Woman,
Why do you visit so seldom, and plant things
In my fallen over garden, lavender and thyme,
Only to leave, but not
To tend?
Woman,
Take my sorrow and turn down the moon,
Plaster the sun in golden dress and spill
The ground with buttons
Of flower.
Woman,
Why does your face haunt me in dreams,
Your voice, play as in the spirit well that sings,
Drops forth, the moving waters
Into being?
Woman,
Take my open hands and travel with me,
Beyond the ninth wave, to the lost island
Of Hy-Brasil, and we will long live,
Wondrous as poetry.
Hy-Brasil or several other variants, is a phantom island which was said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland. In Irish myths it was said to be cloaked in mist, except for one day each seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached. It probably has similar roots to other mythical islands said to exist in the Atlantic, such as Atlantis, Saint Brendan's Island, and the Isle of Man.
In Irish tradition there is the imramma, the sacred sea voyage that takes the wanderer on a soul-journey beyond the ninth wave to mysterious lands — islands of youth, of summer, of apples, of strange creatures and lovely women, and all the many shimmering dark-deep mysteries of the Otherworld.
The etymology of the names Brasil and Hy-Brasil are unknown, but in Irish tradition it is thought to come from the Irish Uí Breasail (meaning "descendants (i.e., clan) of Breasal"), one of the ancient clans of northeastern Ireland. cf. Old Irish: island; bres: beauty, worth, great, mighty.