In the wild and lurid desert, in the thunder-travelled ways, <br />'Neath the night that ever hurries to the dawn that still delays, <br />There she clutches at illusions, and she seeks a phantom goal <br />With the unattaining passion that consumes the unsleeping soul: <br />And calamity enfolds her, like the shadow of a ban, <br />And the niggardness of Nature makes the misery of man: <br />And in vain the hand is stretched to lift her, stumbling in the gloom, <br />While she follows the mad fen-fire that conducts her to her doom.<br /><br />William Watson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ireland-8/
