Supplement to the Cork Examiner 19th November, 1893
I was a child but the sea was old,
Gay and old was the roaring sea,
When first his mighty waters rolled
At my restless feet and sang to me;
I was a child, but the washing waves
In their wailing grief or their fitful play,
Called my name in the hollow caves,
And told me stories of yesterday.
Of a strange old time, I know not when,
Of a distant land, I knew not where!
Of a Home beyond the reach of my fondest pray’r,
I was a child, but the grey old sea
Told of a time that was long of yore
Told of a past Eternity
Like the great infinity before
Long have I trodden his beaches bare,
Gathered his sea-weeds brown and wild,
Scattered his spray from my waving hair
As though I were still a little child,
But now no more does the ocean tell
His mystic tales of the Past to me,
For I hear in his ceaseless surge and swell
The call of a far Futurity.
Arthur L. Salmer
The Burren and Beyond 