On Dollymount Strand there is a man,
who picks up sand in his hands,
and lets it slip through his fingers,
and fall back to the earth.  

Fie, Gentle soul,
preserve your wit,
and carry on humanity
to the next ages
with your enduring symbolism.  

Rest not day or night, let sand slip through your hands, and save me from contemplation of my own existence:
Wretched state of terminal reciprocation.

I walked along the shore,
from the coal harbour to seapoint,
and the lands beyond:
Blackrock, Dollymount, Asphodel.

There I weighed a sufferance,
against the others there,
and found it, for all that it is,
comparable, equivalent.

I weighed my unmortal parts upon the winds,
North to Northeast, falling slowly,  
held my frailties, and failings on the tide,
and presented a show of petty wrongdoings,

Some done, some undone,
some imagined into being.  
I put mercy to sea, and waited
for the shipping forecast,

To tell me what I thought could be,
carry that far barque to regions far,
bring profit from those lands,
and make solvent my life.