Conall's Daughter Poem by Cicely Fox Smith

Wind from the eastward whose breath goes seaward surely
Over the cold grey rollers that hold me apart,
Would I were a white gull to hasten wither thou goest, -
To sail on wide wings to the isle of my heart;
Home to the lightning lough with a far glimpse of the ocean,
To the hills that surely forget not Conall's daughter, -
Home to the white strand, and Fanad, and green Inisowen,
And the woods down to the water.

The soaring curlews over the glimmering bog-pools,
Rising and falling across the twilight moor,
Crying and calling like ghosts in the rose-red light of the sunset,
Do they tell the same sad tale they told of yore?
My little white goats that crop the short grass of the forelands,
Do they ever bleat for their mistress, Conall's daughter,
Far from the white strand, and Fanad, and green Inisowen,
And the woods down to the water?

Often in dreams of the night I see them clearly,
I see the dark hill and the cornlands fertile and fair,
I smell the blue turf smoke going up from the valley,
And all the same as it was when I wandered there;
Dreams of the night, - but yet like wounded birds I clasp them
Warm in the hungry heart of Conall's daughter,
Far from the white strand, and Fanad, and green Inisowen,
And the woods down to the water.