Ireland
(December 1, 1890)
In the wild and lurid desert, in the thunder-travelled ways, ’Neath the night that ever hurries to the dawn that still delays, There she clutches at illusions, and she seeks a phantom goal With the unattaining passion that consumes the unsleeping soul:
And calamity enfolds her, like the shadow of a ban, And the niggardness of Nature makes the misery of man:
And in vain the hand is stretched to lift her, stumbling in the gloom, While she follows the mad fen-fire that conducts her to her doom.