To William Sharp. [Clinton Scollard]

(Fiona Macleod)

The waves about Iona dirge,
The wild winds trumpet over Skye;
Shrill around Arran’s cliff-bound verge
The gray gulls cry.

Spring wraps its transient scarf of green,
Its heathery robe, round slope and scar;
And night, the scudding wrack between,
Lights its lone star.

But you who loved these outland isles,
Their gleams, their glooms, their mysteries,
Their eldritch lures, their druid wiles,
Their tragic seas,

Will heed no more, in mortal guise,
The potent witchery of their call,
If dawn be regnant in the skies,
Or evenfall.

Yet, though where suns Sicilian beam
The loving earth enfolds your form,
I can but deem these coasts of dream
And hovering storm

Still thrall your spirit — that it bides
By far Iona’s kelp-strewn shore,
There lingering till time and tides
Shall surge no more.