Classic Poem

Dervorgilla's supremely lovely daughter,
Recalling him, of all the Leinstermen Ri,
Him whose love and hate brought o'er the water,
Strongbow and Henry;

Brought rigid law, the long spear and the horsemen
Riding in steel; and the rhymed, romantic, high line;
Built those square keeps on the forts of the Norsemen,
Still on our sky-line.

I would have brought, if I saw a chance of losing
You, many more—we are living in War-rife time—
Knights of the air and the submarine men cruising,
Trained through a life-time;

Brought the implacable hand with law breakers;
Drilled the Too-many and broken their effrontery;
Broken the dream of the men of a few acres
Ruling a country;

Brought the long day with its leisure and its duty,
Built once again the limestone lordly houses—
Founded on steel is the edifice of Beauty,
All it avows is.

Here your long limbs and your golden hair affright men,
Slaves are their souls, and instinctively they hate them,
Knowing full well that such charms can but invite men,
Heroes to mate them.

Eyes of the green of the woods that maddened Tristram!
Fair skin and smooth as the rosy-footed dove's wing!
Who would not fight, if he saw you, against this trammelling of Love's wing?

Aye; and bow down, if he saw but half the vision,
I dare not call to the mind's eye, to adore you;
And be, if that great light shone with precision,
Awe-struck before you.