It was a dark cold stair
With windows to the sea
And open to the Irish wind.
Drafty hallows followed me
And my murmuring skirts -
I leaned out to the wind
To catch it in one thin hand.

To pass them but at darkest hour
About my gentle lingering to bed
Before going farther up the tower
That stood aloft in the Irish wind.

Waiting below at each dawning
Was a restless hand that caught me
As I went from task to task But never so relentlessly
So bright with foreign singing
As the wind from the Irish sea.