An Irish Poet in Paris Yearns for Home Poem by Gerard Smyth

( A Dream Song for Thomas MacGreevy )



He was homesick for the white horse

on O'Connell Bridge,

the river flowing from watered hills,

the gulls that screeched in boisterous language

above the monuments to sedition; homesick for



the midnight streets of Dublin shiny in the rain,

Valhalla on the Liffey,

his city of conspiracy that reeked of history

and night-rain hissing at the windows

of National Library, Capuchin Friary.



He was homesick for the city of the unwritten

sentence, the iambics of distress.

The city always waiting for great events -

city of disappointments,

nagging doubts, homespun sentiment;



the stale voluptuousness

of Sundays spent in the museum

where the attendant in his corner

watched in case he rubbed against

the master strokes on an ancient canvass.