On a climb up Ardan Mor from the shore of Sheelan Lake, the speaker encounters herons sweeping down from the hillside, moving ahead of the water’s wake. Rather than simply describing them, Ledwidge gives the birds a quiet conversation: they speak of the “dreamy ways” they travel when the hills are withered and no water flows. That small, strange detail shifts the poem from a nature sketch into something more wistful. The speaker seems to feel he has briefly overheard a hidden world—the herons’ own long memory of dry seasons and lost waterways. The mood is calm but faintly melancholy, as if the birds carry knowledge of a harsher landscape beneath the present beauty. It leaves an impression of stillness, distance, and a gentle sadness about change.
The Herons — Summary
As I was climbing Ardan Mor From the shore of Sheelan lake, I met the herons coming down Before the water's wake.
And they were talking in their flight Of dreamy ways the herons go When all the hills are withered up Nor any waters flow.