The Fisherman

Although I can see him still,The freckled man who goesTo a grey place on a hillIn grey Connemara clothesAt dawn to cast his flies,It's long since I beganTo call up to the eyesThis wise and simple man.All day I'd looked in the faceWhat I had hoped 'twould beTo write for my own raceAnd the reality;The living men that I hate,The dead man that I loved,The craven man in his seat,The insolent unreproved,And no knave brought to bookWho has won a drunken cheer,

The witty man and his jokeAimed at the commonest ear,The clever man who criesThe catch-cries of the clown,The beating down of the wiseAnd great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelvemonth sinceSuddenly I began,In scorn of this audience,Imagining a man,And his sun-freckled face,And grey Connemara cloth,Climbing up to a placeWhere stone is dark under froth,And the down-turn of his wristWhen the flies drop in the stream:A man who does not exist,A man who is but a dream;And cried, 'Before I am oldI shall have written him onePoem maybe as coldAnd passionate as the dawn.'