This strange and lovely land – 1956

Oh, for the gift of a fairy brush
And magic to guide my hand.
I’d paint, in the peace of a spellbound hush,
This strange and lovely land.

Cloud shadows on a barren hill,
On the rocky coast of Clare,
A watered sky, that goes drifting by,
And salt in the morning air.

Small fields of stone with rocks around;
A smiling woman at a door,
And always on our ears the sound
Of the sea, on the murmuring shore.

A grey keep in a field of green
Swans on Kinvara’s blue,
White pebbles on the sand, washed clean,
Age old, but ever new.

A wheeling gull, a curling wave,
The hiss of spreading foam,
Cliffs, and a distant secret cave,
Some ancient hero’s home.

Captain Meany