Come with me, Etain, O come away,
To that Oversea Land of mine!
Where music haunts the happy day,
And rivers run with wine.
Careless we live, and young and gay,
And none saith ’mine’ or ’thine.’
Golden curls on the proud young head,
And pearls in the tender mouth—
Manhood, womanhood, white and red,
And love that grows not loth
When all the world’s desires are dead,
And all the dreams of youth.
Away from the cloud of Adam’s sin!
Away from grief and care!
This flowery land thou dwellest in
Seems rude to us and bare,
For the naked strand of the Happy Land
Is twenty times as fair.
Come, Etain, come to thine ancient home,
And let these mortals be,
Whose world is a glimmer of rainbow foam
On the breast of a boundless Sea!
We shall watch it go, as we watch’d it come,
From the Kingdom of Faëry.
[1] This poem is based on an Irish original in “The Courtship of Etain.” See Leahy’s Heroic Romances of Ireland, vol. i., p. 26.