Where to Irish men where to?

Piseogs, prayers, fixations, frights,
the scattering of springs
across the land. A murmur
of languages makes lace
in the mountain grass,
and ‘Where to, Irishmen, where to?’

A spade in your hand, a whisper
in your ear: why not stay?
Ah, reasons like seasons
the wind comes from the West,
the snow from the North, the sun
hides in the sea, a tide
of time flows in the mind’s
dark, now east, now west,
and ‘Where to, Irishmen, where to?’

Slaughter in the air, in the snow
in the dead-dog drizzle, a light
for the blind on an old woman’s table,
a child lost in a field,
a baby in a cradle,
a wife with a bottle, a scythe,
a sonnet, a guinea, a rose,
and ‘Where to, Irishmen, where to?’

By roads I shy away from,
by lanes nobody knows,
by the way of all flesh,
by the seed of your father’s loin,
by the lamb in the field,
by the dog at your heel,
by the eyes of the dead,
by their hand on your head,
and ‘Where to, Irishmen, where to?’