Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

The Cry of the Curlews (Author: Patrick Augustine Sheehan)

p.287

1. A lonely whitewashed cottage
   Under a sandy cliff;
   I, a child, and my cradle
   The thwarts of the fisher's skiff.
   Dark was the night without,
   The winds swept over the lea
   The cry of the curlews calling,
   And the weary wash of the sea.
2. Sea-swallows nested above us
   Silent; but all night long
   Sleepless the cold waves gathered.
   Pouring to night their song.
   They sang alone in the darkness,
   Like hooded monks in choir,
   And the long, lone beach was lighted
   With flames of the white sea-fire.
3. I heard the fret of the shingle
   Teased by the wanton wave,
   And the deep, low boom of the thunder
   In the dripping ocean-cave.
   But I heeded not fret nor thunder,
   Nor the crack of the wild wind's whips,
   For the mother's face bent o'er me,
   And the warmth of a sister's lips.
4. Years have sped since my childhood,
   And all the visions of yore
   Passed like the spirits of dreamland
   Haunting a ghostly shore.
   Yet in the night or twilight
   Cometh a sound to me
   The cry of the curlews calling,
   And the weary wash of the sea.

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p.288

5. Yestreen I watched in my manhood
   There where the cottage stood,
   Under the nests of the swallows
   Beside the ocean flood.
   Gone is the whitewashed cabin,
   And the fisher's humble skiff,
   And a low mound, weedy and grass-grown,
   Is all of the stately cliff.
6. And there in the twilight of fancy
   Did I trace my love's eclipse,
   The vision that bent above me,
   The thrill of a sister's lips.
   God! Thou art just, and somewhere
   In Thy myriad mansions blest,
   Mother and sister are watching
   The face they once caressed.
7. For death is only a shadow
   Cast by Thy holy love,
   As the nest of her young is darkened
   By the wings of the hov'ring dove.
   Swifter and swifter downwards
   Thy Spirit swoops to us,
   Couched in the warmth of His shadow,
   Winged multitudinous.
8. Yestreen I watched in my manhood,
   To-day my hair is white;
   I hear the eternal surges
   Beat in the nearing night.
   But even in Heaven I'll summon
   From the cells of memory
   The cry of the curlews calling,
   And the weary wash of the sea.
P. A. SHEEHAN.