Every city should have a street

Where past and present meet.

And every house a room

That seems to wait

For someone to return.

Magnificent conversation never ends

Once it has begun;

And the sound of a harp

Once played

By candlelight

Defies the dark.

Even in Belfast there are streets

That reach

Beyond the limitations of our time.

Remembering old merchant houses

Where staid and upright men

Discussed the coming of a new age,

And dared to defend

In death

The rights of man.

All that may happen again.

And where McCracken died

The old light may burn.

And music now long mute

May yet return.

January 1961