Trying to open locked doors with a sword, threading
   the points of needles, planting shade trees
   upside down; swallowed by the opaqueness of one whom the seas
love better than they love you, Ireland--

you have lived and lived on every kind of shortage.
   You have been compelled by hags to spin
   gold thread from straw and have heard men say:
“There is a feminine temperament in direct contrast to ours,

which makes her do these things. Circumscribed by a
   heritage of blindness and native
   incompetence, she will become wise and will be forced to give in.
Compelled by experience, she will turn back;

water seeks its own level”;
   and you have smiled. “Water in motion is far
   from level.” You have seen it, when obstacles happened to bar
the path, rise automatically