Patrick Augustine Sheehan
Whole text
- p.188
- Can you see the spine of yonder crest
Curved o'er the hillside lea?
Well, there the sun halts as he creeps to rest;
And beyond is the sea.
And beyond is the sea! Have you seen the sea?
Never! Dear Lord, you were never born, —
Never seen the sea, and its mystery,
And the gates of the Night and the Morn! - Ay, I have seen it, and memory
(For I was not always blind)
Paints on my darkened eyes the sea;
Here hath my God been kind.
Here hath my God been kind, for a wish
Summons the magic view,
And my ears lean down to the thunder and swish,
And the scream of the wild sea-mew. - Over the breakers that curl and toss
Their manes as they sweep along,
Till the foam of their crests is a silken floss
Green valleys among;
Green valleys among the white gull flits,
And his strong grey pinion dips,
And rocked on the breakers the diver sits,
The spume of the sea on his lips. - Do I dream, or is that the music of life
That bids me look up and rejoice?
For Nature's at best is a silent strife.
Yet she needs a voice.
She needs a voice, else why does she draw
The bolts of the caverned wind.
And let him sweep on, without leash or law,
Trailing her seas behind? p.189 - Hark! to the thunder that shakes the ground,
Where the speckled sand-larks flee;
Were I dead, my heart would leap at the sound
And the scents of the sea.
And the scents of the sea, borne inland afar
Over the gorse and the heath.
My soul would leap through the gates ajar,
And the grey, grim portals of death. - Can you see aught yet? “Nought yet!” Look afar,
For the sea is alive and strong;
'Nought but the spray of one bright star
Its peers among.
Its peers among, and set in the curve
Where the sun sinks to rest;
And a long, long line with never a swerve
From the East to the West.' - You must be deceived, for the sounds and the scents
Of the great baptismal wave,
Poured from the Godhead's affluence,
My senses lave.
My senses lave. If mine eyes are blind,
My veins are filled as with wine,
My hair is teased by the salt sea wind.
And my lips are kissed with his brine. - Look again and long, for I feel as a friend
Hath his hand locked in mine;
Look long, where the shadows gather and blend
At the day's decline.
'At the day's decline, vast meadows are green,
White swallows over them flee;'
Child, O my Child, thine eyes are keen!
Meadows? Why, that's the sea.
Thalassa! O Thalassa! 1
P. A. SHEEHAN
Document details
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Title statement
Title (uniform): Thalassa! O Thalassa!
Author: Patrick Augustine Sheehan
Responsibility statement
Electronic edition compiled by: Benjamin Hazard
Funded by: School of History, University College, Cork and Private donation
Edition statement
1. First draft
Extent: 1007 words
Publication statement
Publisher: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
Address: College Road, Cork, Ireland — http://www.ucc.ie/celt
Date: 2014
Distributor: CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
CELT document ID: E890000-015
Availability: Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.
Source description
Manuscript
- [Details to follow].
Canon Sheehan on the Internet
- http://www.canonsheehanremembered.com
Edition
- Canon P.A. Sheehan, 'Thalassa! O Thalassa!,' The Irish Monthly, 27/310 (April 1899) 188–189.
- Canon P.A. Sheehan, 'Thalassa! O Thalassa!,' in Cithara Mea; Poems (Boston 1900) 205–207.
Literature
- Herman Joseph Heuser, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile: the story of an Irish parish priest as told chiefly by himself in books, personal memoirs, and letters (New York 1917).
- Arthur Coussens. P. A. Sheehan, zijn leven en zijn werken (Brugge/Bruges 1923).
- Michael P. Linehan, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile: Priest, Novelist, Man of Letters (Dublin 1952).
- James O'Brien (ed.), The Collected Letters of Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, 1883–1913 (Wells 2013).
- James O'Brien, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile 1852–1913: Outlines for a Literary Biography (Wells 2013). [Bibliographical references 205-11.]
The edition used in the digital edition
‘Thalassa! O Thalassa!’ In: The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature. Ed. by Matthew Russell SJ, pp. 188–189.
You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:
@article{E890000-015,
editor = {},
title = {Thalassa! O Thalassa!},
journal = {The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature},
editor = {Matthew Russell SJ},
address = {Dublin},
publisher = {Irish Jesuit Province},
date = {April 1899},
pages = {188–189}
}
Encoding description
Project description: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts
Sampling declarations
The electronic text represents the edited version.
Editorial declarations
Correction: Text has been checked and proof-read once.
Normalization: The electronic text represents the edited text.
Quotation: Direct speech is rendered q; but omitted in verse passages due to nesting restrictions within metrical lines.
Hyphenation: Soft hyphens are silently removed. When a hyphenated word (hard or soft) crosses a page-break or line-break, the page-break and line-break are marked after the completion of the hyphenated word.
Segmentation: div0 = the poem. Metrical lines, line-breaks and stanzas are marked and numbered.
Standard values: There are no dates.
Interpretation: Names of persons and places are not tagged.
Profile description
Creation: By Patrick Augustine Sheehan (1852–1913)
Date: 1899
Language usage
- The text is in English. (en)
- Two words are in Greek. (gr)
Keywords: poetry; 19c; religious
Revision description
(Most recent first)
- 2014-02-07: File parsed and validated; TEI Header updated, wordcount made; SGML and HTML versions created. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
- 2014-01-31: Header created; structural mark-up added; file proofed. (ed. Benjamin Hazard)
- 2014-01-27: Text scanned. (file capture Benjamin Hazard)