Red Clay

You shall not meet in kindness 
Any more: 
I strike your loves with blindness 
And shut a stubborn door, 
That will not open, Mauryeen, at your cry: 
That will not open, Terence, till you die. 
I have the bearing of my own heart's pain, 
Dear pain that Terence gave: 
But here I softly lay betwixt you twain 
Clay from a grave. 

So small a grave lies yonder, 
Inishkea 
Holds it; and sea-gulls wander 
There from the open sea. 
Cry out upon the sea-gulls from your door, 
Mauryeen, they bode no good so far inshore. 
The sea-gulls heard you, Terence; and the sea 
Surely some day shall fling you back to me, 
And then, maybe, 
Mauryeen will not desire you, dear black head, 
A drowned man, dead. 

You shall not meet, my storeen, 
At dawn nor dark — 
Crossing the shadowy boreen 
Where the red lark 
Cries to his hid wife from the windy sky, 
Deeming his love at least shall never die. 
I cast between your hands that shall not meet 
To serve nor yet to save, 
I cast red clay between your wandering feet, 
From my child's grave.