragedy of Dreams)

I

She waits for me upon Death's gloomy shore,
Pale, in that pale and lonely grove where dwell
Those who have set for portress at Love's door
Jealousy, stern and unappeasable.

II

She sends me bitter and remorseful dreams,
That ice the wholesome rivers of my blood,
Crawling about my brain on their cold streams,
With endless memories in the sluggard flood.

III

I walk in dreams by a dark raging sea,
And she beside me with implacable face,
Dead, with wide lids where through gaze wistfully
The accusing eyes, and through my heart they gaze.

IV

I lie in dreams as in a living tomb,
And she, death-pale, her cheek with tears long marred,
Comes hovering like a vampire through the gloom,
Craving some comfort, but my heart is hard.

V

She hunts my soul in dreams; the hounds of thought
Chase me through dense thickets of tangling thorn,
The woods of old remorse—till I am caught,
And wake, still shuddering, in the ghastly morn.

University of Virginia Library

THE LIANAN SHEE THE LIANAN SHEE. “The Lianan Shee” is an evil demon, half siren and half vampire, and is a type of jealousy in the poem that bears her name. She is said to have been originally a Nature Goddess.

(A Tragedy of Dreams)

I

II

III

IV

V

THE LIANAN SHEE

THE LIANAN SHEE. “The Lianan Shee” is an evil demon, half siren and half vampire, and is a type of jealousy in the poem that bears her name. She is said to have been originally a Nature Goddess.