IRELAND We Irish pride ourselves as patriots and tell the beadroll of the valiant ones since Clontarf's sunset saw the Norsemen broken... Aye, and before that too we had our heroes: but they were mighty fighters and victorious. The later men got nothing save defeat, hard transatlantic sidewalks or the scaffold... We Irish, vainer than tense Lucifer, are yet content with half-a-dozen turf, and cry our adoration for a bog, rejoicing in the rain that never ceases, and happy to stride over the sterile acres, or stony hills that scarcely feed a sheep. But we are fools, I say, are ignorant fools to waste the spirit's warmth in this cold air, to spend our wit and love and poetry on a half-a-dozen peat and a black bog. We are not native here or anywhere. We were the keltic wave that broke over Europe, and ran up this bleak beach among these stones; but when the tide ebbed, were left stranded here in crevices, and ledge-protected pools that have grown saltier with the drying up of the great common flow that kept us sweet with fresh cold draughts from deep down in the ocean. So we are bitter, and are dying out in terrible harshness in this lonely place, and what we think is love for usual rock, or old affection for our customary ledge, is but forgotten longing for the sea that cries far out and calls us to partake in his great tidal movements round the earth. -- John Hewitt (1907-1987), poet, critic, museum official, was born in Belfast and educated at Methodist College and Queen's University. He retired in 1972 from directing the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry, England. In this poem, Hewitt explores his relationship with his harsh, lonely home.