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XV.

Redmond went forth at fall of night,
Denis came back with morning light.
Whitebeard Father, trembling Mother,
Losing one Son to find another,
Strange were your thoughts!—tho' age no more
Wonders keenly as of yore.
Denis had written home, to say
That rich he would return some day,
Or never; but the lines were lost.
He sought the far Pacific Coast,
Mined, struggled, starved, lay at death's door,
Was three times rich and three times poor,
Then triumph'd, hurried east, and found
An Irish vessel homeward bound—
Which bore him straighter than was good.
So much the Parents understood.
And often by the snug fireside
Among the hills, far from the tide,
Where Denis kept their old age warm,
Curious strangers would they tell
About ‘the Night of the Big Storm;’
Yet never till the day they died
Knew how in truth it all befell.
But Denis told his Wife; nor she,
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A pious soul, forgot the plea
For Redmond when she bow'd her knee.
And Denis doth his duties right
In house and field; tho' nothing can
Lift from the silent, serious man
The shadow of that Stormy Night.

XVI.

The rain-clouds and storm-clouds roll up from the sea
The sun and the morning disperse them: they flee.
The winds and the waves fall to silence. The blue
Overarches the world. There is plenty to do.
The Fisher rows forth, and the Seaman sets sail,
The Smith hits his iron, the Joiner his nail,
The red Ploughman plodding, the pale Tailor stitching,
The Clerk at his desk, and the Cook in her kitchen.
The poor little Folk in our poor little Town
On their poor little business go up and go down;
Like people in London and Paris and Rome,
And elsewhere that live under crystalline dome.
And each by himself, whether little or great,
Fulfils his own life and endures his own fate.
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