74. The Starling Lake

MY sorrow that I am not by the little dún

By the lake of the starlings at Rosses under the hill,

And the larks there, singing over the fields of dew,

Or evening there and the sedges still.

For plain I see now the length of the yellow sand,

And Lissadell far off and its leafy ways,

And the holy mountain whose mighty heart

Gathers into it all the coloured days.

My sorrow that I am not by the little dún

By the lake of the starlings at evening when all is still,

And still in whispering sedges the herons stand.

’Tis there I would nestle at rest till the quivering moon

Uprose in the golden quiet over the hill.