[Poems by Piatt in] The Hesperian tree an annual of the Ohio Valley - 1903 |
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THE ROCK OF CASHEL |
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II
THE ROCK OF CASHEL
Flying along the horizon far away,
Momently glimpsed, momently vanishing,
Through hurrying groups of intervening trees,
Or through the eddying vapor of the train,
Oft I had seen that awful mass of stone,
Crowned with its venerable walls and tower;
Cormac's strong chapel, scarcely touched by Time,
And broken palaces of Ireland's kings,
Hung lone o'er Tipperara's Golden Vale. ...
One quiet evening thitherward we drove,
September's hues on wayside ash and thorn,
And wild-rose berries thick on hedge or wall,
Seven miles along a still autumnal road,
Leaving the station when the sun was low.
Momently glimpsed, momently vanishing,
Through hurrying groups of intervening trees,
Or through the eddying vapor of the train,
Oft I had seen that awful mass of stone,
Crowned with its venerable walls and tower;
Cormac's strong chapel, scarcely touched by Time,
And broken palaces of Ireland's kings,
Hung lone o'er Tipperara's Golden Vale. ...
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September's hues on wayside ash and thorn,
And wild-rose berries thick on hedge or wall,
Seven miles along a still autumnal road,
Leaving the station when the sun was low.
The sun had set, and all the sky was flushed
Duskily red, with cloudy points of fire,
While distant first we saw the awful Shape.
An evening mist that crawled along the ground,
Chilling the twilight air (and we were chilled),
Had risen breast-high about through all the plain;
And there it stood before us, close at hand,
Based in that spectral, still, beleaguering tide;
Gray Ireland's genuine Picture, so it seemed,
(Itself an island in a misty sea);
The blurred new moon's weird light on tower and cross—
The Rock of Cashel, Cashel of the Kings!
Duskily red, with cloudy points of fire,
While distant first we saw the awful Shape.
An evening mist that crawled along the ground,
Chilling the twilight air (and we were chilled),
Had risen breast-high about through all the plain;
And there it stood before us, close at hand,
Based in that spectral, still, beleaguering tide;
Gray Ireland's genuine Picture, so it seemed,
(Itself an island in a misty sea);
The blurred new moon's weird light on tower and cross—
The Rock of Cashel, Cashel of the Kings!
| [Poems by Piatt in] The Hesperian tree | |