The Shining City

I stand where Brendan might have stood
Perhaps a moment long ago
Wet, cold, above the rocky shore
That falls below into the sea
To where the gray blue waters toss
And roll their long unbroken swell
That reachers far across the sea,
To other lands and distant climes.

His eyes turned out, across the blue,
He sailed as long his kinfolk had
To follow gulls and albatross
Unto the city whence they came,
That people on the western shore
Saw shining in the morning light
And thought, perhaps, might just be heaven
Or maybe somewhere yet to come.

But I look east, where he looked west
And long, as many have before,
To take up once again the sail
And slip into the dawning sun.
For I have seen the shining city,
I have walked its golden streets;
But now I'd walk down quite lanes
Past Tara's mounds and Galway bay.