Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A CRY ON THE WIND by WILLIAM SHARP

First Line: PITY THE GREAT WITH LOVE, THEY ARE DEAF, THEY ARE BLIND
Last Line: SINCE OISIN'S MOTHER FLED TO THE HILL A SPELLBOUND HIND.
Subject(s): BLINDNESS; DEAFNESS; GREATNESS; LOVE; MOTHERS & SONS; MYTHOLOGY - CELTIC; PITY; VISUALLY HANDICAPPED;
Pity @3the great with love, they are deaf, they are blind:
Pity the great with love, time out of mind:@1
This is the song of the grey-haired wandering wind
Since Oisin's mother fled to the hill a spellbound hind.

@3Sorrow on love!@1 was the sob that rose in her throat,
@3I, that a woman was, now wear the wild fawn's coat:
This is to lift the heart to leap like a wave to the oar,
This is to see the heart flung back like foam on the shore.@1

Have not the hunters heard them, Oisin and she together
Like peewits crying on the wind where the world is sky and heather —
The peewits that wail to each other, rising and wheeling and falling
Till greyness of noon or darkness of dusk is full of a windy calling.

@3Pity the great with love, they are deaf, they are blind:
Pity the great with love, time out of mind!@1

O sorrowful face of Deirdrê seen on the hill!
Once I have seen you, once, beautiful, silent, still:
As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted snow
You stood in the mountain-corrie, and dreamed on the world below.

Like a rising sound of the sea in woods in the heart of the night
I heard a noise as of hounds, and of spears and arrows in flight:
And a glory came like a flame, and morning sprang to your eyes—
And the flame passed, and the vision, and I heard but the wind's sighs.

@3Pity the great with love, they are deaf, they are blind:
Pity the great with love, time out of mind!@1

Last night I walked by the shore where the machar slopes:
I drowned my heart in the sea, I cast to the wind my hopes.
What is this thing so great that all the Children of Sorrow
Are weary each morn for night, and weary each night for the morrow!

@3Pity the great with love, they are deaf, they are blind:
Pity the great with love, time out of mind:
This is the song of the grey-haired wandering wind
Since Oisin's mother fled to the hill a spellbound hind.@1



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