THE MEDITATION OF THE OLD FISHERMAN
 
 YOU waves, though you dance by my feet like children
 at play,
 Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and
 you dart;
 In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves
 were more gay,
 When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
 The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;
 My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cart
 That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
 When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
 And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when
 his oar
 Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,
 Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,
 When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.