Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.

Appendix: Shannon, the River

The Shannon

By Sir Aubrey de Vere (1788–1846)

RIVER of billows, to whose mighty heart

The tide-wave rushes of the Atlantic sea;

River of quiet depths, by cultured lea,

Romantic wood, or city’s crowded mart;

River of old poetic founts, which start

From their lone mountain-cradles, wild and free,

Nursed with the fawns, lulled by the woodlark’s glee,

And cushat’s hymeneal song apart:

River of chieftains, whose baronial halls,

Like veteran warders, watch each wave-worn steep,

Portumna’s towers, Bunratty’s royal walls,

Carrick’s stern rock, the Geraldine’s gray keep,—

River of dark mementos! must I close

My lips with Limerick’s wrong, with Anghrim’s woes?