A GREAT, still Shape, alone, She sits (her harp has fallen) on the sand, And sees her children, one by one, depart: -- Her cloak (that hides what sins beside her own!) Wrapped fold on fold about her. Lo, She comforts her fierce heart, As wailing some, and some gay-singing go, With the far vision of that Greater Land Deep in the Atlantic skies, Saint Brandan's Paradise! Another Woman there, Mighty and wondrous fair, Stands on her shore-rock: -- one uplifted hand Holds a quick-piercing light That keeps long sea-ways bright; She beckons with the other, saying "Come, O landless, shelterless, Sharp-faced with hunger, worn with long dis- tress -- Come hither, finding home! Lo, my new fields of harvest, open, free, By winds of blessing blown, Whose golden corn-blades shake from sea to sea -- Fields without walls that all the people own!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEN KARSHOOK'S WISDOM by ROBERT BROWNING DUNS SCOTUS'S OXFORD by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS IDYLLS OF THE KING: THE COMING OF ARTHUR by ALFRED TENNYSON A BATTLE BALLAD TO GENERAL J.E. JOHNSTON by FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR DANSE RUSSE by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS EVENING ON CALAIS BEACH by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH |