Classic Poem

New Bridge is the oldest bridge
The Liffey passes through.
There must have been an older bridge
When this new bridge was new.
But, new or old, the water flows
In many a gleaming stage
As careless as a thing which goes
And is exempt from age.

So pleasant is it on this bank,
I often wonder why
They set the piers out rank on rank
And raised the arches high.
They must, deluded by a dream,
Have thought, as I have done:
The other side of any stream
Is better than your own.

The water bends and thickens as
It rushes at an arch.
The piers like soldiers in a pass
Stand halted on the march.
The hissing stream escapes to fall
In mocking undertones.
But would it be a stream at all,
Without the bridge and stones?

They built as men built who believed
In Life that lasts forever.
And hardly were those souls deceived
Who bridged the clear black river?
The soul survived, as any dunce
Can prove: for it is plain
That that which gets in trouble once,
Shall troubled be again.

I'd rather hear these arches praised
Than arches anywhere.
Not that the Eternal City raised
To Settimo Severe;
Nor those that leave the walls therefrom
To tap the Sabine ridge,
Can match these arches here at home
In Liffey's oldest bridge.

The black bright water over there
Is flaked beside the brink,
As if the stallions of Kildare
Had bent their necks to drink.
And underneath an arch I see
A long grey gleaming reach,
Half shadowed by a breeze, maybe,
Or, maybe, by a beech.

The long grey lines of steel are gone
Which crossed here long ago:
The colours, the caparison,
All gone; and I would go
But that I fear I might repent
My going, if I found
The side from which I willing went
Looked better from beyond.