Explore "Old Ireland" by Walt Whitman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
1. Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty, / Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother, / Once a queen -- now lean and tattered, seated on the ground, / Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders; / At her feet fallen an unused royal harp, / Long silent -- she too long silent -- mourning her shrouded hope and heir; / Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.
2. Yet a word, ancient mother; / You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between your knees; / O you need not sit there, veiled in your old white hair, so dishevelled; / For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave; / It was an illusion -- the heir, the son you love, was not really dead; / The Lord is not dead -- he is risen again, young and strong, in another country; / Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave, / What you wept for was translated, passed from the grave, / The winds favoured, and the sea sailed it, / And now, with rosy and new blood, / Moves to-day in a new country.