COUNTY SLIGO In Sligo the country was soft; there were turkeys Gobbling under sycamore trees And the shadows of clouds on the mountains moving Like browsing cattle at ease. And little distant fields were sprigged with haycocks And splashed against a white Roadside cottage a welter of nasturtium Deluging the sight, And pullets pecking the flies from around the eyes of heifers Sitting in farmyard mud Among hydrangeas and the falling ear-rings Of fuchsias red as blood. But in Mayo the tumbledown walls went leap-frog Over the moors, The sugar and salt in the pubs were damp in the casters And the water was brown as beer upon the shores Of desolate loughs, and stumps of hoary bog-oak Stuck up here and there And as the twilight filtered on the heather Water-music filled the air, And when the night came down upon the bogland With all-enveloping wings The coal-black turf-stacks rose against the darkness Like the tombs of nameless kings. -- Louis MacNeice (1907--1963 ) Born in Belfast, Antrim, Parents from West of Ireland