I hear the hill-winds. I hear them calling
The long gray twilights and white morns through.
The tides are rising, the tides are falling,
And how will I answer or come to you?
For over my head the waves are brawling,
And I shall never come back to you!

Dark water's flowing my dark head over,
And where's the charm that shall bid it back?
Wild merrows sing, and strange fishes hover
Above my bed o' the pale sea-wrack,
And Achill sands have not kept for my lover
The fading print of my footsteps' track.

Under the sea all my nights are lonely,
Wanting a song that I used to hear.
I dream and I wake and I listen only
For the sound of your footfall kind and dear.
Avourneen deelish, your Moirin's lonely,
And is the day of our meeting near?

The hill-winds coming, the hill-winds going,
I send my voice on their wings to you,-
To you, mo bouchal, whose boat is blowing
Out where the green sea meets the blue.
Come down to me now, for there's no knowing
But the bed I lie in might yet hold two!

Wrinkled hands clutch worn wooden canes,
Shuffling past, unseen, unheard, unnamed.
You rush by, averting eyes from my weathered face,
Blind to the tapestry of years I've laced.

Once, I danced in Singapore's gilded halls,
Fled war's fury, scaled fortune's falls.
I loved a pilot who kissed the sky,
His crash, my heart's unending cry.

I wandered Europe's cobbled streets,
Penned verses of loss and bittersweet.
In Seville's sun, I found my stage,
A genteel beggar, an artful sage.

You see a crone, a burden, naught but old,
Not the tales of fire and ice I hold.
My eyes, though dimmed, have witnessed war and peace,
My voice, though soft, once made the mighty cease.

If I should stumble, fall upon the stone,
You'd rush to help, but only flesh and bone
Would you perceive – not spirit, not the soul
That burns still bright, though body's no longer whole.

You pat my hand, all pity, no real care,
Convinced that you'll never be caught in age's snare.
But time ticks on, relentless in its march,
And you too shall pass beneath its arch.

Remember, then, these words from one who knows:
Behind each lined face, a universe grows.
In every elder's step, a lifetime treads,
Invisible worlds crown our silver heads.