The Gulf of Araby If you could fill a veil with shells from Killiney's shore And sweet talk in a tongue that is no more If wishful thought could bridge The Gulf of Araby Between what is What is What is And what can never be If you could hold the frozen flow of New Hope Creek And hide out from the one they said you might meet If you could unlearn all the words That you never wanted heard If you could stall the southern wind That's whistling in your ear You could take what is What is What is To what can never be One man of seventy whispers free at last Two neighbours who are proud of their massacres Three tyrants torn away in a winter's month Four prisoners framed by a dirty judge Five burned with tyres Six men still inside And seven more days to shake at the great divide We would plough and part the earth to bring you home We would harvest every miracle ever known If they laid out all the things That these ten years want to bring We would gladly give them up To bring you back to us O, there is nothing we would not give To kiss you and believe we can take what is What is What is To what can never be One man at seventy whispers not free yet Two neighbors who wake up knee-deep in their death Three tyrants grab the reins in the summer's heat Four prisoners lost in the fallacy Five, on my life Six, I'm dead inside And seven more days to shake at the great divide