IRELAND THE UNKNOWN.

New Zealand Tablet, 26 May 1921, Page 33

IRELAND THE UNKNOWN.

f Thou whom- ten thousand searchlights leave obscure The white foam’s sister, as the white foam pure; The dark storm’s daughter, guarding long, and late. ' That far-descending heirloom, ancient hate: I cannot say: “In all things that concerned Thee and thy hopes I never swerved or turned, Or held with stumbling mind a wavering creed” But this at least I can declare indeed: Through days with-tempest packed, with thunder piled, My dream is of an Ireland Reconciled; Not mocked and thwarted, conquering some vain goal 1 hat only baulks the hunger of the soul; Not still uncheered, and in fierce mood unchanged, The spouse whom wedlock - hath the more estranged, Whom bonds have the more direly wrenched, apart; But after that long solitude of heart, And all the dissonance of the loveless Past, I' An Ireland willing to be loved at last; ‘ , Am Ireland healed with a mere sovereign balm Than the old deep hurts have known, and in blessed calm Risen from a hundred shatterings, great and new,. 0 that the dream might even'now. come true! • . Sir William Watson, in -the London Times.