summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/37845.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to '37845.txt')
-rw-r--r--37845.txt7737
1 files changed, 7737 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/37845.txt b/37845.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bc18653
--- /dev/null
+++ b/37845.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7737 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of Irish Verse, by William Butler Yeats
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Book of Irish Verse
+ Selected from modern writers with an introduction and notes
+ by W. B. Yeats
+
+Author: William Butler Yeats
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2011 [EBook #37845]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF IRISH VERSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brian Foley, Ron Stephens and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ A BOOK OF IRISH VERSE
+
+
+
+
+ A BOOK OF
+
+ IRISH VERSE
+
+ SELECTED FROM MODERN WRITERS
+ WITH AN INTRODUCTION
+ AND NOTES
+ BY W.B. YEATS
+
+ METHUEN AND CO.
+ 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON
+ 1900
+
+ _Revised Edition_
+
+
+ W.H. WHITE AND CO. LTD.
+ RIVERSIDE PRESS, EDINBURGH
+
+
+ TO THE MEMBERS
+
+ OF
+
+ THE NATIONAL LITERARY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN
+
+ AND THE
+
+ IRISH LITERARY SOCIETY OF LONDON CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+ Preface xiii
+
+ Modern Irish Poetry xvii
+
+ Old Age _Oliver Goldsmith_ (1725-1774) 1
+
+ The Village Preacher " " " " 2
+
+ The Deserter's Meditation _John Philpot Curran_ (1750--1817) 3
+
+ 'Thou canst not boast' _Richard Brinsley Sheridan_ (1751-1816) 4
+
+ Kathleen O'More _James Nugent Reynolds_ ( -1802) 5
+
+ The Groves of Blarney _Richard Alfred Milliken_ (1767-1815) 6
+
+ The Light of other Days _Thomas Moore_ (1779-1852) 10
+
+ 'At the Mid Hour of
+ Night' " " " " 11
+
+ The Burial of Sir John
+ Moore _Rev. Charles Wolfe_ (1791-1823) 12
+
+ The Convict of Clonmel _Jeremiah Joseph Callanan_ (1795-1839) 14
+
+ The Outlaw of Loch Lene " " " 16
+
+ Dirge of O'Sullivan Bear " " " 17
+
+ Love Song _George Darley_ (1795-1846) 20
+
+ The Whistlin' Thief _Samuel Lover_ (1797-1868) 22
+
+ Soggarth Aroon _John Banim_ (1798-1842) 24
+
+ Dark Rosaleen _James Clarence Mangan_ (1803-1849) 27
+
+ Lament for the Princes
+ of Tyrone and Tyrconnell " " " 31
+ A Lamentation for the
+ Death of Sir Maurice
+ Fitzgerald " " " 41
+
+ The Woman of Three
+ Cows _James Clarence Mangan_ (1803-1849) 43
+
+ Prince Alfrid's Itinerary
+ through Ireland " " " 47
+
+ O'Hussey's Ode to The
+ Maguire " " " 50
+
+ The Nameless One " " " 55
+
+ Siberia " " " 57
+
+ Hy-Brasail _Gerald Griffin_ (1803-1840) 59
+
+ Mo Craoibhin Cno _Edward Walsh_ (1805-1850) 61
+
+ Mairgread Ni Chealleadh " " " " 63
+
+ From the Cold Sod
+ that's o'er you " " " " 65
+
+ The Fairy Nurse " " " " 67
+
+ A cuisle geal mo chroidhe _Michael Doheny_ (1805-1863) 69
+
+ Lament of the Irish
+ Emigrant _Lady Dufferin_ (1807-1867) 71
+
+ The Welshmen of
+ Tirawley _Sir Samuel Ferguson_ (1810-1886) 74
+
+ Aideen's Grave " " " " " 91
+
+ Deirdre's Lament for
+ the Sons of Usnach " " " " " 99
+
+ The Fair Hills of Ireland " " " " " 102
+
+ Lament over the Ruins
+ of the Abbey of Timoleague " " " " " 104
+
+ The Fairy Well of Lagnanay " " " " " 107
+
+ On the Death of Thomas
+ Davis " " " " " 111
+
+ The County of Mayo _George Fox_ 115
+
+ The Wedding of the
+ Clans _Aubrey de Vere_ (1814) 117
+
+ The Little Black Rose _Aubrey de Vere_ (1814) 119
+ Song " " " " 120
+
+ The Bard Ethell " " " " 121
+
+ Lament for the Death
+ of Eoghan Ruadh
+ O'Neill _Thomas Davis_ (1814-1845) 135
+
+ Maire Bhan Astor " " " " 138
+
+ O! the Marriage " " " " 140
+
+ A Plea for Love " " " " 142
+
+ Remembrance _Emily Bronte_ (1818-1848) 143
+
+ A Fragment from 'The
+ Prisoner: a Fragment' " " " " 145
+
+ Last Lines " " " " 147
+
+ The Memory of the Dead _John Kells Ingram_ (? 1820) 148
+
+ The Winding Banks of
+ Erne _William Allingham_ (1824-1889) 150
+
+ The Fairies " " " " 157
+
+ The Abbot of Inisfalen. " " " " 160
+
+ Twilight Voices " " " " 164
+
+ 'Four Ducks on a Pond' " " " " 166
+
+ The Lover and Birds " " " " 167
+
+ The Celts _Thomas D'Arcy McGee_ (1825-1868) 169
+ Salutation to the Celts " " " 172
+
+ The Gobban Saor " " " 174
+
+ Patrick Sheehan _Charles J. Kickham_ (1825-1882) 176
+
+ The Irish Peasant Girl " " " " " 180
+
+ To God and Ireland
+ True _Ellen O'Leary_ (1831-1889) 182
+
+ The Banshee _John Todhunter_ (1836) 183
+
+ Aghadoe " " " 186
+
+ A Mad Song _Hester Sigerson_ 188
+
+ Lady Margaret's Song _Edward Dowden_ (1843) 188
+
+ Song _Arthur O'Shaughnessy_ (1844-1881) 189
+
+ Father O'Flynn _Alfred Perceval Graves_ (1846) 191
+
+ Song _Rosa Gilbert_ 192
+
+ Requiescat _Oscar Wilde_ (1855) 193
+
+ The Lament of Queen
+ Maev _Thomas William Rolleston_ (1857) 195
+
+ The Dead at Clonmacnois " " " " 197
+
+ The Spell-struck " " " " 198
+
+ 'Were you on the
+ Mountain?' _Douglas Hyde_ 199
+
+ 'My Grief on the Sea' " " 200
+
+ My Love, O, she is my
+ Love " " 201
+
+ I shall not die for thee " " 204
+
+ Riddles " " 205
+
+ Lough Bray _Rose Kavanagh_ (1861-1891) 206
+
+ The Children of Lir _Katharine Tynan Hinkson_ 209
+
+ St. Francis to the Birds " " " 212
+
+ Sheep and Lambs " " " 215
+
+ The Gardener Sage " " " 216
+
+ The Dark Man _Nora Hopper_ 218
+
+ The Fairy Fiddler " " 219
+
+ Our Thrones Decay _A.E._ 220
+
+ Immortality " 221
+
+ The Great Breath " 221
+
+ Sung on a By-way " 222
+
+ Dream Love " 223
+
+ Illusion " 223
+
+ Janus " 224
+
+ Connla's Well " 225A
+
+ Names _John Eglinton_ 226A
+
+ That _Charles Weekes_ 227A
+
+ Think " " 227A
+
+ Te Martyrum Candidatus _Lionel Johnson_ 228A
+
+ The Church of a Dream " " 229A
+
+ Ways of War " " 230A
+
+ The Red Wind _Lionel Johnson_ 231A
+
+ Celtic Speech " " 232A
+
+ To Morfydd " " 225
+
+ Can Doov Deelish _Dora Sigerson_ 226
+
+
+ANONYMOUS
+
+ Shule Aroon 231
+
+ The Shan Van Vocht 232
+
+ The Wearing of the Green 235
+
+ The Rakes of Mallow 237
+
+ Johnny, I hardly knew ye 238
+
+ Kitty of Coleraine 241
+
+ Lament of Morian Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke 242
+
+ The Geraldine's Daughter 246
+
+ By Memory Inspired 247
+
+ A Folk Verse 249
+
+ Notes 250
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+I have not found it possible to revise this book as completely as I
+should have wished. I have corrected a bad mistake of a copyist, and
+added a few pages of new verses towards the end, and softened some
+phrases in the introduction which seemed a little petulant in form, and
+written in a few more to describe writers who have appeared during the
+last four years, and that is about all. I compiled it towards the end of
+a long indignant argument, carried on in the committee rooms of our
+literary societies, and in certain newspapers between a few writers of
+our new movement, who judged Irish literature by literary standards, and
+a number of people, a few of whom were writers, who judged it by its
+patriotism and by its political effect; and I hope my opinions may have
+value as part of an argument which may awaken again. The Young Ireland
+writers wrote to give the peasantry a literature in English in place of
+the literature they were losing with Gaelic, and these methods, which
+have shaped the literary thought of Ireland to our time, could not be
+the same as the methods of a movement which, so far as it is more than
+an instinctive expression of certain moods of the soul, endeavours to
+create a reading class among the more leisured classes, which will
+preoccupy itself with Ireland and the needs of Ireland. The peasants in
+eastern counties have their Young Ireland poetry, which is always good
+teaching and sometimes good poetry, and the peasants of the western
+counties have beautiful poems and stories in Gaelic, while our more
+leisured classes read little about any country, and nothing about
+Ireland. We cannot move these classes from an apathy, come from their
+separation from the land they live in, by writing about politics or
+about Gaelic, but we may move them by becoming men of letters and
+expressing primary emotions and truths in ways appropriate to this
+country. One carries on the traditions of Thomas Davis, towards whom our
+eyes must always turn, not less than the traditions of good literature,
+which are the morality of the man of letters, when one is content, like
+A.E. with fewer readers that one may follow a more hidden beauty; or
+when one endeavours, as I have endeavoured in this book, to separate
+what has literary value from what has only a patriotic and political
+value, no matter how sacred it has become to us.
+
+The reader who would begin a serious study of modern Irish literature
+should do so with Mr Stopford Brooke's and Mr Rolleston's exhaustive
+anthology.
+ W.B.Y.
+_August 15, 1899_
+
+
+
+
+MODERN IRISH POETRY
+
+
+The Irish Celt is sociable, as may be known from his proverb, 'Strife is
+better than loneliness,' and the Irish poets of the nineteenth century
+have made songs abundantly when friends and rebels have been at hand to
+applaud. The Irish poets of the eighteenth century found both at a
+Limerick hostelry, above whose door was written a rhyming welcome in
+Gaelic to all passing poets, whether their pockets were full or empty.
+Its owner, himself a famous poet, entertained his fellows as long as his
+money lasted, and then took to minding the hens and chickens of an old
+peasant woman for a living, and ended his days in rags, but not, one
+imagines, without content. Among his friends and guests had been
+O'Sullivan the Red, O'Sullivan the Gaelic, O'Heffernan the blind, and
+many another, and their songs had made the people, crushed by the
+disasters of the Boyne and Aughrim, remember their ancient greatness.
+The bardic order, with its perfect artifice and imperfect art, had gone
+down in the wars of the seventeenth century, and poetry had found
+shelter amid the turf-smoke of the cabins. The powers that history
+commemorates are but the coarse effects of influences delicate and vague
+as the beginning of twilight, and these influences were to be woven like
+a web about the hearts of men by farm-labourers, pedlars,
+potato-diggers, hedge-schoolmasters, and grinders at the quern, poor
+wastrels who put the troubles of their native land, or their own happy
+or unhappy loves, into songs of an extreme beauty. But in the midst of
+this beauty was a flitting incoherence, a fitful dying out of the sense,
+as though the passion had become too great for words, as must needs be
+when life is the master and not the slave of the singer.
+
+English-speaking Ireland had meanwhile no poetic voice, for Goldsmith
+had chosen to celebrate English scenery and manners; and Swift was but
+an Irishman by what Mr Balfour has called the visitation of God, and
+much against his will; and Congreve by education and early association;
+while Parnell, Denham, and Roscommon were poets but to their own time.
+Nor did the coming with the new century of the fame of Moore set the
+balance even, for all but all of his Irish melodies are artificial and
+mechanical when separated from the music that gave them wings. Whatever
+he had of high poetry is in 'The Light of other Days,' and in 'At the
+Mid Hour of Night,' which express what Matthew Arnold has taught us to
+call 'the Celtic melancholy,' with so much of delicate beauty in the
+meaning and in the wavering or steady rhythm that one knows not where to
+find their like in literature. His more artificial and mechanical verse,
+because of the ancient music that makes it seem natural and vivid, and
+because it has remembered so many beloved names and events and places,
+has had the influence which might have belonged to these exquisite
+verses had he written none but these. An honest style did not come into
+English-speaking Ireland, until Callanan wrote three or four naive
+translations from the Gaelic. 'Shule Aroon' and 'Kathleen O'More' had
+indeed been written for a good while, but had no more influence than
+Moore's best verses. Now, however, the lead of Callanan was followed by
+a number of translators, and they in turn by the poets of 'Young
+Ireland,' who mingled a little learned from the Gaelic ballad-writers
+with a great deal learned from Scott, Macaulay, and Campbell, and turned
+poetry once again into a principal means for spreading ideas of
+nationality and patriotism. They were full of earnestness, but never
+understood that though a poet may govern his life by his enthusiasms, he
+must, when he sits down at his desk, but use them as the potter the
+clay. Their thoughts were a little insincere, because they lived in the
+half illusions of their admirable ideals; and their rhythms not seldom
+mechanical, because their purpose was served when they had satisfied the
+dull ears of the common man. They had no time to listen to the voice of
+the insatiable artist, who stands erect, or lies asleep waiting until a
+breath arouses him, in the heart of every craftsman. Life was their
+master, as it had been the master of the poets who gathered in the
+Limerick hostelry, though it conquered them not by unreasoned love for a
+woman, or for native land, but by reasoned enthusiasm, and practical
+energy. No man was more sincere, no man had a less mechanical mind than
+Thomas Davis, and yet he is often a little insincere and mechanical in
+his verse. When he sat down to write he had so great a desire to make
+the peasantry courageous and powerful that he half believed them already
+'the finest peasantry upon the earth,' and wrote not a few such verses
+as
+
+ 'Lead him to fight for native land,
+ His is no courage cold and wary;
+ The troops live not that could withstand
+ The headlong charge of Tipperary,'
+
+and to-day we are paying the reckoning with much bombast. His little
+book has many things of this kind, and yet we honour it for its public
+spirit, and recognise its powerful influence with gratitude. He was in
+the main an orator influencing men's acts, and not a poet shaping their
+emotions, and the bulk of his influence has been good. He was, indeed, a
+poet of much tenderness in the simple love-songs 'The Marriage,' 'A Plea
+for Love,' and 'Mary Bhan Astor,' and, but for his ideal of a Fisherman,
+defying a foreign soldiery, would have been as good in 'The Boatman of
+Kinsale'; and once or twice when he touched upon some historic sorrow he
+forgot his hopes for the future and his lessons for the present, and
+made moving verse. His contemporary, Clarence Mangan, kept out of public
+life and its half illusions by a passion for books, and for drink and
+opium, made an imaginative and powerful style. He translated from the
+German, and imitated Oriental poetry, but little that he did on any but
+Irish subjects is permanently interesting. He is usually classed with
+the Young Ireland poets, because he contributed to their periodicals and
+shared their political views; but his style was formed before their
+movement began, and he found it the more easy for this reason perhaps to
+give sincere expression to the mood which he had chosen, the only
+sincerity literature knows of; and with happiness and cultivation might
+have displaced Moore. But as it was, whenever he had no fine ancient
+song to inspire him, he fell into rhetoric which was only lifted out of
+commonplace by an arid intensity. In his 'Irish National Hymn,' 'Soul
+and Country,' and the like, we look into a mind full of parched sands
+where the sweet dews have never fallen. A miserable man may think well
+and express himself with great vehemence, but he cannot make beautiful
+things, for Aphrodite never rises from any but a tide of joy. Mangan
+knew nothing of the happiness of the outer man, and it was only when
+prolonging the tragic exultation of some dead bard, that he knew the
+unearthly happiness which clouds the outer man with sorrow, and is the
+fountain of impassioned art. Like those who had gone before him, he was
+the slave of life, for he had nothing of the self-knowledge, the power
+of selection, the harmony of mind, which enables the poet to be its
+master, and to mould the world to a trumpet for his lips. But O'Hussey's
+Ode over his outcast chief must live for generations because of the
+passion that moves through its powerful images and its mournful,
+wayward, and fierce rhythms.
+
+ 'Though he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods,
+ Though he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea,
+ Though he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he,
+ This sharp, sore sleet, these howling floods.'
+
+Edward Walsh, a village schoolmaster, who hovered, like Mangan, on the
+edge of the Young Ireland movement, did many beautiful translations from
+the Gaelic; and Michael Doheny, while out 'on his keeping' in the
+mountains after the collapse at Ballingarry, made one of the most moving
+of ballads; but in the main the poets who gathered about Thomas Davis,
+and whose work has come down to us in 'The Spirit of the Nation,' were
+of practical and political, not of literary importance.
+
+Meanwhile Samuel Ferguson, William Allingham, and Mr Aubrey de Vere were
+working apart from politics, Ferguson selecting his subjects from the
+traditions of the Bardic age, and Allingham from those of his native
+Ballyshannon, and Mr Aubrey de Vere wavering between English, Irish, and
+Catholic tradition. They were wiser than Young Ireland in the choice of
+their models, for, while drawing not less from purely Irish sources,
+they turned to the great poets of the world, Mr de Vere owing something
+of his gravity to Wordsworth, Ferguson much of his simplicity to Homer,
+while Allingham had trained an ear, too delicate to catch the tune of
+but a single master, upon the lyric poetry of many lands. Allingham was
+the best artist, but Ferguson had the more ample imagination, the more
+epic aim. He had not the subtlety of feeling, the variety of cadence of
+a great lyric poet, but he has touched, here and there, an epic vastness
+and naivete, as in the description in 'Congal' of the mire-stiffened
+mantle of the giant spectre Mananan macLir, striking against his calves
+with as loud a noise as the mainsail of a ship makes, 'when with the
+coil of all its ropes it beats the sounding mast.' He is frequently
+dull, for he often lacked the 'minutely appropriate words' necessary to
+embody those fine changes of feeling which enthral the attention; but
+his sense of weight and size, of action and tumult, has set him apart
+and solitary, an epic figure in a lyric age. Allingham, whose pleasant
+destiny has made him the poet of his native town, and put 'The Winding
+Banks of Erne' into the mouths of the ballad-singers of Ballyshannon,
+is, on the other hand, a master of 'minutely appropriate words,' and can
+wring from the luxurious sadness of the lover, from the austere sadness
+of old age, the last golden drop of beauty; but amid action and tumult
+he can but fold his hands. He is the poet of the melancholy peasantry of
+the West, and, as years go on, and voluminous histories and copious
+romances drop under the horizon, will take his place among those minor
+immortals who have put their souls into little songs to humble the
+proud. The poetry of Mr Aubrey de Vere has less architecture than the
+poetry of Ferguson and Allingham, and more meditation. Indeed, his few
+but ever memorable successes are enchanted islands in grey seas of
+stately impersonal reverie and description, which drift by and leave no
+definite recollection. One needs, perhaps, to perfectly enjoy him, a
+Dominican habit, a cloister, and a breviary.
+
+These three poets published much of their best work before and during
+the Fenian movement, which, like 'Young Ireland,' had its poets, though
+but a small number. Charles Kickham, one of the 'triumvirate' that
+controlled it in Ireland; John Casey, a clerk in a flour-mill; and Ellen
+O'Leary, the sister of Mr John O'Leary, were at times very excellent.
+Their verse lacks, curiously enough, the oratorical vehemence of Young
+Ireland, and is plaintive and idyllic. The agrarian movement that
+followed produced but little poetry, and of that little all is forgotten
+but a vehement poem by Fanny Parnell, and a couple of songs by Mr T.D.
+Sullivan, who is a good song-writer, though not, as the writer has read
+on an election placard, 'one of the greatest poets who ever moved the
+heart of man.' But while Nationalist verse has ceased to be a portion of
+the propaganda of a party, it has been written, and is being written,
+under the influence of the Nationalist newspapers and of Young Ireland
+societies and the like. With an exacting conscience, and better models
+than Thomas Moore and the Young Irelanders, such beautiful enthusiasm
+could not fail to make some beautiful verses. But, as things are, the
+rhythms are mechanical, and the metaphors conventional; and inspiration
+is too often worshipped as a Familiar who labours while you sleep, or
+forget, or do many worthy things which are not spiritual things. For
+the most part, the Irishman of our times loves so deeply those arts
+which build up a gallant personality, rapid writing, ready talking,
+effective speaking to crowds, that he has no thought for the arts which
+consume the personality in solitude. He loves the mortal arts which have
+given him a lure to take the hearts of men, and shrinks from the
+immortal, which could but divide him from his fellows. And in this
+century, he who does not strive to be a perfect craftsman achieves
+nothing. The poor peasant of the eighteenth century could make fine
+ballads by abandoning himself to the joy or sorrow of the moment, as the
+reeds abandon themselves to the wind which sighs through them, because
+he had about him a world where all was old enough to be steeped in
+emotion. But we cannot take to ourselves, by merely thrusting out our
+hands, all we need of pomp and symbol, and if we have not the desire of
+artistic perfection for an ark, the deluge of incoherence, vulgarity,
+and triviality will pass over our heads. If we had no other symbols but
+the tumult of the sea, the rusted gold of the thatch, the redness of the
+quicken-berry, and had never known the rhetoric of the platform and of
+the newspaper, we could do without laborious selection and rejection;
+but, even then, though we might do much that would be delightful, that
+would inspire coming times, it would not have the manner of the greatest
+poetry.
+
+Here and there, the Nationalist newspapers and the Young Ireland
+societies have trained a writer who, though busy with the old models,
+has some imaginative energy; while Mr Lionel Johnson, Mrs Hinkson, Miss
+Nora Hopper, and A.E., the successors of Allingham and Ferguson and Mr
+de Vere, are more anxious to influence and understand Irish thought than
+any of their predecessors who did not take the substance of their poetry
+from politics. They are distinguished too by their deliberate art, and
+with their preoccupation with spiritual passions and memories. Mr Lionel
+Johnson and Mrs Hinkson are both Catholic and devout, but Mr Lionel
+Johnson's poetry is lofty and austere, and, like Mr de Vere's, never
+long forgets the greatness of his Church and the interior life whose
+expression it is, while Mrs Hinkson is happiest when she embodies
+emotions, that have the innocence of childhood, in symbols and metaphors
+from the green world about her. She has no reverie nor speculation, but
+a devout tenderness like that of S. Francis for weak instinctive things,
+old gardeners, old fishermen, birds among the leaves, birds tossed upon
+the waters. Miss Hopper belongs to that school of writers which embodies
+passions, that are not the less spiritual because no Church has put them
+into prayers, in stories and symbols from old Celtic poetry and
+mythology. The poetry of A.E., at its best, finds its symbols and its
+stories in the soul itself, and has a more disembodied ecstasy than any
+poetry of our time. He is the chief poet of the school of Irish mystics,
+which has shaped Mr Charles Weekes, who published recently, but withdrew
+immediately, a curious and subtle book, and Mr John Eglinton, who is
+best known for the orchestral harmonies of his 'Two Essays on the
+Remnant,' and certain younger writers who have heard the words, 'If ye
+know these things, happy are ye if ye do them,' and thought the labours
+that bring the mystic vision more important than the labours of any
+craft.
+
+Except some few Catholic and mystical poets and Prof. Dowden in one or
+two poems, no Irishman living in Ireland has sung excellently of any but
+a theme from Irish experience, Irish history, or Irish tradition.
+Trinity College, which desires to be English, has been the mother of
+many verse-writers and of few poets; and this can only be because she
+has set herself against the national genius, and taught her children to
+imitate alien styles and choose out alien themes, for it is not possible
+to believe that the educated Irishman alone is prosaic and uninventive.
+Her few poets have been awakened by the influence of the farm-labourers,
+potato-diggers, pedlars, and hedge-schoolmasters of the eighteenth
+century, and their imitators in this, and not by a scholastic life,
+which, for reasons easy for all to understand and for many to forgive,
+has refused the ideals of Ireland, while those of England are but
+far-off murmurs. An enemy to all enthusiasms, because all enthusiasms
+seemed her enemies, she has taught her children to look neither to the
+world about them, nor into their own souls where some dangerous fire
+might slumber.
+
+To remember that in Ireland the professional and landed classes have
+been through the mould of Trinity College or of English Universities,
+and are ignorant of the very names of the best writers in this book, is
+to know how strong a wind blows from the ancient legends of Ireland, how
+vigorous an impulse to create is in her heart to-day. Deserted by the
+classes from among whom have come the bulk of the world's intellect, she
+struggles on, gradually ridding herself of incoherence and triviality,
+and slowly building up a literature in English which, whether important
+or unimportant, grows always more unlike others; nor does it seem as if
+she would long lack a living literature in Gaelic, for the movement for
+the preservation of Gaelic, which has been so much more successful than
+anybody foresaw, has already its poets. Dr Hyde, who can only be
+represented here by some of his beautiful translations, has written
+Gaelic poems which pass from mouth to mouth in the west of Ireland. The
+country people have themselves fitted them to ancient airs, and many
+that can neither read nor write, sing them in Donegal and Connemara and
+Galway. I have, indeed, but little doubt that Ireland, communing with
+herself in Gaelic more and more, but speaking to foreign countries in
+English, will lead many that are sick with theories and with trivial
+emotion, to some sweet well-waters of primeval poetry.
+ W.B.Y.
+
+
+The editor thanks Mr Aubrey de Vere, Mr T.W. Rolleston, Dr J. Todhunter,
+Mr Alfred Perceval Graves, Dr Douglas Hyde, Mr Lionel Johnson, A.E., Mr
+Charles Weekes, Mr John Eglinton, Mrs Hinkson, Miss Dora Sigerson (Mrs
+Clement Shortes), and Miss Nora Hopper for permission to quote from
+their poems, Lady Ferguson and Mrs Allingham for leave to give poems by
+Sir Samuel Ferguson and William Allingham, and Messrs Chatto & Windus
+for permission to include a song of Arthur O'Shaughnessy's. Two writers
+are excluded whom he would gladly have included--Casey, because the
+copyright holders have refused permission, and Mr George Armstrong,
+because his 'Songs of Wicklow,' when interesting, are too long for this
+book.
+
+
+
+
+OLD AGE
+
+_From the 'Deserted Village'_
+
+
+ In all my wanderings round this world of care,
+ In all my griefs--and God has given my share--
+ I still had hopes my later hours to crown,
+ Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
+ To husband out life's taper at the close
+ And keep the flame from wasting by repose;
+ I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
+ Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,
+ Around my fire an evening group to draw,
+ And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
+ And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue,
+ Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
+ I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
+ Here to return--and die at home at last.
+
+ _Oliver Goldsmith_
+
+
+
+
+THE VILLAGE PREACHER
+
+_From the 'Deserted Village'_
+
+
+ Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
+ And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
+ There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
+ The village Preacher's modest mansion rose.
+ A man he was to all the country dear,
+ And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
+ Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
+ Nor e'er had changed, nor wish'd to change, his place;
+ Unpractis'd he to fawn, or seek for power,
+ By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
+ Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
+ More skill'd to raise the wretched than to rise.
+ His house was known to all the vagrant train,
+ He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain;
+ The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
+ Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
+ The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
+ Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
+ The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
+ Sat by his fire, and talked the night away;
+ Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
+ Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
+ Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
+ And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
+ Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
+ He pity gave ere charity began.
+
+ _Oliver Goldsmith_
+
+
+
+
+THE DESERTER'S MEDITATION
+
+
+ If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking,
+ Could, more than drinking, my cares compose,
+ A cure for sorrow from sighs I'd borrow,
+ And hope to-morrow would end my woes.
+
+ But as in wailing there's nought availing,
+ And Death unfailing will strike the blow,
+ Then for that reason, and for a season,
+ Let us be merry before we go!
+
+ To joy a stranger, a wayworn ranger,
+ In every danger my course I've run;
+ Now hope all ending, and death befriending,
+ His last aid lending, my cares are done;
+
+ No more a rover, or hapless lover--
+ My griefs are over--my glass runs low;
+ Then for that reason, and for a season,
+ Let us be merry before we go!
+
+ _John Philpot Curran_
+
+
+
+
+THOU CANST NOT BOAST
+
+
+ Thou canst not boast of Fortune's store,
+ My love, while me they wealthy call:
+ But I was glad to find thee poor,
+ For with my heart I'd give thee all,
+ And then the grateful youth shall own,
+ I loved him for himself alone.
+
+ But when his worth my hand shall gain,
+ No word or look of mine shall show
+ That I the smallest thought retain
+ Of what my bounty did bestow:
+ Yet still his grateful heart shall own,
+ I loved him for himself alone.
+
+ _Richard Brinsley Sheridan_
+
+
+
+
+KATHLEEN O'MORE
+
+
+ My love, still I think that I see her once more,
+ But, alas! she has left me her loss to deplore--
+ My own little Kathleen, my poor little Kathleen,
+ My Kathleen O'More!
+
+ Her hair glossy black, her eyes were dark blue,
+ Her colour still changing, her smiles ever new--
+ So pretty was Kathleen, my sweet little Kathleen,
+ My Kathleen O'More!
+
+ She milked the dun cow, that ne'er offered to stir;
+ Though wicked to all, it was gentle to her--
+ So kind was my Kathleen, my poor little Kathleen,
+ My Kathleen O'More!
+
+ She sat at the door one cold afternoon,
+ To hear the wind blow, and to gaze on the moon,
+ So pensive was Kathleen, my poor little Kathleen,
+ My Kathleen O'More!
+
+ Cold was the night-breeze that sighed round her bower,
+ It chilled my poor Kathleen, she drooped from that hour:
+ And I lost my poor Kathleen, my own little Kathleen,
+ My Kathleen O'More.
+
+ The Bird of all birds that I love the best,
+ Is the Robin that in the churchyard builds his nest;
+ For he seems to watch Kathleen, hops lightly o'er Kathleen,
+ My Kathleen O'More.
+
+ _James Nugent Reynolds_
+
+
+
+
+THE GROVES OF BLARNEY
+
+
+ The groves of Blarney
+ They look so charming
+ Down by the purling
+ Of sweet, silent brooks,
+ Being banked with posies
+ That spontaneous grow there,
+ Planted in order
+ By the sweet rock close.
+ 'Tis there's the daisy
+ And the sweet carnation,
+ The blooming pink,
+ And the rose so fair,
+ The daffydowndilly,
+ Likewise the lily,
+ All flowers that scent
+ The sweet, fragrant air.
+
+ 'Tis Lady Jeffers
+ That owns this station;
+ Like Alexander,
+ Or Queen Helen fair.
+ There's no commander
+ In all the nation,
+ For emulation,
+ Can with her compare.
+ Such walls surround her
+ That no nine-pounder
+ Could dare to plunder
+ Her place of strength;
+ But Oliver Cromwell
+ Her he did pommell,
+ And made a breach
+ In her battlement.
+
+ There's gravel walks there
+ For speculation
+ And conversation
+ In sweet solitude.
+ 'Tis there the lover
+ May hear the dove, or
+ The gentle plover
+ In the afternoon;
+ And if a lady
+ Would be so engaging
+ As to walk alone in
+ Those shady bowers,
+ 'Tis there the courtier
+ He may transport her
+ Into some fort, or
+ All under ground.
+
+ For 'tis there's a cave where
+ No daylight enters,
+ But cats and badgers
+ Are for ever bred;
+ Being mossed by nature,
+ That makes it sweeter
+ Than a coach-and-six or
+ A feather bed.
+ 'Tis there the lake is,
+ Well stored with perches,
+ And comely eels in
+ The verdant mud;
+ Beside the leeches,
+ And groves of beeches,
+ Standing in order
+ For to guard the flood.
+
+ There's statues gracing
+ This noble place in--
+ All heathen gods
+ And nymphs so fair;
+ Bold Neptune, Plutarch,
+ And Nicodemus,
+ All standing naked
+ In the open air.
+ So now to finish
+ This brave narration,
+ Which my poor genii
+ Could not entwine;
+ But were I Homer
+ Or Nebuchadnezzar,
+ 'Tis in every feature
+ I would make it shine.
+
+ _Richard Alfred Milliken_
+
+
+
+
+THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS
+
+
+ Oft in the stilly night,
+ Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
+ Fond Memory brings the light
+ Of other days around me:
+ The smiles, the tears
+ Of boyhood's years,
+ The words of love then spoken;
+ The eyes that shone
+ Now dimm'd and gone,
+ The cheerful homes now broken!
+ Then in the stilly night,
+ Ere slumber's chain hath bound me,
+ Sad memory brings the light
+ Of other days around me.
+
+ When I remember all
+ The friends so linked together
+ I've seen around me fall
+ Like leaves in wintry weather,
+ I feel like one
+ Who treads alone
+ Some banquet-hall deserted,
+ Whose lights are fled,
+ Whose garlands dead,
+ And all but he departed.
+ Then in the stilly night,
+ Ere slumber's chain hath bound me,
+ Sad Memory brings the light
+ Of other days around me.
+
+ _Thomas Moore_
+
+
+
+
+AT THE MID HOUR OF NIGHT
+
+
+ At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
+ To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
+ And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air
+ To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
+ And tell me our love is remembered even in the sky!
+
+ Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear
+ When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on the ear;
+ And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
+ I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice from the kingdom of souls
+ Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.
+
+ _Thomas Moore_
+
+
+
+
+THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE
+
+
+ Not a drum was heard, not a funeral-note,
+ As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
+ Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
+ O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
+
+ We buried him darkly at dead of night,
+ The sods with our bayonets turning,
+ By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
+ And the lantern dimly burning.
+
+ No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
+ Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
+ But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
+ With his martial cloak around him.
+
+ Few and short were the prayers we said,
+ And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
+ But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
+ And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
+
+ We thought as we hollow'd his narrow bed,
+ And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,
+ That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
+ And we far away on the billow!
+
+ Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
+ And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,--
+ But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
+ In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
+
+ But half of our heavy task was done,
+ When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
+ And we heard the distant and random gun
+ That the foe was sullenly firing.
+
+ Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
+ From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
+ We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone--
+ But we left him alone in his glory.
+
+ _Rev. Charles Wolfe_
+
+
+
+
+THE CONVICT OF CLONMELL
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ How hard is my fortune,
+ And vain my repining!
+ The strong rope of fate
+ For this young neck is twining.
+ My strength is departed;
+ My cheek sunk and sallow;
+ While I languish in chains,
+ In the gaol of _Cluanmeala_.
+
+ No boy in the village
+ Was ever yet milder,
+ I'd play with a child,
+ And my sport would be wilder.
+ I'd dance without tiring
+ From morning till even,
+ And the goal-ball I'd strike
+ To the lightning of Heaven.
+
+ At my bed-foot decaying,
+ My hurlbat is lying,
+ Through the boys of the village
+ My goal-ball is flying;
+ My horse 'mong the neighbours
+ Neglected may fallow,--
+ While I pine in my chains,
+ In the gaol of _Cluanmeala_.
+
+ Next Sunday the patron
+ At home will be keeping,
+ And the young active hurlers
+ The field will be sweeping.
+ With the dance of fair maidens
+ The evening they'll hallow,
+ While this heart, once so gay,
+ Shall be cold in _Cluanmeala_.
+
+ _Jeremiah Joseph Callanan_
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTLAW OF LOCH LENE
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ O, many a day have I made good ale in the glen,
+ That came not of stream or malt;--like the brewing of men.
+ My bed was the ground; my roof, the greenwood above,
+ And the wealth that I sought one far kind glance from my love.
+
+ Alas! on that night when the horses I drove from the field,
+ That I was not near from terror my angel to shield.
+ She stretched forth her arms,--her mantle she flung to the wind,
+ And swam o'er Loch Lene, her outlawed lover to find.
+
+ O would that a freezing sleet-wing'd tempest did sweep,
+ And I and my love were alone, far off on the deep;
+ I'd ask not a ship, or a bark, or pinnace, to save,--
+ With her hand round my waist, I'd fear not the wind or the wave.
+
+ 'Tis down by the lake where the wild tree fringes its sides,
+ The maid of my heart, my fair one of Heaven resides;--
+ I think as at eve she wanders its mazes along,
+ The birds go to sleep by the sweet wild twist of her song.
+
+ _Jeremiah Joseph Callanan_
+
+
+
+
+DIRGE OF O'SULLIVAN BEAR
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ The sun on Ivera
+ No longer shines brightly,
+ The voice of her music
+ No longer is sprightly;
+ No more to her maidens
+ The light dance is dear,
+ Since the death of our darling
+ O'Sullivan Bear.
+
+ Scully! thou false one,
+ You basely betrayed him,
+ In his strong hour of need,
+ When thy right hand should aid him;
+ He fed thee--he clad thee--
+ You had all could delight thee:
+ You left him--you sold him--
+ May Heaven requite thee!
+
+ Scully! may all kinds
+ Of evil attend thee!
+ On thy dark road of life
+ May no kind one befriend thee!
+ May fevers long burn thee,
+ And agues long freeze thee!
+ May the strong hand of God
+ In His red anger seize thee!
+
+ Had he died calmly,
+ I would not deplore him;
+ Or if the wild strife
+ Of the sea-war closed o'er him:
+ But with ropes round his white limbs
+ Through ocean to trail him,
+ Like a fish after slaughter--
+ 'Tis therefore I wail him.
+
+ Long may the curse
+ Of his people pursue them;
+ Scully, that sold him,
+ And soldier that slew him!
+ One glimpse of heaven's light
+ May they see never!
+ May the hearthstone of hell
+ Be their best bed for ever!
+
+ In the hole which the vile hands
+ Of soldiers had made thee,
+ Unhonour'd, unshrouded,
+ And headless they laid thee;
+ No sigh to regret thee,
+ No eye to rain o'er thee,
+ No dirge to lament thee,
+ No friend to deplore thee!
+
+ Dear head of my darling,
+ How gory and pale,
+ These aged eyes see thee,
+ High spiked on their gaol!
+ That cheek in the summer sun
+ Ne'er shall grow warm;
+ Nor that eye e'er catch light,
+ But the flash of the storm.
+
+ A curse, blessed ocean,
+ Is on thy green water,
+ From the haven of Cork
+ To Ivera of slaughter:
+ Since thy billows were dyed
+ With the red wounds of fear
+ Of Muiertach Oge,
+ Our O'Sullivan Bear!
+
+ _Jeremiah Joseph Callanan_
+
+
+
+
+LOVE SONG
+
+
+ Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,
+ Lulled by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;
+ Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers
+ Breathed to my sad lute 'mid the lonely air.
+
+ Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming
+ To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above;
+ O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming,
+ I too could glide to the bower of my love!
+
+ Ah, where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her,
+ Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay,
+ Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her,
+ To her lost mate's call in the forests far away.
+
+ Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever bearest,
+ Still heaven's messenger of comfort to me,
+ Come, this fond bosom, O faithfulest and fairest
+ Bleeds with its death-wound its wound of love for thee!
+
+ _George Darley_
+
+
+
+
+THE WHISTLIN' THIEF
+
+
+ When Pat came over the hill,
+ His colleen fair to see,
+ His whistle low, but shrill,
+ The signal was to be;
+
+ (_Pat whistles._)
+
+ 'Mary,' the mother said,
+ 'Some one is whistling sure;'
+ Says Mary, ''Tis only the wind
+ Is whistling through the door.'
+
+ (_Pat whistles a bit of a popular air._)
+
+ 'I've lived a long time, Mary,
+ In this wide world, my dear,
+ But a door to whistle like _that_
+ I never yet did hear.'
+
+ 'But, mother, you know the fiddle
+ Hangs close beside the chink,
+ And the wind upon the strings
+ Is playing the tune I think.'
+
+ (_The pig grunts._)
+
+ 'Mary, I hear the pig,
+ Unaisy in his mind.'
+ 'But, mother, you know, they say
+ The pigs can see the wind.'
+
+ 'That's true enough _in the day_,
+ But I think you may remark,
+ That pigs no more nor we
+ Can see anything in the dark.'
+
+ (_The dog barks._)
+
+ 'The dog is barking now,
+ The fiddle can't play the tune.'
+ 'But, mother, the dogs will bark
+ Whenever they see the moon.'
+
+ 'But how could he see the moon,
+ When, you know, the dog is blind?
+ Blind dogs won't bark at the moon,
+ Nor fiddles be played by the wind.
+
+ 'I'm not such a fool as you think,
+ I know very well it is Pat:--
+ Shut your mouth, you whistlin' thief,
+ And go along home out o' that!
+
+ 'And you be off to your bed,
+ Don't play upon me your jeers;
+ For though I have lost my eyes,
+ I haven't lost my ears!'
+
+ _Samuel Lover_
+
+
+
+
+SOGGARTH AROON
+
+
+ Am I the slave they say,
+ Soggarth aroon?
+ Since you did show the way,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ _Their_ slave no more to be,
+ While they would work with me
+ Old Ireland's slavery,
+ Soggarth aroon.
+
+ Why not her poorest man,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ Try and do all he can,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ Her commands to fulfil
+ Of his own heart and will,
+ Side by side with you still
+ Soggarth aroon?
+
+ Loyal and brave to you,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ Yet be not slave to you,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ Nor, out of fear to you--
+ Stand up so near to you--
+ Och! out of fear to _you_,
+ Soggarth aroon!
+
+ Who, in the winter's night,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ When the cold blast did bite,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ Came to my cabin-door,
+ And, on my earthen-floor,
+ Knelt by me, sick and poor,
+ Soggarth aroon?
+
+ Who, on the marriage day,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ Made the poor cabin gay,
+ Soggarth aroon?--
+ And did both laugh and sing,
+ Making our hearts to ring,
+ At the poor christening,
+ Soggarth aroon?
+
+ Who, as friend only met,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ Never did flout me yet,
+ Soggarth aroon?
+ And when my heart was dim,
+ Gave, while his eye did brim,
+ What I should give to him,
+ Soggarth aroon?
+
+ Och! you, and only you,
+ Soggarth aroon!
+ And for this I was true to you,
+ Soggarth aroon,
+ In love they'll never shake,
+ When for old Ireland's sake,
+ We a true part did take,
+ Soggarth aroon!
+
+ _John Banim_
+
+
+
+
+DARK ROSALEEN
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ O my Dark Rosaleen,
+ Do not sigh, do not weep!
+ The priests are on the ocean green.
+ They march along the deep.
+ There's wine from the royal Pope,
+ Upon the ocean green;
+ And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+ My own Rosaleen!
+ Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
+ Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+
+ Over hills, and through dales,
+ Have I roamed for your sake;
+ All yesterday I sailed with sails
+ On river and on lake,
+ The Erne, at its highest flood,
+ I dashed across unseen,
+ For there was lightning in my blood,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+ My own Rosaleen!
+ O there was lightning in my blood,
+ Red lightning lightened through my blood,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+
+ All day long in unrest
+ To and fro do I move,
+ The very heart within my breast
+ Is wasted for you, Love!
+ The heart in my bosom faints
+ To think of you, my queen!
+ My life of life, my saint of saints,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+ My own Rosaleen!
+ To hear your sweet and sad complaints,
+ My life, my love, my saint of saints,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+
+ Woe and pain, pain and woe,
+ Are my lot night and noon;
+ To see your bright face clouded so,
+ Like to the mournful moon.
+ But yet will I rear your throne
+ Again in golden sheen:
+ 'Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+ My own Rosaleen!
+ 'Tis you shall have the golden throne,
+ 'Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+
+ Over dews, over sands,
+ Will I fly for your weal:
+ Your holy, delicate white hands
+ Shall girdle me with steel.
+ At home, in your emerald bowers,
+ From morning's dawn till e'en,
+ You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+ My fond Rosaleen!
+ You'll think of me through daylight's hours,
+ My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+
+ I could scale the blue air,
+ I could plough the high hills,
+ O, I could kneel all night in prayer,
+ To heal your many ills.
+ And one beamy smile from you
+ Would float like light between
+ My toils and me, my own, my true,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+ My fond Rosaleen!
+ Would give me life and soul anew,
+ A second life, a soul anew,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+
+ O! the Erne shall run red
+ With redundance of blood,
+ The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
+ And flames wrap hill and wood,
+ And gun-peal, and slogan cry,
+ Wake many a glen serene,
+ Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+ My own Rosaleen!
+ The Judgment Hour must first be nigh
+ Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
+ My Dark Rosaleen!
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+LAMENT FOR THE PRINCES OF TYRONE AND TYRCONNELL
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ O woman of the Piercing Wail,
+ Who mournest o'er yon mound of clay
+ With sigh and groan,
+ Would God thou wert among the Gael!
+ Thou wouldst not then from day to day
+ Weep thus alone.
+ 'Twere long before, around a grave
+ In green Tyrconnell, one could find
+ This loneliness;
+ Near where Beann-Boirche's banners wave
+ Such grief as thine could ne'er have pined
+ Companionless.
+
+ Beside the wave in Donegal,
+ In Antrim's glens, or fair Dromore,
+ Or Killillee.
+ Or where the sunny waters fall
+ At Assaroe, near Erna's shore,
+ This could not be.
+ On Derry's plains--in rich Drumclieff--
+ Throughout Armagh the Great, renowned
+ In olden years,
+ No day could pass but woman's grief
+ Would rain upon the burial-ground
+ Fresh floods of tears!
+
+ O, no!--from Shannon, Boyne, and Suir,
+ From high Dunluce's castle-walls,
+ From Lissadill,
+ Would flock alike both rich and poor,
+ One wail would rise from Cruachan's halls
+ To Tara's hill;
+ And some would come from Barrow-side,
+ And many a maid would leave her home,
+ On Leitrim's plains,
+ And by melodious Banna's tide,
+ And by the Mourne and Erne, to come
+ And swell thy strains!
+
+ O, horses' hoofs would trample down
+ The Mount whereon the martyr-saint
+ Was crucified.
+ From glen and hill, from plain and town,
+ One loud lament, one thrilling plaint,
+ Would echo wide.
+ There would not soon be found, I ween,
+ One foot of ground among those bands
+ For museful thought,
+ So many shriekers of the _keen_
+ Would cry aloud and clap their hands,
+ All woe distraught!
+
+ Two princes of the line of Conn
+ Sleep in their cells of clay beside
+ O'Donnell Roe;
+ Three royal youths, alas! are gone,
+ Who lived for Erin's weal, but died
+ For Erin's woe;
+ Ah! could the men of Ireland read
+ The names these noteless burial-stones
+ Display to view,
+ Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed,
+ Their tears gush forth again, their groans
+ Resound anew!
+
+ The youths whose relics moulder here
+ Were sprung from Hugh, high Prince and Lord
+ Of Aileach's lands;
+ Thy noble brothers, justly dear,
+ Thy nephew, long to be deplored
+ By Ulster's bands.
+ Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time
+ Could domicile Decay or house
+ Decrepitude!
+ They passed from Earth ere Manhood's prime,
+ Ere years had power to dim their brows
+ Or chill their blood.
+
+ And who can marvel o'er thy grief,
+ Or who can blame thy flowing tears,
+ That knows their source?
+ O'Donnell, Dunnasava's chief,
+ Cut off amid his vernal years,
+ Lies here a corse
+ Beside his brother Cathbar, whom
+ Tirconnell of the Helmets mourns
+ In deep despair--
+ For valour, truth, and comely bloom,
+ For all that greatens and adorns
+ A peerless pair.
+
+ O, had these twain, and he, the third,
+ The Lord of Mourne, O'Niall's son,
+ Their mate in death--
+ A prince in look, in deed and word--
+ Had these three heroes yielded on
+ The field their breath,
+ O, had they fallen on Criffan's plain,
+ There would not be a town or clan
+ From shore to sea,
+ But would with shrieks bewail the slain,
+ Or chant aloud the exulting _rann_
+ Of Jubilee!
+
+ When high the shout of battle rose,
+ On fields where Freedom's torch still burned
+ Through Erin's gloom,
+ If one, if barely one of those
+ Were slain, all Ulster would have mourned
+ The hero's doom!
+ If at Athboy, where hosts of brave
+ Ulidian horsemen sank beneath
+ The shock of spears,
+ Young Hugh O'Neill had found a grave,
+ Long must the North have wept his death
+ With heart-wrung tears!
+
+ If on the day of Ballach-myre
+ The Lord of Mourne had met thus young,
+ A warrior's fate,
+ In vain would such as thou desire
+ To mourn, alone, the champion sprung
+ From Niall the Great!
+ No marvel this--for all the dead,
+ Heaped on the field, pile over pile,
+ At Mullach-brack,
+ Were scarce an _eric_ for his head,
+ If death had stayed his footsteps while
+ On victory's track!
+
+ If on the Day of Hostages
+ The fruit had from the parent bough
+ Been rudely torn
+ In sight of Munster's bands--Mac-Nee's--
+ Such blow the blood of Conn, I trow,
+ Could ill have borne.
+ If on the day of Ballach-boy
+ Some arm had laid, by foul surprise,
+ The chieftain low,
+ Even our victorious shout of joy
+
+ Would soon give place to rueful cries
+ And groans of woe!
+
+ If on the day the Saxon host
+ Were forced to fly--a day so great
+ For Ashanee--
+ The Chief had been untimely lost,
+ Our conquering troops should moderate
+ Their mirthful glee.
+ There would not lack on Lifford's day,
+ From Galway, from the glens of Boyle,
+ From Limerick's towers,
+ A marshalled file, a long array
+ Of mourners to bedew the soil
+ With tears in showers!
+
+ If on the day a sterner fate
+ Compelled his flight from Athenree,
+ His blood had flowed,
+ What numbers all disconsolate,
+ Would come unasked, and share with thee
+ Affliction's load!
+ If Derry's crimson field had seen
+ His life-blood offered up, though 'twere
+ On Victory's shrine,
+ A thousand cries would swell the _keen_,
+ A thousand voices of despair
+ Would echo thine.
+
+ O, had the fierce Dalcassian swarm
+ That bloody night on Fergus' banks
+ But slain our chief,
+ When rose his camp in wild alarm--
+ How would the triumph of his ranks
+ Be dashed with grief!
+ How would the troops of Murbach mourn
+ If on the Curlew Mountains' day,
+ Which England rued,
+ Some Saxon hand had left them lorn,
+ By shedding there, amid the fray,
+ Their prince's blood!
+
+ Red would have been our warriors' eyes
+ Had Roderick found on Sligo field
+ A gory grave,
+ No Northern Chief would soon arise,
+ So sage to guide, so strong to shield,
+ So swift to save.
+ Long would Leith-Cuinn have wept if Hugh
+ Had met the death he oft had dealt
+ Among the foe;
+ But, had our Roderick fallen too,
+ All Erin must, alas! have felt
+ The deadly blow!
+
+ What do I say? Ah, woe is me!
+ Already we bewail in vain
+ Their fatal fall!
+ And Erin, once the Great and Free,
+ Now vainly mourns her breakless chain,
+ And iron thrall!
+ Then, daughter of O'Donnell! dry
+ Thine overflowing eyes, and turn
+ Thy heart aside;
+ For Adam's race is born to die,
+ And sternly the sepulchral urn
+ Mocks human pride!
+
+ Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne,
+ Nor place thy trust in arm of clay--
+ But on thy knees
+ Uplift thy soul to God alone,
+ For all things go their destined way
+ As He decrees.
+ Embrace the faithful Crucifix,
+ And seek the path of pain and prayer
+ Thy Saviour trod!
+ Nor let thy spirit intermix
+ With earthly hope and worldly care
+ Its groans to God!
+
+ And Thou, O mighty Lord! whose ways
+ Are far above our feeble minds
+ To understand,
+ Sustain us in these doleful days,
+ And render light the chain that binds
+ Our fallen land!
+ Look down upon our dreary state,
+ And through the ages that may still
+ Roll sadly on,
+ Watch Thou o'er hapless Erin's fate,
+ And shield at least from darker ill
+ The blood of Conn!
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+A LAMENTATION FOR THE DEATH OF SIR MAURICE FITZGERALD, KNIGHT OF KERRY
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ There was lifted up one voice of woe,
+ One lament of more than mortal grief,
+ Through the wide South to and fro,
+ For a fallen Chief.
+ In the dead of night that cry thrilled through me,
+ I looked out upon the midnight air;
+ Mine own soul was all as gloomy,
+ And I knelt in prayer.
+
+ O'er Loch Gur, that night, once--twice--yea, thrice--
+ Passed a wail of anguish for the Brave,
+ That half curled into ice
+ The moon-mirroring wave.
+ Then uprose a many-toned wild hymn in
+ Choral swell from Ogra's dark ravine,
+ And Moguly's Phantom Women
+ Mourned the Geraldine!
+
+ Far on Carah Mona's emerald plains,
+ Shrieks and sighs were blended many hours,
+ And Fermoy, in fitful strains,
+ Answered from her towers.
+ Youghal, Keenalmeaky, Eemokilly,
+ Mourned in concert, and their piercing _keen_
+ Woke to wondering life the stilly
+ Glens of Inchiqueen.
+
+ From Loughmoe to yellow Dunanore
+ There was fear; the traders of Tralee
+ Gathered up their golden store,
+ And prepared to flee;
+ For, in ship and hall, from night till morning
+ Showed the first faint beamings of the sun,
+ All the foreigners heard the warning
+ Of the Dreaded One!
+
+ 'This,' they spake, 'portendeth death to us,
+ If we fly not swiftly from our fate!'
+ Self-conceited idiots! thus
+ Ravingly to prate!
+ Not for base-born higgling Saxon trucksters
+ Ring laments like those by shore and sea!
+ Not for churls with souls of hucksters
+ Waileth our Banshee!
+ For the high Milesian race alone
+ Ever flows the music of her woe!
+ For slain heir to bygone throne,
+ And for Chief laid low!
+ Hark!... Again, methinks, I hear her weeping
+ Yonder! Is she near me now, as then?
+ Or was but the night-wind sweeping
+ Down the hollow glen?
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN OF THREE COWS
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ O, Woman of Three Cows, _agragh!_ don't let your
+ tongue thus rattle!
+ O, don't be saucy, don't be stiff, because you may
+ have cattle.
+ I have seen--and, here's my hand to you, I only say
+ what's true--
+ A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud
+ as you.
+
+ Good luck to you, don't scorn the poor, and don't be
+ their despiser;
+ For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the
+ very miser;
+ And death soon strips the proudest wreath from
+ haughty human brows,
+ Then don't be stiff, and don't be proud, good Woman
+ of Three Cows!
+
+ See where Momonia's heroes lie, proud Owen More's
+ descendants,
+ 'Tis they that won the glorious name, and had the
+ grand attendants!
+ If _they_ were forced to bow to Fate, as every mortal
+ bows,
+ Can _you_ be proud, can _you_ be stiff, my Woman
+ of Three Cows?
+
+ The brave sons of the Lord of Clare, they left the
+ land to mourning;
+ _Mavrone!_ for they were banished, with no hope of
+ their returning--
+ Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were
+ driven to house?
+ Yet _you_ can give yourself these airs, O Woman
+ of Three Cows!
+
+ O, think of Donnel of the Ships, the Chief whom
+ nothing daunted--
+ See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled,
+ unchanted!
+ He sleeps, the great O'Sullivan, where thunder
+ cannot rouse--
+ Then ask yourself, should _you_ be proud, good Woman
+ of Three Cows?
+
+ O'Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names
+ are shrined in story--
+ Think how their high achievements once made Erin's
+ greatest glory--
+ Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and
+ Cyprus boughs,
+ And so, for all your pride, will yours, O Woman
+ of Three Cows!
+
+ Th' O'Carrols, also, famed when fame was only for
+ the boldest,
+ Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin's best and
+ oldest;
+ Yet who so great as they of yore in battle or
+ carouse?
+ Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman
+ of Three Cows!
+
+ Your neighbour's poor, and you, it seems, are big
+ with vain ideas,
+ Because, _inagh!_ you've got three cows, one more, I see,
+ than _she_ has;
+ That tongue of yours wags more at times than
+ charity allows--
+ But, if you're strong, be merciful, great Woman
+ of Three Cows!
+
+
+THE SUMMING-UP.
+
+ Now, there you go! You still, of course, keep up
+ your scornful bearing,
+ And I'm too poor to hinder you; but, by the cloak
+ I'm wearing,
+ If I had but _four_ cows myself, even though you were
+ my spouse,
+ I'd thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman
+ of Three Cows!
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+PRINCE ALFRID'S ITINERARY THROUGH IRELAND
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ I found in Innisfail the fair,
+ In Ireland, while in exile there,
+ Women of worth, both grave and gay men,
+ Many clerics and many laymen.
+
+ I travelled its fruitful provinces round
+ And in every one of the five I found,
+ Alike in church and in palace hall,
+ Abundant apparel, and food for all.
+
+ Gold and silver I found, and money,
+ Plenty of wheat and plenty of honey;
+ I found God's people rich in pity,
+ Found many a feast and many a city.
+
+ I also found in Armagh, the splendid,
+ Meekness, wisdom, and prudence blended,
+ Fasting, as Christ hath recommended,
+ And noble councillors untranscended.
+
+ I found in each great church moreo'er,
+ Whether on island or on shore
+ Piety, learning, fond affection,
+ Holy welcome and kind protection.
+
+ I found thy good lay monks and brothers
+ Ever beseeching help for others,
+ And in their keeping the holy word
+ Pure as it came from Jesus the Lord.
+
+ I found in Munster unfettered of any,
+ Kings and queens and poets a many--
+ Poets were skilled in music and measure,
+ Prosperous doings, mirth and pleasure.
+
+ I found in Connaught the just, redundance
+ Of riches, milk in lavish abundance,
+ Hospitality, vigour, fame,
+ In Cruachan's land of heroic name.
+
+ I found in the county of Connall the glorious
+ Bravest heroes, ever victorious;
+ Fair-complexioned men and warlike,
+ Ireland's lights, the high, the starlike.
+
+ I found in Ulster, from hill to glen,
+ Hardy warriors, resolute men;
+ Beauty that bloomed when youth was gone,
+ And strength transmitted from sire to son.
+
+ I found in the noble district of Boyle
+
+ (_MS. here illegible._)
+
+ Brehons, erenachs, weapons bright,
+ And horsemen bold and sudden in fight.
+
+ I found in Leinster the smooth and sleek,
+ From Dublin to Slewmargy's peak;
+ Flourishing pastures, valour, health,
+ Long-living worthies, commerce, wealth.
+
+ I found, besides, from Ara to Glea,
+ In the broad rich country of Ossorie,
+ Sweet fruits, good laws for all and each,
+ Great chess players, men of truthful speech.
+
+ I found in Meath's fair principality,
+ Virtue, vigour, and hospitality;
+ Candour, joyfulness, bravery, purity,
+ Ireland's bulwark and security.
+
+ I found strict morals in age and youth,
+ I found historians recording truth;
+ The things I sing of in verse unsmooth,
+ I found them all--I have written sooth.
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+O'HUSSEY'S ODE TO THE MAGUIRE
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ Where is my Chief, my Master, this bleak night, _mavrone_!
+ O, cold, cold, miserably cold is this bleak night for Hugh,
+ Its showery, arrowy, speary sleet pierceth one through and through,
+ Pierceth one to the very bone!
+
+ Rolls real thunder? Or was that red, livid light
+ Only a meteor? I scarce know; but through the midnight dim
+ The pitiless ice-wind streams. Except the hate that persecutes _him_
+ Nothing hath crueler venomy might.
+
+ An awful, a tremendous night is this, meseems!
+ The flood-gates of the river of heaven, I think, have been
+ burst wide--
+ Down from the overcharged clouds, like unto headlong ocean's tide,
+ Descends grey rain in roaring streams.
+
+ Though he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods,
+ Though he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea,
+ Though he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he,
+ This sharp, sore sleet, these howling floods.
+
+ O mournful is my soul this night for Hugh Maguire!
+ Darkly, as in a dream he strays! Before him and behind
+ Triumphs the tyrannous anger of the wounding wind,
+ The wounding wind, that burns as fire!
+
+ It is my bitter grief--it cuts me to the heart--
+ That in the country of Clan Darry this should be his fate!
+ O, woe is me, where is he? Wandering, houseless, desolate,
+ Alone, without or guide or chart!
+
+ Medreams I see just now his face, the strawberry-bright,
+ Uplifted to the blackened heavens, while the tempestuous winds
+ Blow fiercely over and round him, and the smiting
+ sleet-shower blinds
+ The hero of Galang to-night!
+
+ Large, large affliction unto me and mine it is,
+ That one of his majestic bearing, his fair, stately form,
+ Should thus be tortured and o'erborne--that this unsparing storm
+ Should wreak its wrath on head like his!
+
+ That his great hand, so oft the avenger of the oppressed,
+ Should this chill churlish night, perchance, be paralyzed by frost--
+ While through some icicle-hung thicket--as one lorn and lost--
+ He walks and wanders without rest.
+
+ The tempest-driven torrent deluges the mead,
+ It overflows the low banks of the rivulets and ponds--
+ The lawns and pasture-grounds lie locked in icy bonds
+ So that the cattle cannot feed.
+
+ The pale bright margins of the streams are seen by none,
+ Rushes and sweeps along the untamable flood on every side--
+ It penetrates and fills the cottagers' dwellings far and wide--
+ Water and land are blent in one.
+
+ Through some dark wood, 'mid bones of monsters, Hugh now strays,
+ As he confronts the storm with anguished heart, but manly brow--
+ O, what a sword-wound to that tender heart of his were now
+ A backward glance of peaceful days.
+
+ But other thoughts are his--thoughts that can still inspire
+ With joy and onward-bounding hope the bosom of Mac-Nee--
+ Thoughts of his warriors charging like bright billows the sea,
+ Borne on the wind's wings, flashing fire!
+
+ And though frost glaze to-night the clear dew of his eyes,
+ And white ice-gauntlets glove his noble fine fair fingers o'er,
+ A warm dress is to him that lightning garb he ever wore,
+ The lightning of the soul, not skies.
+
+
+AVRAN
+
+ Hugh marched forth to the fight--I grieved to see him so depart;
+ And lo! to-night he wanders frozen, rain-drenched, sad, betrayed--
+ _But the memory of the limewhite mansions his right hand hath laid
+ In ashes, warms the hero's heart_!
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+THE NAMELESS ONE
+
+
+ Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river,
+ That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
+ God will inspire me while I deliver
+ My soul to thee!
+
+ Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening
+ Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
+ That there was once one whose blood ran lightning
+ No eye beheld.
+
+ Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,
+ How shone for _him_, through its griefs and gloom,
+ No star of all heaven sends to light our
+ Path to the tomb.
+
+ Roll on, my song, and to after ages
+ Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
+ He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages,
+ The way to live.
+
+ And tell how trampled, derided, hated,
+ And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
+ He fled for shelter to God, who mated
+ His soul with song--
+
+ With song which alway, sublime or vapid,
+ Flowed like a rill in the morning-beam,
+ Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid--
+ A mountain stream.
+
+ Tell how this Nameless, condemned for years long
+ To herd with demons from hell beneath,
+ Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
+ For even death.
+
+ Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
+ Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love,
+ With spirit shipwrecked, and young hopes blasted,
+ He still, still strove.
+
+ Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others,
+ And some whose hands should have wrought for _him_;
+ (If children live not for sires and mothers,)
+ His mind grew dim.
+
+ And he fell far through that pit abysmal
+ The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns;
+ And pawned his soul for the devil's dismal
+ Stock of returns.
+
+ But yet redeemed it in days of darkness,
+ And shapes and signs of the final wrath,
+ When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness,
+ Stood on his path.
+
+ And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,
+ And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,
+ He bides in calmness the silent morrow,
+ That no ray lights.
+
+ And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and hoary
+ At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
+ He lives enduring what future story
+ Will never know.
+
+ Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,
+ Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell!
+ He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,
+ Here and in hell!
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+SIBERIA
+
+
+ In Siberia's wastes
+ The Ice-wind's breath
+ Woundeth like the toothed steel.
+ Lost Siberia doth reveal
+ Only blight and death.
+
+ Blight and death alone.
+ No Summer shines.
+ Night is interblent with Day.
+ In Siberia's wastes alway
+ The blood blackens, the heart pines.
+
+ In Siberia's wastes
+ No tears are shed,
+ For they freeze within the brain.
+ Nought is felt but dullest pain,
+ Pain acute, yet dead;
+
+ Pain as in a dream,
+ When years go by
+ Funeral-paced, yet fugitive,
+ When man lives, and doth not live,
+ Doth not live--nor die.
+
+ In Siberia's wastes
+ Are sands and rocks.
+ Nothing blooms of green or soft,
+ But the snowpeaks rise aloft
+ And the gaunt ice-blocks.
+
+ And the exile there
+ Is one with those;
+ They are part, and he is part,
+ For the sands are in his heart,
+ And the killing snows.
+
+ Therefore, in those wastes
+ None curse the Czar.
+ Each man's tongue is cloven by
+ The North Blast, who heweth nigh
+ With sharp scymitar.
+
+ And such doom he drees,
+ Till hunger gnawn,
+ And cold-slain, he at length sinks there,
+ Yet scarce more a corpse than ere
+ His last breath was drawn.
+
+ _James Clarence Mangan_
+
+
+
+
+HY-BRASAIL
+
+
+ On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,
+ A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;
+ Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,
+ And they called it _Hy-Brasail_ the isle of the blest.
+ From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim,
+ The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;
+ The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,
+ And it looked like an Eden, away, far away!
+
+ A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,
+ In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;
+ From Ara, the holy, he turned to the West,
+ For though Ara was holy, _Hy-Brasail_ was blest.
+ He heard not the voices that called from the shore--
+ He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar;
+ Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day,
+ And he sped to _Hy-Brasail_, away, far away!
+
+ Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,
+ O'er the faint rim of distance, reflected its smile;
+ Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore
+ Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;
+ Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track,
+ And to Ara again he looked timidly back;
+ O! far on the verge of the ocean it lay,
+ Yet the isle of the blest was away, far away!
+
+ Rash dreamer, return! O ye winds of the main,
+ Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.
+ Bash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss
+ To barter thy calm life of labour and peace.
+ The warning of reason was spoken in vain,
+ He never re-visited Ara again!
+ Night falls on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,
+ And he died on the waters, away, far away!
+
+ _Gerald Griffin_
+
+
+
+
+MO CRAOIBHIN CNO
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ My heart is far from Liffey's tide
+ And Dublin town;
+ It strays beyond the Southern side
+ Of Cnoc-Maol-Donn,
+ Where Capa-chuinn hath woodlands green,
+ Where Amhan-Mhor's waters flow,
+ Where dwell unsung, unsought, unseen
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_,
+ Low clustering in her leafy screen,
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_!
+
+ The high-bred dames of Dublin town
+ Are rich and fair,
+ With wavy plume and silken gown,
+ And stately air;
+ Can plumes compare thy dark brown hair?
+ Can silks thy neck of snow?
+ Or measur'd pace thine artless grace?
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_,
+ When harebells scarcely show thy trace,
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_!
+
+ I've heard the songs by Liffey's wave
+ That maidens sung--
+ They sung their land the Saxon's slave,
+ In Saxon tongue--
+ O! bring me here that Gaelic dear
+ Which cursed the Saxon foe,
+ When thou didst charm my raptured ear,
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_!
+ And none but God's good angels near,
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_!
+
+ I've wandered by the rolling Lee!
+ And Lene's green bowers--
+ I've seen the Shannon's wide-spread sea
+ And Limerick's towers--
+ And Liffey's tide, where halls of pride
+ Frown o'er the flood below;
+ My wild heart strays to Amhan-mhor's side,
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_!
+ With love and thee for aye to bide,
+ _Mo craoibhin cno_!
+
+ _Edward Walsh_
+
+
+
+
+MAIRGREAD NI CHEALLEADH
+
+
+ At the dance in the village thy white foot was fleetest;
+ Thy voice in the concert of maidens was sweetest;
+ The swell of thy white breast made rich lovers follow;
+ And thy raven hair bound them, young Mairgread ni Chealleadh.
+
+ Thy neck was, lost maid, than the _ceanabhan_ whiter,
+ And the glow of thy cheek than the _monadan_ brighter;
+ But death's chain hath bound thee, thine eye's glazed and hollow,
+ That shone like a sunburst, young Mairgread ni Chealleadh.
+
+ No more shall mine ear drink thy melody swelling;
+ Nor thy beamy eye brighten the outlaw's dark dwelling;
+ Or thy soft heaving bosom my destiny hallow,
+ When thine arms twine around me, young Mairgread ni Chealleadh.
+
+ The moss couch I brought thee to-day from the mountain,
+ Has drank the last drop of thy young heart's red fountain--
+ For this good scian beside me stuck deep and run hollow
+ In thy bosom of treason, young Mairgread ni Chealleadh.
+
+ With strings of rich pearls thy white neck was laden,
+ And thy fingers with spoils of the Sassanach maiden:
+ Such rich silks enrob'd not the proud dames of Mallow--
+ Such pure gold they wore not as Mairgread ni Chealleadh.
+
+ Alas! that my loved one her outlaw would injure--
+ Alas! that he e'er proved her treason's avenger!
+ That this right hand should make thee a bed cold and hollow,
+ When in Death's sleep it laid thee, Young Mairgread ni Chealleadh!
+
+ And while to this lone cave my deep grief I'm venting,
+ The Saxon's keen bandog my footstep is scenting,
+ But true men await me afar in Duhallow,
+ Farewell, cave of slaughter, and Mairgread ni Chealleadh.
+
+ _Edward Walsh_
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE COLD SOD THAT'S O'ER YOU
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ From the cold sod that's o'er you
+ I never shall sever;
+ Were my hands twined in yours, Love,
+ I'd hold them for ever.
+ My fondest, my fairest,
+ We may now sleep together!
+ I've the cold earth's damp odour,
+ And I'm worn from the weather.
+
+ This heart filled with fondness
+ Is wounded and weary;
+ A dark gulf beneath it
+ Yawns jet-black and dreary.
+ When death comes, a victor,
+ In mercy to greet me,
+ On the wings of the whirlwind
+ In the wild wastes you'll meet me.
+
+ When the folk of my household
+ Suppose I am sleeping,
+ On your cold grave till morning
+ The lone watch I'm keeping.
+ My grief to the night wind
+ For the mild maid to render,
+ Who was my betrothed
+ Since infancy tender.
+
+ Remember the lone night
+ I last spent with you, Love,
+ Beneath the dark sloe-tree
+ When the icy wind blew, Love.
+ High praise to thy Saviour
+ No sin-stain had found you,
+ That your virginal glory
+ Shines brightly around you.
+
+ The priests and the friars
+ Are ceaselessly chiding,
+ That I love a young maiden
+ In life not abiding.
+ O! I'd shelter and shield you
+ If wild storms were swelling!
+ And O, my wrecked hope,
+ That the cold earth's your dwelling.
+
+ _Edward Walsh_
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIRY NURSE
+
+
+ Sweet babe! a golden cradle holds thee,
+ And soft the snow-white fleece enfolds thee;
+ In airy bower I'll watch thy sleeping,
+ Where branchy trees to the breeze are sweeping.
+ Shuheen sho, lulo lo
+
+ When mothers languish broken-hearted,
+ When young wives are from husbands parted,
+ Ah! little think the keeners lonely,
+ They weep some time-worn fairy only.
+ Shuheen sho, lulo lo!
+
+ Within our magic halls of brightness,
+ Trips many a foot of snowy whiteness;
+ Stolen maidens, queens of fairy--
+ And kings and chiefs a sluagh shee airy.
+ Shuheen sho, lulo lo!
+
+ Rest thee, babe! I love thee dearly,
+ And as thy mortal mother nearly;
+ Ours is the swiftest steed and proudest,
+ That moves where the tramp of the host is loudest.
+ Shuheen sho, lulo lo!
+
+ Rest thee, babe! for soon thy slumbers
+ Shall flee at the magic koelshie's numbers;
+ In airy bower I'll watch thy sleeping,
+ Where branchy trees to the breeze are sweeping.
+ Shuheen sho, lulo lo!
+
+ _Edward Walsh_
+
+
+
+
+A CUISLE GEAL MO CHROIDHE
+
+
+ The long, long wished-for hour has come,
+ Yet come, astor, in vain;
+ And left thee but the wailing hum
+ Of sorrow and of pain:
+ My light of life, my lonely love!
+ Thy portion sure must be
+ Man's scorn below, God's wrath above--
+ A cuisle geal mo chroidhe!
+
+ I've given thee manhood's early prime,
+ And manhood's teeming years;
+ I've blessed thee in my merriest time,
+ And shed with thee my tears;
+ And, mother, though thou cast away
+ The child who'd die for thee,
+ My fondest wishes still should pray
+ For cuisle geal mo chroidhe!
+
+ For thee I've tracked the mountain's sides,
+ And slept within the brake,
+ More lonely than the swan that glides
+ O'er Lua's fairy lake.
+ The rich have spurned me from their door,
+ Because I'd make thee free;
+ Yet still I love thee more and more,
+ A cuisle geal mo chroidhe!
+
+ I've run the Outlaw's brief career,
+ And borne his load of ill;
+ His rocky couch--his dreamy fear--
+ With fixed, sustaining will;
+ And should his last dark chance befall,
+ Even that shall welcome be;
+ In Death I'd love thee best of all,
+ A cuisle geal mo chroidhe!
+
+ 'Twas prayed for thee the world around,
+ 'Twas hoped for thee by all,
+ That with one gallant sunward bound
+ Thou'dst burst long ages' thrall;
+ Thy faith was tried, alas! and those
+ Who'd peril all for thee
+ Were curs'd and branded as thy foes,
+ A cuisle geal mo chroidhe!
+
+ What fate is thine, unhappy Isle,
+ When even the trusted few
+ Would pay thee back with hate and guile,
+ When most they should be true!
+ 'Twas not my strength or spirit failed
+ Or those who'd die for thee;
+ Who loved thee truly have not failed,
+ A cuisle geal mo chroidhe!
+
+ _Michael Doheny_
+
+
+
+
+LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT
+
+
+ I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary,
+ Where we sat side by side,
+ On a bright May mornin', long ago,
+ When first you were my bride:
+ The corn was springin' fresh and green,
+ And the lark sang loud and high--
+ And the red was on your lip, Mary,
+ And the love-light in your eye.
+
+ The _place_ is little changed, Mary,
+ The day is bright as then,
+ The lark's loud song is in my ear,
+ And the corn is green again;
+ But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,
+ And your breath, warm on my cheek;
+ And I still keep list'nin' for the words
+ You never more will speak.
+
+ 'Tis but a step down yonder lane,
+ And the little church stands near--
+ The church where we were wed, Mary,
+ I see the spire from here.
+ But the graveyard lies between, Mary,
+ And my step might break your rest--
+ For I've laid you, darling! down to sleep,
+ With your baby on your breast.
+
+ I'm very lonely now, Mary,
+ For the poor make no new friends;
+ But, O! they love the better still,
+ The few our Father sends!
+ And you were all _I_ had, Mary,
+ My blessin' and my pride!
+ There's nothin' left to care for now,
+ Since my poor Mary died.
+
+ Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary,
+ That still kept hoping on,
+ When the trust in God had left my soul,
+ And my arm's young strength was gone;
+ There was comfort even on _your_ lip,
+ And the kind look on your brow--
+ I bless you, Mary, for that same,
+ Though you cannot hear me now.
+
+ I thank you for the patient smile
+ When your heart was fit to break,
+ When the hunger pain was gnawin' there,
+ And you hid it for _my_ sake;
+ I bless you for the pleasant word,
+ When your heart was sad and sore--
+ O! I'm thankful you are gone, Mary,
+ Where grief can't reach you more!
+
+ I'm biddin' you a long farewell,
+ My Mary--kind and true!
+ But I'll not forget _you_, darling,
+ In the land I'm goin' to:
+ They say there's bread and work for all,
+ And the sun shines always there--
+ But I'll not forget old Ireland,
+ Were it fifty times as fair!
+
+ And often in those grand old woods
+ I'll sit and shut my eyes,
+ And my heart will travel back again
+ To the place where Mary lies;
+ And I'll think I see the little stile
+ Where we sat side by side,
+ And the springin' corn, and the bright May morn,
+ When first you were my bride.
+
+ _Lady Dufferin_
+
+
+
+
+THE WELSHMEN OF TIRAWLEY
+
+
+ Scorney Bwee, the Barretts' bailiff, lewd and lame,
+ To lift the Lynott's taxes when he came,
+ Rudely drew a young maid to him!
+ Then the Lynotts rose and slew him,
+ And in Tubber-na-Scorney threw him--
+ Small your blame,
+ Sons of Lynott!
+ Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ Then the Barretts to the Lynotts gave a choice,
+ Saying, 'Hear, ye murderous brood, men and boys,
+ Choose ye now, without delay,
+ Will ye lose your eyesight, say,
+ Or your manhoods, here to-day?
+ Sad your choice,
+ Sons of Lynott!
+ Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ Then the little boys of the Lynotts, weeping, said,
+ 'Only leave us our eyesight in our head.'
+ But the bearded Lynotts then
+ Quickly answered back again,
+ 'Take our eyes, but leave us men,
+ Alive or dead,
+ Sons of Wattin!'
+ Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ So the Barretts with sewing-needles sharp and smooth,
+ Let the light out of the eyes of every youth,
+ And of every bearded man,
+ Of the broken Lynott clan;
+ Then their darkened faces wan
+ Turning south
+ To the river--
+ Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ O'er the slippery stepping-stones of Clochan-na-n'all
+ They drove them, laughing loud at every fall,
+ As their wandering footsteps dark
+ Failed to reach the slippery mark,
+ And the swift stream swallowed stark,
+ One and all
+ As they stumbled--
+ From the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ Of all the blinded Lynotts one alone
+ Walk'd erect from stepping-stone to stone:
+ So back again they brought you,
+ And a second time they wrought you
+ With their needles; but never got you
+ Once to groan,
+ Emon Lynott,
+ For the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ But with prompt-projected footsteps sure as ever,
+ Emon Lynott again cross'd the river.
+ Though Duvowen was rising fast,
+ And the shaking stones o'ercast
+ By cold floods boiling past;
+ Yet you never,
+ Emon Lynott,
+ Faltered once before your foemen of Tirawley.
+
+ But, turning on Ballintubber bank, you stood,
+ And the Barretts thus bespoke o'er the flood--
+ 'O, ye foolish sons of Wattin,
+ Small amends are these you've gotten,
+ For, while Scorna Boy lies rotten,
+ I am good
+ For vengeance!'
+ Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ 'For 'tis neither in eye nor eyesight that a man
+ Bears the fortunes of himself and his clan,
+ But in the manly mind,
+ These darken'd orbs behind,
+ That your needles could never find
+ Though they ran
+ Through my heart-strings!'
+ Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ 'But, little your women's needles do I reck;
+ For the night from heaven never fell so black,
+ But Tirawley, and abroad
+ From the Moy to Cuan-an-fod,
+ I could walk it every sod,
+ Path and track,
+ Ford and togher,
+ Seeking vengeance on you, Barretts of Tirawley!
+
+ 'The night when Dathy O'Dowda broke your camp,
+ What Barrett among you was it held the lamp--
+ Showed the way to those two feet,
+ When through wintry wind and sleet,
+ I guided your blind retreat
+ In the swamp
+ Of Beael-an-asa?
+ O ye vengeance-destined ingrates of Tirawley!'
+
+ So leaving loud-shriek-echoing Garranard,
+ The Lynott like a red dog hunted hard,
+ With his wife and children seven,
+ 'Mong the beasts and fowls of heaven
+ In the hollows of Glen Nephin,
+ Light-debarred,
+ Made his dwelling,
+ Planning vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.
+
+ And ere the bright-orb'd year its course had run,
+ On his brown round-knotted knee he nursed a son,
+ A child of light, with eyes
+ As clear as are the skies
+ In summer, when sunrise
+ Has begun;
+ So the Lynott
+ Nursed his vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.
+
+ And, as ever the bright boy grew in strength and size,
+ Made him perfect in each manly exercise,
+ The salmon in the flood,
+ The dun deer in the wood,
+ The eagle in the cloud
+ To surprise
+ On Ben Nephin,
+ Far above the foggy fields of Tirawley.
+
+ With the yellow-knotted spear-shaft, with the bow,
+ With the steel, prompt to deal shot and blow,
+ He taught him from year to year
+ And train'd him, without a peer,
+ For a perfect cavalier,
+ Hoping so--
+ Far his forethought--
+ For vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.
+
+ And, when mounted on his proud-bounding steed,
+ Emon Oge sat a cavalier indeed;
+ Like the ear upon the wheat
+ When winds in Autumn beat
+ On the bending stems, his seat;
+ And the speed
+ Of his courser
+ Was the wind from Barna-na-gee o'er Tirawley!
+
+ Now when fifteen sunny summers thus were spent,
+ (He perfected in all accomplishment)--
+ The Lynott said, 'My child,
+ We are over long exiled
+ From mankind in this wild--
+ --Time we went
+ Through the mountain
+ To the countries lying over-against Tirawley.'
+
+ So, out over mountain-moors, and mosses brown,
+ And green steam-gathering vales, they journey'd down:
+ Till, shining like a star,
+ Through the dusky gleams afar,
+ The bailey of Castlebar,
+ And the town
+ Of MacWilliam
+ Rose bright before the wanderers of Tirawley.
+
+ 'Look southward, my boy, and tell me as we go,
+ What see'st thou by the loch-head below?'
+ 'O, a stone-house strong and great,
+ And a horse-host at the gate,
+ And a captain in armour of plate--
+ Grand the show!
+ Great the glancing!
+ High the heroes of this land below Tirawley.
+
+ 'And a beautiful Bantierna by his side,
+ Yellow gold on all her gown-sleeves wide;
+ And in her hand a pearl
+ Of a young, little, fair-haired girl.'
+ Said the Lynott, 'It is the Earl!
+ Let us ride
+ To his presence.'
+ And before him came the exiles of Tirawley.
+
+ 'God save thee, MacWilliam,' the Lynott thus began;
+ 'God save all here besides of this clan;
+ For gossips dear to me
+ Are all in company--
+ For in these four bones ye see
+ A kindly man
+ Of the Britons--
+ Emon Lynott of Garranard of Tirawley.
+
+ 'And hither, as kindly gossip-law allows,
+ I come to claim a scion of thy house
+ To foster; for thy race,
+ Since William Conquer's days,
+ Have ever been wont to place,
+ With some spouse
+ Of a Briton,
+ A MacWilliam Oge, to foster in Tirawley.
+
+ 'And to show thee in what sort our youth are taught
+ I have hither to thy home of valour brought
+ This one son of my age,
+ For a sample and a pledge
+ For the equal tutelage,
+ In right thought,
+ Word, and action,
+ Of whatever son ye give into Tirawley.'
+
+ When MacWilliam beheld the brave boy ride and run,
+ Saw the spear-shaft from his white shoulder spun--
+ With a sigh, and with a smile,
+ He said,--'I would give the spoil
+ Of a county, that Tibbot Moyle,
+ My own son,
+ Were accomplish'd
+ Like this branch of the kindly Britons of Tirawley.'
+
+ When the Lady MacWilliam she heard him speak,
+ And saw the ruddy roses on his cheek,
+ She said, 'I would give a purse
+ Of red gold to the nurse
+ That would rear my Tibbot no worse;
+ But I seek
+ Hitherto vainly--
+ Heaven grant that I now have found her in Tirawley!'
+
+ So they said to the Lynott, 'Here, take our bird!
+ And as pledge for the keeping of thy word,
+ Let this scion here remain
+ Till thou comest back again:
+ Meanwhile the fitting train
+ Of a lord
+ Shall attend thee
+ With the lordly heir of Connaught into Tirawley.'
+ So back to strong-throng-gathering Garranard,
+ Like a lord of the country with his guard,
+ Came the Lynott, before them all,
+ Once again over Clochan-na-n'all
+ Steady and striding, erect and tall,
+ And his ward
+ On his shoulders
+ To the wonder of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ Then a diligent foster-father you would deem
+ The Lynott, teaching Tibbot, by mead and stream,
+ To cast the spear, to ride,
+ To stem the rushing tide,
+ With what feats of body beside,
+ Might beseem
+ A MacWilliam,
+ Fostered free among the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ But the lesson of hell he taught him in heart and mind,
+ For to what desire soever he inclined,
+ Of anger, lust, or pride,
+ He had it gratified,
+ Till he ranged the circle wide
+ Of a blind
+ Self-indulgence,
+ Ere he came to youthful manhood in Tirawley.
+
+ Then, even as when a hunter slips a hound,
+ Lynott loosed him--God's leashes all unbound--
+ In the pride of power and station,
+ And the strength of youthful passion,
+ On the daughters of thy nation,
+ All around,
+ Wattin Barrett!
+ O! the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley!
+
+ Bitter grief and burning anger, rage and shame,
+ Filled the houses of the Barretts where'er he came;
+ Till the young men of the Back,
+ Drew by night upon his track,
+ And slew him at Cornassack.
+ Small your blame,
+ Sons of Wattin!
+ Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
+
+ Said the Lynott, 'The day of my vengeance is drawing near,
+ The day for which, through many a long dark year,
+ I have toiled through grief and sin--
+ Call ye now the Brehons in,
+ And let the plea begin
+ Over the bier
+ Of MacWilliam,
+ For an eric upon the Barretts of Tirawley!'
+
+ Then the Brehons to MacWilliam Burke decreed
+ An eric upon Clan Barrett for the deed;
+ And the Lynott's share of the fine,
+ As foster-father, was nine
+ Ploughlands and nine score kine;
+ But no need
+ Had the Lynott,
+ Neither care, for land or cattle in Tirawley.
+
+ But rising, while all sat silent on the spot,
+ He said, 'The law says--doth it not?--
+ If the foster-sire elect
+ His portion to reject,
+ He may then the right exact
+ To applot
+ The short eric.'
+ ''Tis the law,' replied the Brehons of Tirawley.
+
+ Said the Lynott, 'I once before had a choice
+ Proposed me, wherein law had little voice;
+ But now I choose, and say,
+ As lawfully I may,
+ I applot the mulct to-day;
+ So rejoice
+ In your ploughlands
+ And your cattle which I renounce throughout Tirawley.
+
+ 'And thus I applot the mulct: I divide
+ The land throughout Clan Barrett on every side
+ Equally, that no place
+ May be without the face
+ Of a foe of Wattin's race--
+ That the pride
+ Of the Barretts
+ May be humbled hence for ever throughout Tirawley.
+
+ 'I adjudge a seat in every Barrett's hall
+ To MacWilliam: in every stable I give a stall
+ To MacWilliam: and, beside,
+ Whenever a Burke shall ride
+ Through Tirawley, I provide
+ At his call
+ Needful grooming,
+ Without charge from any Brughaidh of Tirawley.
+
+ 'Thus lawfully I avenge me for the throes
+ Ye lawlessly caused me and caused those
+ Unhappy shame-faced ones
+ Who, their mothers expected once,
+ Would have been the sires of sons--
+ O'er whose woes
+ Often weeping,
+ I have groaned in my exile from Tirawley.
+
+ 'I demand not of you your manhoods; but I take--
+ For the Burkes will take it--your Freedom! for the sake
+ Of which all manhood's given
+ And all good under heaven,
+ And, without which, better even
+ You should make
+ Yourselves barren,
+ Than see your children slaves throughout Tirawley!
+
+ 'Neither take I your eyesight from you; as you took
+ Mine and ours: I would have you daily look
+ On one another's eyes
+ When the strangers tyrannize
+ By your hearths, and blushes arise,
+ That ye brook
+ Without vengeance
+ The insults of troops of Tibbots throughout Tirawley!
+
+ 'The vengeance I designed, now is done,
+ And the days of me and mine nearly run--
+ For, for this, I have broken faith,
+ Teaching him who lies beneath
+ This pall, to merit death;
+ And my son
+ To his father
+ Stands pledged for other teaching in Tirawley.'
+
+ Said MacWilliam--'Father and son, hang them high!'
+ And the Lynott they hang'd speedily;
+ But across the salt water,
+ To Scotland, with the daughter
+ Of MacWilliam--well you got her!
+ Did you fly
+ Edmund Lindsay,
+ The gentlest of all the Welshmen of Tirawley!
+
+ 'Tis thus the ancient Ollaves of Erin tell
+ How, through lewdness and revenge, it befell
+ That the sons of William Conquer
+ Came over the sons of Wattin,
+ Throughout all the bounds and borders
+ Of the lands of Auley Mac Fiachra;
+ Till the Saxon Oliver Cromwell,
+ And his valiant, Bible-guided,
+ Free heretics of Clan London
+ Coming in, in their succession,
+ Rooted out both Burke and Barrett,
+ And in their empty places
+ New stems of freedom planted,
+ With many a goodly sapling
+ Of manliness and virtue;
+ Which while their children cherish,
+ Kindly Irish of the Irish,
+ Neither Saxons nor Italians,
+ May the mighty God of Freedom
+ Speed them well,
+ Never taking
+ Further vengeance on his people of Tirawley.
+
+ _Sir Samuel Ferguson_
+
+
+
+
+AIDEEN'S GRAVE
+
+
+ They heaved the stone; they heap'd the cairn.
+ Said Ossian, 'In a queenly grave
+ We leave her, 'mong her fields of fern,
+ Between the cliff and wave.
+
+ 'The cliff behind stands clear and bare,
+ And bare, above, the heathery steep
+ Scales the clear heaven's expanse, to where
+ The Danaan Druids sleep.
+
+ 'And all the sands that, left and right,
+ The grassy isthmus-ridge confine,
+ In yellow bars lie bare and bright
+ Among the sparkling brine.
+
+ 'A clear pure air pervades the scene,
+ In loneliness and awe secure;
+ Meet spot to sepulchre a Queen
+ Who in her life was pure.
+
+ 'Here, far from camp and chase removed,
+ Apart in Nature's quiet room,
+ The music that alive she loved
+ Shall cheer her in the tomb.
+
+ 'The humming of the noontide bees,
+ The lark's loud carol all day long,
+ And, borne on evening's salted breeze,
+ The clanking sea-bird's song,
+
+ 'Shall round her airy chamber float,
+ And with the whispering winds and streams,
+ Attune to Nature's tenderest note
+ The tenor of her dreams.
+
+ 'And oft, at tranquil eve's decline,
+ When full tides lip the Old Green Plain,
+ The lowing of Moynalty's kine
+ Shall round her breathe again.
+
+ 'In sweet remembrance of the days
+ When, duteous, in the lowly vale,
+ Unconscious of my Oscar's gaze,
+ She fill'd the fragrant pail,
+
+ 'And, duteous, from the running brook
+ Drew water for the bath; nor deem'd
+ A king did on her labour look,
+ And she a fairy seem'd.
+
+ 'But when the wintry frosts begin,
+ And in their long-drawn, lofty flight,
+ The wild geese with their airy din
+ Distend the ear of night,
+
+ 'And when the fierce De Danaan ghosts
+ At midnight from their peak come down,
+ When all around the enchanted coasts
+ Despairing strangers drown;
+
+ 'When, mingling with the wreckful wail,
+ From low Clontarf's wave-trampled floor
+ Comes booming up the burthen'd gale
+ The angry Sand-Bull's roar;
+
+ 'Or, angrier than the sea, the shout
+ Of Erin's hosts in wrath combined,
+ When Terror heads Oppression's rout,
+ And Freedom cheers behind:--
+
+ 'Then o'er our lady's placid dream,
+ Where safe from storms she sleeps, may steal
+ Such joy as will not misbeseem
+ A Queen of men to feel:
+
+ 'Such thrill of free, defiant pride,
+ As rapt her in her battle-car
+ At Gavra, when by Oscar's side
+ She rode the ridge of war,
+
+ 'Exulting, down the shouting troops,
+ And through the thick confronting kings,
+ With hands on all their javelin loops
+ And shafts on all their strings;
+
+ 'E'er closed the inseparable crowds,
+ No more to part for me, and show,
+ As bursts the sun through scattering clouds,
+ My Oscar issuing so.
+
+ 'No more, dispelling battle's gloom,
+ Shall son for me from fight return;
+ The great green rath's ten-acred tomb
+ Lies heavy on his urn.
+
+ 'A cup of bodkin-pencill'd clay
+ Holds Oscar; mighty heart and limb
+ One handful now of ashes grey:
+ And she has died for him.
+
+ 'And here, hard by her natal bower
+ On lone Ben Edar's side, we strive
+ With lifted rock and sign of power
+ To keep her name alive.
+
+ 'That while from circling year to year,
+ Her Ogham-letter'd stone is seen,
+ The Gael shall say, "Our Fenians here
+ Entombed their loved Aideen."
+
+ 'The Ogham from her pillar-stone
+ In tract of time will wear away;
+ Her name at last be only known
+ In Ossian's echo'd lay.
+
+ 'The long-forgotten lay I sing
+ May only ages hence revive,
+ (As eagle with a wounded wing
+ To soar again might strive,)
+
+ 'Imperfect, in an alien speech,
+ When, wandering here, some child of chance
+ Through pangs of keen delight shall reach
+ The gift of utterance,--
+
+ 'To speak the air, the sky to speak,
+ The freshness of the hill to tell,
+ Who, roaming bare Ben Edar's peak
+ And Aideen's briary dell,
+
+ 'And gazing on the Cromlech vast,
+ And on the mountain and the sea,
+ Shall catch communion with the past
+ And mix himself with me.
+
+ 'Child of the Future's doubtful night,
+ Whate'er your speech, whoe'er your sires,
+ Sing while you may with frank delight
+ The song your hour inspires.
+
+ 'Sing while you may, nor grieve to know
+ The song you sing shall also die;
+ Atharna's lay has perish'd so,
+ Though once it thrill'd this sky,
+
+ 'Above us, from his rocky chair,
+ There, where Ben Edar's landward crest
+ O'er eastern Bregia bends, to where
+ Dun Almon crowns the west:
+
+ 'And all that felt the fretted air
+ Throughout the song-distempered clime,
+ Did droop, till suppliant Leinster's prayer
+ Appeased the vengeful rhyme.
+
+ 'Ah me, or e'er the hour arrive
+ Shall bid my long-forgotten tones,
+ Unknown One, on your lips revive
+ Here by these moss-grown stones,
+
+ 'What change shall o'er the scene have crossed;
+ What conquering lords anew have come
+ What lore-arm'd, mightier Druid host
+ From Gaul or distant Rome!
+
+ 'What arts of death, what ways of life,
+ What creeds unknown to bard or seer,
+ Shall round your careless steps be rife,
+ Who pause and ponder here;
+
+ 'And, haply, where yon curlew calls
+ Athwart the marsh, 'mid groves and bowers,
+ See rise some mighty chieftain's halls
+ With unimagined towers:
+
+ 'And baying hounds, and coursers bright,
+ And burnish'd cars of dazzling sheen,
+ With courtly train of dame and knight,
+ Where now the fern is green.
+
+ 'Or, by yon prostrate altar-stone
+ May kneel, perchance, and, free from blame,
+ New holy men with rites unknown
+ New names of God proclaim.
+
+ 'Let change as may the Name of Awe,
+ Let right surcease and altar pall,
+ The same One God remains, a law
+ For ever and for all.
+
+ 'Let change as may the face of earth,
+ Let alter all the social frame,
+ For mortal men the warp of birth
+ And death are still the same.
+
+ 'And still, as life and time wear on,
+ The children of the waning days,
+ (Though strength be from their shoulders gone
+ To lift the loads we raise,)
+
+ 'Shall weep to do the burial rites
+ Of lost ones loved; and fondly found,
+ In shadow of the gathering nights,
+ The monumental mound.
+
+ 'Farewell! the strength of men is worn:
+ The night approaches dark and chill:
+ Sleep, till perchance an endless morn
+ Descend the glittering hill.'
+
+ Of Oscar and Aideen bereft,
+ So Ossian's song. The Fenians sped
+ Three mighty shouts to heaven; and left
+ Ben Edar to the dead.
+
+ _Sir Samuel Ferguson_
+
+
+
+
+DEIRDRE'S LAMENT FOR THE SONS OF USNACH
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ The lions of the hill are gone,
+ And I am left alone--alone--
+ Dig the grave both wide and deep,
+ For I am sick, and fain would sleep!
+
+ The falcons of the wood are flown,
+ And I am left alone--alone--
+ Dig the grave both deep and wide,
+ And let us slumber side by side.
+
+ The dragons of the rock are sleeping,
+ Sleep that wakes not for our weeping--
+ Dig the grave, and make it ready,
+ Lay me on my true-love's body.
+
+ Lay their spears and bucklers bright
+ By the warriors' sides aright;
+ Many a day the three before me
+ On their linked bucklers bore me.
+
+ Lay upon the low grave floor,
+ 'Neath each head, the blue claymore;
+ Many a time the noble three
+ Reddened these blue blades for me.
+
+ Lay the collars, as is meet,
+ Of their greyhounds at their feet;
+ Many a time for me have they
+ Brought the tall red deer to bay.
+
+ In the falcon's jesses throw,
+ Hook and arrow, line and bow;
+ Never again, by stream or plain,
+ Shall the gentle woodsmen go.
+
+ Sweet companions, ye were ever--
+ Harsh to me, your sister, never;
+ Woods and wilds, and misty valleys,
+ Were with you as good's a palace.
+
+ O, to hear my true-love singing,
+ Sweet as sound of trumpets ringing;
+ Like the sway of ocean swelling
+ Rolled his deep voice round our dwelling.
+
+ O! to hear the echoes pealing
+ Round our green and fairy sheeling,
+ When the three, with soaring chorus,
+ Passed the silent skylark o'er us.
+
+ Echo now, sleep, morn and even--
+ Lark alone enchant the heaven!
+ Ardan's lips are scant of breath,
+ Neesa's tongue is cold in death.
+
+ Stag, exult on glen and mountain--
+ Salmon, leap from loch to fountain--
+ Heron, in the free air warm ye--
+ Usnach's sons no more will harm ye!
+
+ Erin's stay no more you are,
+ Rulers of the ridge of war;
+ Never more 'twill be your fate
+ To keep the beam of battle straight!
+
+ Woe is me! by fraud and wrong,
+ Traitors false and tyrants strong,
+ Fell Clan Usnach, bought and sold,
+ For Barach's feast and Conor's gold!
+
+ Woe to Eman, roof and wall!
+ Woe to Red Branch, hearth and hall!
+ Tenfold woe and black dishonour
+ To the foul and false Clan Conor!
+
+ Dig the grave both wide and deep,
+ Sick I am, and fain would sleep!
+ Dig the grave and make it ready,
+ Lay me on my true-love's body.
+
+ _Sir Samuel Ferguson_
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIR HILLS OF IRELAND
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer,
+ _Uileacan dubh O!_
+ Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley ear;
+ _Uileacan dubh O!_
+ There is honey in the trees where her misty vales expand,
+ And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fanned;
+ There is dew at high noontide there, and springs i' the yellow sand,
+ On the fair hills of holy Ireland.
+
+ Curled he is and ringleted, and plaited to the knee,
+ _Uileacan dubh O!_
+ Each captain who comes sailing across the Irish sea;
+ _Uileacan dubh O!_
+ And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,
+ Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,
+ And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command,
+ For the fair hills of holy Ireland.
+
+ Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground;
+ _Uileacan dubh O!_
+ The butter and the cream do wondrously abound,
+ _Uileacan dubh O!_
+ The cresses on the water and the sorrels are at hand,
+ And the cuckoo's calling daily his note of music bland,
+ And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song 'i the forest grand,
+ On the fair hills of holy Ireland.
+
+ _Sir Samuel Ferguson_
+
+
+
+
+LAMENT OVER THE RUINS OF THE ABBEY OF TIMOLEAGUE
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ Lone and weary as I wander'd by the bleak shore of the sea,
+ Meditating and reflecting on the world's hard destiny,
+ Forth the moon and stars 'gan glimmer, in the quiet tide beneath,
+ For on slumbering spring and blossom breathed not out of
+ heaven a breath.
+
+ On I went in sad dejection, careless where my footsteps bore,
+ Till a ruined church before me opened wide its ancient door,--
+ Till I stood before the portals, where of old were wont to be,
+ For the blind, the halt, and leper, alms and hospitality.
+
+ Still the ancient seat was standing, built against the buttress
+ grey,
+ Where the clergy used to welcome weary trav'llers on their way;
+ There I sat me down in sadness, 'neath my cheek I placed my hand,
+ Till the tears fell hot and briny down upon the grassy land.
+
+ There, I said in woful sorrow, weeping bitterly the while,
+ Was a time when joy and gladness reigned within this ruined pile;--
+ Was a time when bells were tinkling, clergy preaching peace abroad,
+ Psalms a-singing, music ringing praises to the mighty God.
+
+ Empty aisle, deserted chancel, tower tottering to your fall,
+ Many a storm since then has beaten on the grey head of your wall!
+ Many a bitter storm and tempest has your roof-tree turned away,
+ Since you first were formed a temple to the Lord of night and day.
+
+ Holy house of ivied gables, that were once the country's boast,
+ Houseless now in weary wandering are you scattered, saintly host;
+ Lone you are to-day, and dismal,--joyful psalms no more are heard,
+ Where, within your choir, her vesper screeches the cat-headed bird.
+
+ Ivy from your eaves is growing, nettles round your green
+ hearth-stone,
+ Foxes howl, where, in your corners, dropping waters make their moan.
+ Where the lark to early matins used your clergy forth to call,
+ There, alas! no tongue is stirring, save the daw's upon the wall.
+
+ Refectory cold and empty, dormitory bleak and bare,
+ Where are now your pious uses, simple bed and frugal fare?
+ Gone your abbot, rule and order, broken down your altar stones;
+ Nought see I beneath your shelter, save a heap of clayey bones.
+
+ O! the hardship, O! the hatred, tyranny, and cruel war,
+ Persecution and oppression, that have left you as you are!
+ I myself once also prosper'd;--mine is, too, an alter'd plight;
+ Trouble, care, and age have left me good for nought but grief
+ to-night.
+
+ Gone my motion and my vigour--gone the use of eye and ear,
+ At my feet lie friends and children, powerless and corrupting here;
+ Woe is written on my visage, in a nut my heart could lie--
+ Death's deliverance were welcome--Father, let the old man die.
+
+ _Sir Samuel Ferguson_
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIRY WELL OF LAGNANAY
+
+
+ Mournfully, sing mournfully--
+ 'O listen, Ellen, sister dear:
+ Is there no help at all for me,
+ But only ceaseless sigh and tear?
+ Why did not he who left me here,
+ With stolen hope steal memory?
+ O listen, Ellen, sister dear,
+ (Mournfully, sing mournfully)--
+ I'll go away to Slemish hill,
+ I'll pluck the fairy hawthorn-tree,
+ And let the spirits work their will;
+ I care not if for good or ill,
+ So they but lay the memory
+ Which all my heart is haunting still!
+ (Mournfully, sing mournfully)--
+ The Fairies are a silent race,
+ And pale as lily flowers to see:
+ I care not for a blanched face,
+ Nor wandering in a dreaming place,
+ So I but banish memory:--
+ I wish I were with Anna Grace!'
+ Mournfully, sing mournfully!
+
+ Hearken to my tale of woe--
+ 'Twas thus to weeping Ellen Con,
+ Her sister said in accents low,
+ Her only sister, Una bawn:
+ 'Twas in their bed before the dawn,
+ And Ellen answered sad and slow,--
+ 'O Una, Una, be not drawn
+ (Hearken to my tale of woe)--
+ To this unholy grief I pray,
+ Which makes me sick at heart to know,
+ And I will help you if I may:
+ --The Fairy Well of Lagnanay--
+ Lie nearer me, I tremble so,--
+ Una, I've heard wise women say
+ (Hearken to my tale of woe)--
+ That if before the dews arise,
+ True maiden in its icy flow
+ With pure hand bathe her bosom thrice,
+ Three lady-brackens pluck likewise,
+ And three times round the fountain go,
+ She straight forgets her tears and sighs.'
+ Hearken to my tale of woe!
+
+ All, alas! and well-away!
+ 'O, sister Ellen, sister sweet,
+ Come with me to the hill I pray,
+ And I will prove that blessed freet!'
+ They rose with soft
+ They left their mother where she lay,
+ Their mother and her care discreet,
+ (All, alas! and well-away!)
+ And soon they reached the Fairy Well,
+ The mountain's eye, clear, cold, and grey,
+ Wide open in the dreary fell:
+ How long they stood 'twere vain to tell,
+ At last upon the point of day,
+ Bawn Una bares her bosom's swell,
+ (All, alas! and well-away!)
+ Thrice o'er her shrinking breasts she laves
+ The gliding glance that will not stay
+ Of subtly-streaming fairy waves:--
+ And now the charm three brackens craves,
+ She plucks them in their fring'd array:--
+ Now round the well her fate she braves,
+ All, alas! and well-away!
+
+ Save us all from Fairy thrall!
+ Ellen sees her face the rim
+ Twice and thrice, and that is all--
+ Fount and hill and maiden swim
+ All together melting dim!
+ 'Una! Una!' thou may'st call,
+ Sister sad! but lith or limb
+ (Save us all from Fairy thrall!)
+ Never again of Una bawn,
+ Where now she walks in dreamy hall,
+ Shall eyes of mortal look upon!
+ O! can it be the guard was gone,
+ That better guard than shield or wall?
+ Who knows on earth save Jurlagh Daune?
+ (Save us all from Fairy thrall!)
+ Behold the banks are green and bare,
+ No pit is here wherein to fall:
+ Aye--at the fount you well may stare,
+ But nought save pebbles smooth is there,
+ And small straws twirling one and all.
+ Hie thee home, and be thy prayer,
+ Save us all from Fairy thrall.
+
+ _Sir Samuel Ferguson_
+
+
+
+
+ON THE DEATH OF THOMAS DAVIS
+
+
+ I walked through Ballinderry in the Spring-time,
+ When the bud was on the tree;
+ And I said, in every fresh-ploughed field beholding
+ The sowers striding free,
+ Scattering broad-cast forth the corn in golden plenty
+ On the quick seed-clasping soil,
+ Even such, this day, among the fresh-stirred hearts of Erin,
+ Thomas Davis, is thy toil!
+
+ I sat by Ballyshannon in the summer,
+ And saw the salmon leap;
+ And I said, as I beheld the gallant creatures
+ Spring glittering from the deep,
+ Through the spray, and through the prone heaps striving onward
+ To the calm clear streams above,
+ So seekest thou thy native founts of freedom, Thomas Davis,
+ In thy brightness of strength and love!
+
+ I stood on Derrybawn in the Autumn,
+ I heard the eagle call,
+ With a clangorous cry of wrath and lamentation
+ That filled the wide mountain hall,
+ O'er the bare deserted place of his plundered eyrie;
+ And I said, as he screamed and soared,
+ So callest thou, thou wrathful-soaring Thomas Davis,
+ For a nation's rights restored!
+
+ And, alas! to think but now, and thou art lying,
+ Dear Davis, dead at thy mother's knee;
+ And I, no mother near, on my own sick-bed,
+ That face on earth shall never see:
+ I may lie and try to feel that I am not dreaming,
+ I may lie and try to say 'Thy will be done'--
+ But a hundred such as I will never comfort Erin
+ For the loss of the noble son!
+
+ Young husbandman of Erin's fruitful seed-time,
+ In the fresh track of danger's plough!
+ Who will walk the heavy, toilsome, perilous furrow
+ Girt with freedom's seed-sheets now?
+ Who will banish with the wholesome crop of knowledge
+ The flaunting weed and the bitter thorn,
+ Now that thou thyself art but a seed for hopeful planting
+ Against the resurrection morn?
+
+ Young salmon of the flood-time of freedom
+ That swells round Erin's shore!
+ Thou wilt leap against their loud oppressive torrent
+ Of bigotry and hate no more:
+ Drawn downward by their prone material instinct,
+ Let them thunder on their rocks and foam--
+ Thou hast leapt, aspiring soul, to founts beyond their raging,
+ Where troubled waters never come!
+
+ But I grieve not, eagle of the empty eyrie,
+ That thy wrathful cry is still;
+ And that the songs alone of peaceful mourners
+ Are heard to-day on Erin's hill;
+ Better far, if brothers' war be destined for us
+ (God avert that horrid day I pray!)
+ That ere our hands be stained with slaughter fratricidal
+ Thy warm heart should be cold in clay.
+
+ But my trust is strong in God, who made us brothers,
+ That He will not suffer those right hands
+ Which thou hast joined in holier rites than wedlock,
+ To draw opposing brands.
+ O, many a tuneful tongue that thou madest vocal
+ Would lie cold and silent then;
+ And songless long once more, should often-widowed Erin
+ Mourn the loss of her brave young men.
+
+ O, brave young men, my love, my pride, my promise,
+ 'Tis on you my hopes are set,
+ In manliness, in kindliness, in justice,
+ To make Erin a nation yet:
+ Self-respecting, self-relying, self-advancing,
+ In union or in severance, free and strong--
+ And if God grant this, then, under God, to Thomas Davis
+ Let the greater praise belong.
+
+ _Sir Samuel Ferguson_
+
+
+
+
+THE COUNTY OF MAYO
+
+_From the Irish of Thomas Lavelle_
+
+
+ On the deck of Patrick Lynch's boat I sat in woful plight,
+ Through my sighing all the weary day, and weeping all the night;
+ Were it not that full of sorrow from my people forth I go,
+ By the blessed sun! 'tis royally I'd sing thy praise, Mayo!
+
+ When I dwelt at home in plenty, and my gold did much abound,
+ In the company of fair young maids the Spanish ale went round--
+ 'Tis a bitter change from those gay days that now I'm forced to go,
+ And must leave my bones in Santa Cruz, far from my own Mayo.
+
+ They are altered girls in Irrul now; 'tis proud they're grown
+ and high,
+ With their hair-bags and their top-knots, for I pass their
+ buckles by--
+ But it's little now I heed their airs, for God will have it so,
+ That I must depart for foreign lands, and leave my sweet Mayo.
+
+ 'Tis my grief that Patrick Loughlin is not Earl of Irrul still,
+ And that Brian Duff no longer rules as Lord upon the hill:
+ And that Colonel Hugh MacGrady should be lying dead and low,
+ And I sailing, sailing swiftly from the county of Mayo.
+
+ _George Fox_
+
+
+
+
+THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS
+
+_A Girl's Babble_
+
+
+ I go to knit two clans together;
+ Our clan and this clan unseen of yore:--
+ Our clan fears nought! but I go, O whither?
+ This day I go from my mother's door.
+
+ Thou, red-breast, singest the old song over,
+ Though many a time thou hast sung it before;
+ They never sent thee to some strange new lover:--
+ I sing a new song by my mother's door.
+
+ I stepped from my little room down by the ladder,
+ The ladder that never so shook before;
+ I was sad last night; to-day I am sadder,
+ Because I go from my mother's door.
+
+ The last snow melts upon bush and bramble;
+ The gold bars shine on the forest's floor;
+ Shake not, thou leaf! it is I must tremble
+ Because I go from my mother's door.
+
+ From a Spanish sailor a dagger I bought me;
+ I trailed a rose-tree our grey bawn o'er;
+ The creed and my letters our old bard taught me;
+ My days were sweet by my mother's door.
+
+ My little white goat that with raised feet huggest
+ The oak stock, thy horns in the ivies frore,
+ Could I wrestle like thee--how the wreaths thou tuggest!--
+ I never would move from my mother's door.
+
+ O weep no longer, my nurse and mother!
+ My foster-sister, weep not so sore!
+ You cannot come with me, Ir, my brother--
+ Alone I go from my mother's door.
+
+ Farewell, my wolf-hound that slew MacOwing
+ As he caught me and far through the thickets bore:
+ My heifer, Alb, in the green vale lowing,
+ My cygnet's nest upon Lorna's shore!
+
+ He has killed ten chiefs, this chief that plights me,
+ His hand is like that of the giant Balor;
+ But I fear his kiss, and his beard affrights me,
+ And the great stone dragon above his door.
+
+ Had I daughters nine, with me they should tarry;
+ They should sing old songs; they should dance at my door;
+ They should grind at the quern;--no need to marry;
+ O when will this marriage-day be o'er?
+
+ Had I buried, like Moirin, three mates already,
+ I might say: 'Three husbands! then why not four?'
+ But my hand is cold and my foot unsteady,
+ Because I never was married before!
+
+ _Aubrey de Vere_
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE BLACK ROSE
+
+
+ The Little Black Rose shall be red at last;
+ What made it black but the March wind dry,
+ And the tear of the widow that fell on it fast?
+ It shall redden the hills when June is nigh.
+
+ The Silk of the Kine shall rest at last;
+ What drove her forth but the dragon-fly?
+ In the golden vale she shall feed full fast,
+ With her mild gold horn and her slow, dark eye.
+
+ The wounded wood-dove lies dead at last!
+ The pine long bleeding, it shall not die!
+ This song is secret. Mine ear it passed
+ In a wind o'er the plains at Athenry.
+
+ _Aubrey de Vere_
+
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+ She says: 'Poor Friend, you waste a treasure
+ Which you can ne'er regain--
+ Time, health, and glory, for the pleasure
+ Of toying with a chain.'
+ But then her voice so tender grows,
+ So kind and so caressing;
+ Each murmur from her lips that flows
+ Comes to me like a blessing.
+
+ Sometimes she says: 'Sweet Friend, I grieve you--
+ Alas, it gives me pain!
+ What can I? Ah, might I relieve you,
+ You ne'er had mourned in vain!'
+ And then her little hand she presses
+ Upon her heart, and sighs;
+ While tears, whose source not yet she guesses,
+ Grow larger in her eyes.
+
+ _Aubrey de Vere_
+
+
+
+
+THE BARD ETHELL
+
+_Ireland in the Thirteenth Century_
+
+
+ I am Ethell, the son of Conn:
+ Here I bide at the foot of the hill:
+ I am clansman to Brian, and servant to none:
+ Whom I hated, I hate: whom I loved, I love still.
+ Blind am I. On milk I live,
+ And meat, God sends it, on each Saint's Day;
+ Though Donald Mac Art--may he never thrive--
+ Last Shrovetide drove half my kine away.
+
+ At the brown hill's base by the pale blue lake
+ I dwell and see the things I saw:
+ The heron flap heavily up from the brake;
+ The crow fly homeward with twig or straw
+ The wild duck a silver line in wake
+ Cutting the calm mere to far Bunaw.
+ And the things that I heard, though deaf, I hear,
+ From the tower in the island the feastful cheer;
+ The horn from the wood; the plunge of the stag,
+ With the loud hounds after him down from the crag.
+ Sweet is the chase, but the battle is sweeter,
+ More healthy, more joyous, for true men meeter!
+
+ My hand is weak! it once was strong:
+ My heart burns still with its ancient fire.
+ If any man smites me he does me wrong,
+ For I was the bard of Brian Mac Guire.
+ If any man slay me--not unaware,
+ By no chance blow, nor in wine and revel,
+ I have stored beforehand, a curse in my prayer
+ For his kith and kindred; his deed is evil.
+
+ There never was king, and never will be,
+ In battle or banquet like Malachi!
+ The seers his reign had predicted long;
+ He honoured the bards, and gave gold for song.
+ If rebels arose, he put out their eyes;
+ If robbers plundered or burned the fanes,
+ He hung them in chaplets, like rosaries,
+ That others beholding might take more pains!
+ There was none to women more reverent-minded,
+ For he held his mother, and Mary, dear;
+ If any man wronged them, that man he blinded,
+ Or straight amerced him of hand or ear.
+ There was none who founded more convents--none;
+ In his palace the old and poor were fed;
+ The orphan might walk, or the widow's son,
+ Without groom or page to his throne or bed.
+ In his council he mused, with great brows divine,
+ And eyes like the eyes of the musing kine,
+ Upholding a sceptre o'er which men said,
+ Seven spirits of wisdom like fire-tongues played.
+ He drained ten lakes, and he built ten bridges;
+ He bought a gold book for a thousand cows;
+ He slew ten princes who brake their pledges;
+ With the bribed and the base he scorned to carouse.
+ He was sweet and awful; through all his reign
+ God gave great harvests to vale and plain;
+ From his nurse's milk he was kind and brave;
+ And when he went down to his well-wept grave,
+ Through the triumph of penance his soul arose
+ To God and the saints. Not so his foes.
+
+ The King that came after, ah woe, woe, woe!
+ He doubted his friend, and he trusted his foe,
+ He bought and he sold: his kingdom old
+ He pledged and pawned, to avenge a spite:
+ No Bard or prophet his birth foretold:
+ He was guarded and warded both day and night:
+ He counselled with fools and had boors at his feast:
+ He was cruel to Christian and kind to beast:
+ Men smiled when they talked of him far o'er the wave:
+ Well paid were the mourners that wept at his grave.
+ God plagued for his sake his people sore:
+ They sinned; for the people should watch and pray,
+ That their prayers like angels at window and door,
+ May keep from the King the bad thought away!
+
+ The sun has risen: on lip and brow,
+ He greets me--I feel it--with golden wand:
+ Ah, bright-faced Norna! I see thee now:
+ Where first I saw thee I see thee stand!
+ From the trellis the girl looked down on me:
+ Her maidens stood near; it was late in spring;
+ The grey priest laughed, as she cried in glee,
+ 'Good Bard, a song in my honour sing.'
+ I sang her praise in a loud-voiced hymn,
+ To God who had fashioned her face and limb,
+ For the praise of the clan, and the land's behoof:
+ So she flung me a flower from the trellis roof.
+ Ere long I saw her the hill descending,
+ O'er the lake the May morning rose moist and slow,
+ She prayed me, her smile with the sweet voice blending,
+ To teach her all that a woman should know.
+ Panting she stood; she was out of breath;
+ The wave of her little breast was shaking;
+ From eyes still childish, and dark as death,
+ Came womanhood's dawn through a dew-cloud breaking.
+ Norna was never long time the same;
+ By a spirit so strong was her slight form moulded,
+ The curves swelled out from the flower-like frame
+ In joy; in grief to a bud she folded:
+ As she listened, her eyes grew bright and large,
+ Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge.
+ So I taught her the hymn of Patrick the Apostle,
+ And the marvels of Bridget and Columbkille;
+ Ere long she sang like the lark or the throstle,
+ Sang the deeds of the servants of God's high will:
+ I told her of Brendan, who found afar
+ Another world 'neath the western star;
+ Of our three great bishops in Lindisfarne isle;
+ Of St. Fursey the wondrous, Fiacre without guile;
+ Of Sedulius, hymn-maker when hymns were rare;
+ Of Scotus the subtle, who clove a hair
+ Into sixty parts, and had marge to spare.
+ To her brother I spake of Oisin and Fionn,
+ And they wept at the death of great Oisin's son.
+ I taught the heart of the boy to revel
+ In tales of old greatness that never tire;
+ And the virgin's, up-springing from earth's low level,
+ To wed with heaven like the altar fire.
+ I taught her all that a woman should know,
+ And that none should teach her worse lore, I gave her
+ A dagger keen, and taught her the blow
+ That subdues the knave to discreet behaviour.
+ A sand-stone there on my knee she set,
+ And sharpened its point--I can see her yet
+ I held back her hair and she sharpen'd the edge,
+ While the wind piped low through the reeds and sedge.
+
+ She died in the convent on Ina's height:--
+ I saw her the day that she took the veil:
+ As slender she stood as the Paschal light,
+ As tall and slender and bright and pale!
+ I saw her: and dropped as dead: bereaven
+ Is earth when her holy ones leave her for heaven.
+ Her brother fell in the fight at Begh,
+ May they plead for me both on my dying day!
+
+ All praise to the man who brought us the Faith!
+ 'Tis a staff by day and our pillow in death!
+ All praise I say to that blessed youth,
+ Who heard in a dream from Tyrawley's strand
+ That wail, 'Put forth o'er the sea thy hand:
+ In the dark we die: give us hope and Truth!'
+ But Patrick built not on Iorras' shore
+ That convent where now the Franciscans dwell:
+ Columba was mighty in prayer and war:
+ But the young monk preaches as loud as his bell,
+ That love must rule all, and all wrongs be forgiven,
+ Or else he is sure we shall reach not heaven!
+ This doctrine I count right cruel and hard,
+ And when I am laid in the old churchyard,
+ The habit of Francis I will not wear:
+ Nor wear I his cord or his cloth of hair
+ In secret. Men dwindle: till psalm and prayer
+ Had softened the land no Dane dwelt there!
+
+ I forgive old Cathbar who sank my boat:
+ Must I pardon Feargal who slew my son:
+ Or the pirate, Strongbow, who burned Granote,
+ They tell me, and in it nine priests, a nun,
+ And worse--St. Finian's old crozier staff?
+ At forgiveness like that, I spit and laugh!
+ My chief in his wine-cups forgave twelve men:
+ And of these a dozen rebelled again.
+ There never was chief more brave than he!
+ The night he was born Loch Gar up-burst:
+ He was bard-loving, gift-making, fond of glee,
+ The last to fly, to advance the first.
+ He was like the top spray upon Uladh's oak,
+ He was like the tap-root of Argial's pine:
+ He was secret and sudden: as lightning his stroke:
+ There was none that could fathom his hid design.
+ He slept not: if any man scorned his alliance
+ He struck the first blow for a frank defiance,
+ With that look in his face, half night, half light,
+ Like the lake just blackened yet ridged with white!
+ There were comely wonders before he died:
+ The eagle barked, and the Banshee cried,
+ The witch-elm wept with a blighted bud,
+ The spray of the torrent was red with blood:
+ The chief returned from the mountains bound,
+ Forgot to ask after Bran his hound.
+ We knew he would die: three days were o'er,
+ He died. We _waked_ him for three days more:
+ One by one, upon brow and breast,
+ The whole clan kissed him: In peace may he rest!
+
+ I sang his dirge, I could sing that time
+ Four thousand staves of ancestral rhyme:
+ To-day I can scarcely sing the half:
+ Of old I was corn, and I now am chaff!
+ My song to-day is a breeze that shakes
+ Feebly the down on the cygnet's breast;
+ 'Twas then a billow the beach that rakes,
+ Or a storm that buffets the mountain's crest.
+ Whatever I bit with a venomed song,
+ Grew sick, were it beast, or tree, or man:
+ The wronged one sued me to right his wrong
+ With the flail of the Satire and fierce Ode's fan.
+ I sang to the chieftains: each stock I traced,
+ Lest lines should grow tangled through fraud or haste.
+ To princes I sang in a loftier tone
+ Of Moran the just who refused a throne;
+ Of Moran, whose torque would close, and choke
+ The wry-necked witness that falsely spoke.
+ I taught them how to win love and hate,
+ Not love from all; and to shun debate.
+ To maids in the bower I sang of love:
+ And of war at the feastings in bawn or grove.
+
+ Great is our Order: but greater far
+ Were its pomp and power in the days of old,
+ When the five Chief Bards in peace or war
+ Had thirty bards each in his train enrolled:
+ When Ollave Fodla in Tara's hall
+ Fed bards and kings; when the boy King Nial
+ Was trained by Torna; when Britain and Gaul
+ Sent crowns of laurel to Dallan Forgial.
+ To-day we can launch the clans into fight;
+ That day we could freeze them in mid career!
+ Whatever man knows was our realm by right:
+ The lore without music no Gael would hear.
+ Old Cormac the brave blind king was bard
+ Ere fame rose yet of O'Daly and Ward.
+ The son of Milesius was bard--'Go back
+ My People,' he sang, 'ye have done a wrong!
+ Nine waves go back o'er the green sea track,
+ Let your foes their castles and coasts make strong.
+ To the island you came by stealth and at night:
+ She is ours if we win her, in all men's sight;'
+ For that first song's sake let our bards hold fast
+ To Truth and Justice from first to last!
+ 'Tis over! some think we erred through pride,
+ Though Columba the vengeance turned aside.
+ Too strong we were not: too rich we were:
+ Give wealth to knaves: 'tis the true man's snare.
+
+ But now men lie: they are just no more;
+ They forsake the old ways; they quest for new;
+ They pry and they snuff after strange false lore,
+ As dogs hunt vermin: it never was true:--
+ I have scorned it for twenty years--this babble,
+ That eastward and southward, a Saxon rabble
+ Have won great battles and rule large lands,
+ And plight with daughters of ours their hands.
+ We know the bold Norman o'erset their throne
+ Long since. Our lands! let them guard their own.
+
+ How long He leaves me--the great God--here!
+ Have I sinned some sin, or has God forgotten?
+ This year, I think, is my hundredth year;
+ I am like a bad apple unripe and rotten!
+ They shall lift me ere long, they shall lay me--the clan,--
+ By the strength of men on Mount Cruachan!
+ God has much to think of! How much He hath seen,
+ And how much is gone by that once hath been!
+ On sandy hills where the rabbits burrow,
+ Are Raths of Kings' men, named not now;
+ On mountain-tops I have tracked the furrow,
+ And found in forests the buried plough.
+ For one now living the strong land then
+ Gave kindly food and raiment to ten.
+ No doubt they waxed proud and their God defied:
+ So their harvest He blighted and burned their hoard;
+ Or He sent them plagues, or He sent the sword,
+ Or He sent them lightning and so they died,
+ Like Dathi the King on the dark Alp's side.
+ Ah me! that man who is made of dust,
+ Should have pride towards God! 'Tis a demon's spleen!
+ I have often feared lest God the All-just,
+ Should bend from heaven and sweep earth clean:
+ Should sweep us all into corners and holes,
+ Like dust of the house-floor both bodies and souls!
+ I have often feared He would send some wind
+ In wrath; and the nation wake up stone blind.
+ In age or in youth we have all wrought ill:
+ I say not our great King Nial did well,
+ Although he was Lord of the Pledges Nine,
+ Where besides subduing this land of Eire,
+ He raised in Armorica banner and sign,
+ And wasted the British coast with fire.
+ Perhaps in His mercy the Lord will say,
+ 'These men, God's help, 'twas a rough boy-play!'
+ He is certain, that young Franciscan Priest--
+ God sees great sin where men see least;
+ Yet this were to give unto God the eye--
+ Unmeet the thought, of the humming fly!
+ I trust there are small things He scorns to see
+ In the lowly who cry to Him piteously.
+ Our hope is Christ: I have wept full oft,
+ He came not to Eire in Oisin's time;
+ Though love and those new monks would make men soft,
+ If they were not hardened by war and rhyme.
+ I have done my part: my end draws nigh:
+ I shall leave old Eire with a smile and sigh,
+ She will miss me not as I missed my son,
+ Yet for her and her praise were my best deeds done.
+ Man's deeds! Man's deeds! they are shades that fleet,
+ Or ripples like those that break at my feet.
+ The deeds of my chief and the deeds of my king
+ Grow hazy, far seen, in the hills in spring.
+ Nothing is great save the death on the cross!
+ But Pilate and Herod I hate, and know
+ Had Fionn lived then he had laid them low,
+ Though the world thereby had sustained great loss.
+ My blindness and deafness and aching back
+ With meekness I bear for that suffering's sake;
+ And the Lent-fast for Mary's sake I love,
+ And the honour of Him, the Man Above!
+ My songs are all over now:--so best!
+ They are laid in the heavenly Singer's breast,
+ Who never sings but a star is born:
+ May we hear His song in the endless morn!
+ I give glory to God for our battles won
+ By wood or river, on bay or creek:
+ For Norna--who died; for my father, Conn:
+ For feasts, and the chase on the mountains bleak:
+ I bewail my sins, both unknown and known,
+ And of those I have injured forgiveness seek.
+ The men that were wicked to me and mine
+ (Not quenching a wrong, nor in war nor wine),
+ I forgive and absolve them all, save three:
+ May Christ in His mercy be kind to me!
+
+ _Aubrey de Vere_
+
+
+
+
+LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF EOGHAN RUADH O'NEILL
+
+
+ 'Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill?'
+ 'Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel.'
+ 'May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow!
+ May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh!
+
+ 'Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words.'
+ 'From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords:
+ But the weapon of the Sassanach met him on his way,
+ And he died at Cloch Uachtar, upon St. Leonard's day.
+
+ 'Wail, wail ye for the Mighty One! Wail, wail ye for the Dead!
+ Quench the hearth, and hold the breath--with ashes strew the head.
+ How tenderly we loved him! How deeply we deplore!
+ Holy Saviour! but to think we shall never see him more!
+
+ 'Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall,
+ Sure we never won a battle--'twas Owen won them all.
+ Had he lived--had he lived--our dear country had been free;
+ But he's dead, but he's dead, and 'tis slaves we'll ever be.
+
+ 'O'Farrell and Clanricarde, Preston and Red Hugh,
+ Audley and MacMahon--ye are valiant, wise, and true;
+ But--what are ye all to our darling who is gone?
+ The Rudder of our Ship was he, our Castle's corner stone!
+
+ 'Wail, wail him through the Island! Weep, weep for our pride!
+ Would that on the battle-field our gallant chief had died!
+ Weep the Victor of Beinn Burb--weep him, young and old;
+ Weep for him, ye women--your Beautiful lies cold!
+
+ 'We thought you would not die--we were sure you would not go,
+ And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's cruel blow--
+ Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky--
+ O! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die?
+
+ 'Soft as woman's was your voice, O'Neill! bright was your eye,
+ O! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die?
+ Your troubles are all over, you're at rest with God on high,
+ But we're slaves, and we're orphans, Eoghan!--why did you die?'
+
+ _Thomas Davis_
+
+
+
+
+MAIRE BHAN ASTOR
+
+
+ In a valley far away,
+ With my _Maire bhan astor_,
+ Short would be the summer-day,
+ Ever loving more and more;
+ Winter days would all grow long,
+ With the light her heart would pour,
+ With her kisses and her song,
+ And her loving _mait go leor_.
+ Fond is _Maire bhan astor_,
+ Fair is _Maire bhan astor_,
+ Sweet as ripple on the shore,
+ Sings my _Maire bhan astor_.
+
+ O! her sire is very proud,
+ And her mother cold as stone;
+ But her brother bravely vowed
+ She should be my bride alone;
+ For he knew I loved her well,
+ And he knew she loved me too,
+ So he sought their pride to quell,
+ But 'twas all in vain to sue.
+ True is _Maire bhan astor_,
+ Tried is _Maire bhan astor_,
+ Had I wings I'd never soar
+ From my _Maire bhan astor_.
+
+ There are lands where manly toil
+ Surely reaps the crop it sows,
+ Glorious woods and teeming soil,
+ Where the broad Missouri flows:
+ Through the trees the smoke shall rise,
+ From our hearth with _mait go leor_,
+ There shall shine the happy eyes
+ Of my _Maire bhan astor_.
+ Mild is _Maire bhan astor_,
+ Mine is _Maire bhan astor_,
+ Saints will watch about the door
+ Of my _Maire bhan astor_.
+
+ _Thomas Davis_
+
+
+
+
+O! THE MARRIAGE
+
+AIR--_The Swaggering Jig_
+
+
+ O! the marriage, the marriage,
+ With love and _mo bhuachaill_ for me,
+ The ladies that ride in a carriage
+ Might envy my marriage to me;
+ For Eoghan is straight as a tower,
+ And tender and loving and true,
+ He told me more love in an hour
+ Than the Squires of the county could do.
+ Then, O! the marriage, etc.
+
+ His hair is a shower of soft gold,
+ His eye is as clear as the day,
+ His conscience and vote were unsold
+ When others were carried away;
+ His word is as good as an oath,
+ And freely 'twas given to me;
+ O! sure 'twill be happy for both
+ The day of our marriage to see.
+ Then, O! the marriage, etc.
+
+ His kinsmen are honest and kind,
+ The neighbours think much of his skill,
+ And Eoghan's the lad to my mind,
+ Though he owns neither castle nor mill.
+ But he has a tilloch of land,
+ A horse, and a stocking of coin,
+ A foot for a dance, and a hand
+ In the cause of his country to join.
+ Then, O! the marriage, etc.
+
+ We meet in the market and fair--
+ We meet in the morning and night--
+ He sits on the half of my chair,
+ And my people are wild with delight.
+ Yet I long through the winter to skim,
+ Though Eoghan longs more, I can see,
+ When I will be married to him,
+ And he will be married to me.
+ Then, O! the marriage, the marriage,
+ With love and _mo bhuachaill_ for me,
+ The ladies that ride in a carriage
+ Might envy my marriage to me.
+
+ _Thomas Davis_
+
+
+
+
+A PLEA FOR LOVE
+
+
+ The summer brook flows in the bed,
+ The winter torrent tore asunder;
+ The skylark's gentle wings are spread
+ Where walk the lightning and the thunder;
+ And thus you'll find the sternest soul
+ The gayest tenderness concealing,
+ And minds that seem to mock control,
+ Are ordered by some fairy feeling.
+
+ Then, maiden! start not from the hand
+ That's hardened by the swaying sabre--
+ The pulse beneath may be as bland
+ As evening after day of labour:
+ And, maiden! start not from the brow
+ That thought has knit, and passion darkened--
+ In twilight hours, 'neath forest bough,
+ The tenderest tales are often hearkened.
+
+ _Thomas Davis_
+
+
+
+
+REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+ Cold in the earth--and the deep snow piled above thee,
+ Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
+ Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
+ Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?
+
+ Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
+ Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
+ Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
+ Thy noble heart for ever, ever more?
+
+ Cold in the earth--and fifteen wild Decembers,
+ From these brown hills, have melted into spring!
+ Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
+ After such years of change and suffering!
+
+ Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
+ While the world's tide is bearing me along;
+ Other desires and other hopes beset me,
+ Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong;
+
+ No later light has lighted up my heaven,
+ No second morn has ever shone for me;
+ All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
+ All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.
+
+ But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
+ And even Despair was powerless to destroy;
+ Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
+ Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy.
+
+ Then did I check the tears of useless passion--
+ Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
+ Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten,
+ Down to that tomb already more than mine.
+
+ And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
+ Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;
+ Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish
+ How could I seek the empty world again?
+
+ _Emily Bronte_
+
+
+
+
+A FRAGMENT FROM 'THE PRISONER: A FRAGMENT'
+
+
+ Still, let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
+ Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair;
+ A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
+ And offers for short life, eternal liberty.
+
+ He comes with Western winds, with evening's wandering airs,
+ With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars.
+ Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
+ And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.
+
+ Desire for nothing known in my maturer years,
+ When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears.
+ When, if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm,
+ I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunderstorm.
+
+ But first, a hush of peace--a soundless calm descends;
+ The struggle of distress, and fierce impatience ends.
+ Mute music soothes my breast--unuttered harmony
+ That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.
+
+ Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
+ My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels:
+ Its wings are almost free--its home, its harbour found,
+ Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound.
+
+ O, dreadful is the check--intense the agony--
+ When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
+ When the pulse begins to throb,--the brain to think again,
+ The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.
+
+ Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less,
+ The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless;
+ And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine,
+ If it but herald death, the vision is divine.
+
+ _Emily Bronte_
+
+
+
+
+LAST LINES
+
+
+ No coward soul is mine,
+ No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
+ I see Heaven's glories shine,
+ And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
+
+ O God, within my breast,
+ Almighty, ever-present Deity!
+ Life--that in me has rest,
+ As I--undying Life--have power in Thee.
+
+ Vain are the thousand creeds
+ That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
+ Worthless as withered weeds,
+ Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,
+
+ To waken doubt in one
+ Holding so fast to Thine infinity;
+ So surely anchored on
+ The steadfast rock of immortality,
+
+ With wide-embracing love
+ Thy spirit animates eternal years,
+ Pervades and broods above,
+ Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
+
+ Though earth and man were gone,
+ And suns and universes ceased to be,
+ And Thou were left alone,
+ Every existence would exist in Thee.
+
+ There is not room for Death,
+ Nor atom that his might could render void:
+ Thou--Thou art Being and Breath,
+ And what Thou art may never be destroyed.
+
+ _Emily Bronte_
+
+
+
+
+THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD
+
+
+ Who fears to speak of Ninety-eight?
+ Who blushes at the name?
+ When cowards mock the patriot's fate,
+ Who hangs his head for shame?
+ He's all a knave or half a slave
+ Who slights his country thus;
+ But a true man, like you, man,
+ Will fill your glass with us.
+
+ We drink the memory of the brave,
+ The faithful and the few--
+ Some lie far off beyond the wave,
+ Some sleep in Ireland, too;
+ All, all are gone--but still lives on
+ The fame of those who died;
+ All true men, like you, men,
+ Remember them with pride.
+
+ Some on the shores of distant lands
+ Their weary hearts have laid,
+ And by the stranger's heedless hands
+ Their lonely graves were made;
+ But, though their clay be far away
+ Beyond the Atlantic foam,
+ In true men, like you, men,
+ Their spirit's still at home.
+
+ The dust of some is Irish earth;
+ Among their own they rest;
+ And the same land that gave them birth
+ Has caught them to her breast;
+ And we will pray that from their clay
+ Full many a race may start
+ Of true men, like you, men,
+ To act as brave a part.
+
+ They rose in dark and evil days
+ To right their native land;
+ They kindled here a living blaze
+ That nothing shall withstand.
+ Alas! that Might can vanquish Right--
+ _They_ fell, and passed away;
+ But true men, like you, men,
+ Are plenty here to-day.
+
+ Then here's their memory--may it be
+ For us a guiding light,
+ To cheer our strife for liberty,
+ And teach us to unite!
+ Through good and ill, be Ireland's still,
+ Though sad as theirs your fate;
+ And true men, be you, men,
+ Like those of Ninety-Eight.
+
+ _John Kells Ingram_
+
+
+
+
+THE WINDING BANKS OF ERNE; OR, THE EMIGRANT'S ADIEU TO BALLYSHANNY
+
+
+ Adieu to Ballyshanny! where I was bred and born;
+ Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn;
+ The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known,
+ And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own;
+ There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill,
+ But East or West, in foreign lands, I'll recollect them still.
+ I leave my warm heart with you, tho' my back I'm forced to turn--
+ So adieu to Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ No more on pleasant evenings we'll saunter down the Mall,
+ When the trout is rising to the fly, the salmon to the fall.
+ The boat comes straining on her net, and heavily she creeps,
+ Cast off, cast off--she feels the oars, and to her berth she sweeps;
+ Now fore and aft keep hauling, and gathering up the clew,
+ Till a silver wave of salmon rolls in among the crew.
+ Then they may sit, with pipes a-lit, and many a joke and 'yarn':--
+ Adieu to Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ The music of the waterfall, the mirror of the tide,
+ When all the green-hill'd harbour is full from side to side,
+ From Portnasun to Bulliebawns, and round the Abbey Bay,
+ From rocky Inis Saimer to Coolnargit sandhills gray;
+ While far upon the southern line, to guard it like a wall,
+ The Leitrim mountains clothed in blue gaze calmly over all,
+ And watch the ship sail up or down, the red flag at her stern;--
+ Adieu to these, adieu to all the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ Farewell to you, Kildoney lads, and them that pull an oar,
+ A lug-sail set, or haul a net, from the Point to Mullaghmore;
+ From Killybegs to bold Slieve-League, that ocean-mountain steep,
+ Six hundred yards in air aloft, six hundred in the deep;
+ From Dooran to the Fairy Bridge, and round by Tullen strand,
+ Level and long, and white with waves, where gull and curlew stand;
+ Head out to sea when on your lee the breakers you discern!--
+ Adieu to all the billowy coast, and winding banks of Erne!
+
+ Farewell, Coolmore,--Bundoran! and your summer crowds that run
+ From inland homes to see with joy th' Atlantic setting sun;
+ To breathe the buoyant salted air, and sport among the waves;
+ To gather shells on sandy beach, and tempt the gloomy caves;
+ To watch the flowing, ebbing tide, the boats, the crabs, the fish;
+ Young men and maids to meet and smile, and form a tender wish;
+ The sick and old in search of health, for all things have
+ their turn--
+ And I must quit my native shore, and the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ Farewell to every white cascade from the Harbour to Belleek,
+ And every pool where fins may rest, and ivy-shaded creek;
+ The sloping fields, the lofty rocks, where ash and holly grow,
+ The one split yew-tree gazing on the curving flood below;
+ The Lough that winds through islands under Turaw mountain green;
+ And Castle Caldwell's stretching woods, with tranquil bays between;
+ And Breesie Hill, and many a pond among the heath and fern;--
+ For I must say adieu--adieu to the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ The thrush will call through Camlin groves the live-long summer day;
+ The waters run by mossy cliff, and banks with wild flowers gay;
+ The girls will bring their work and sing beneath a twisted thorn,
+ Or stray with sweethearts down the path among the growing corn;
+ Along the river-side they go, where I have often been,--
+ O never shall I see again the days that I have seen!
+ A thousand chances are to one I never may return,--
+ Adieu to Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ Adieu to evening dances, when merry neighbours meet,
+ And the fiddle says to boys and girls, 'Get up and shake your feet!'
+ To _shanachus_ and wise old talk of Erin's days gone by--
+ Who trench'd the rath on such a hill, and where the bones may lie
+ Of saint, or king, or warrior chief; with tales of fairy power,
+ And tender ditties sweetly sung to pass the twilight hour.
+ The mournful song of exile is now for me to learn--
+ Adieu, my dear companions on the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ Now measure from the Commons down to each end of the Purt,
+ Round the Abbey, Moy, and Knather,--I wish no one any hurt;
+ The Main Street, Back Street, College Lane, the Mall, and Portnasun,
+ If any foes of mine are there, I pardon every one.
+ I hope that man and womankind will do the same by me;
+ For my heart is sore and heavy at voyaging the sea.
+ My loving friends I'll bear in mind, and often fondly turn
+ To think of Ballyshanny and the winding banks of Erne!
+
+ If ever I'm a money'd man, I mean, please God, to cast
+ My golden anchor in the place where youthful years were past;
+ Though heads that now are black and brown must meanwhile
+ gather gray,
+ New faces rise by every hearth, and old ones drop away--
+ Yet dearer still that Irish hill than all the world beside;
+ It's home, sweet home, where'er I roam, through lands and
+ waters wide.
+ And if the Lord allows me, I surely will return
+ To my native Ballyshanny, and the winding banks of Erne.
+
+ _William Allingham_
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIRIES
+
+
+ Up the airy mountain,
+ Down the rushy glen,
+ We daren't go a-hunting
+ For fear of little men;
+ Wee folk, good folk,
+ Trooping all together;
+ Green jacket, red cap,
+ And white owl's feather!
+ Down along the rocky shore
+ Some make their home,
+ They live on crispy pancakes,
+ Of yellow tide-foam;
+ Some in the reeds
+ Of the bleak mountain lake,
+ With frogs for their watch-dogs,
+ All night awake.
+
+ High on the hill-top
+ The old King sits;
+ He is now so old and gray
+ He's nigh lost his wits.
+ With a bridge of white mist
+ Columbkill he crosses,
+ On his stately journeys
+ From Sleeveleague to Rosses;
+ Or going up with music
+ On cold starry nights,
+ To sup with the Queen
+ Of the gay Northern Lights.
+
+ They stole little Bridget
+ For seven years long;
+ When she came down again
+ Her friends were all gone.
+ They took her lightly back,
+ Between the night and morrow,
+ They thought that she was fast asleep,
+ But she was dead with sorrow.
+ They have kept her ever since
+ Deep within the lake,
+ On a bed of flag-leaves,
+ Watching till she wake.
+
+ By the craggy hillside
+ Through the mosses bare,
+ They have planted thorn-trees
+ For pleasure here and there.
+ If any man so daring
+ As dig them up in spite,
+ He shall find their sharpest thorns
+ In his bed at night.
+
+ Up the airy mountain,
+ Down the rushy glen,
+ We daren't go a-hunting
+ For fear of little men;
+ Wee folk, good folk,
+ Trooping all together;
+ Green jacket, red cap,
+ And white owl's feather!
+
+ _William Allingham_
+
+
+
+
+THE ABBOT OF INISFALEN
+
+_A Killarney Legend_
+
+
+ The Abbot of Inisfalen awoke ere dawn of day;
+ Under the dewy green leaves went he forth to pray.
+ The lake around his island lay smooth and dark and deep,
+ And wrapped in a misty stillness the mountains were all asleep.
+ Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac when the dawn was dim and gray,
+ The prayers of his holy office he faithfully 'gan say.
+ Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac while the dawn was waxing red;
+ And for his sins' forgiveness a solemn prayer he said:
+ Low kneel'd that holy Abbot while the dawn was waking clear,
+ And he prayed with loving-kindness for his convent-brethren dear.
+ Low kneel'd the blessed Abbot while the dawn was waxing bright;
+ He pray'd a great prayer for Ireland, he pray'd with all his might.
+ Low kneel'd that good old Father while the sun began to dart;
+ He pray'd a prayer for all men, he pray'd it from his heart.
+ His blissful soul was in Heaven, tho' a breathing man was he;
+ He was out of time's dominion, so far as the living may be.
+
+ The Abbot of Inisfalen arose upon his feet;
+ He heard a small bird singing, and O but it sung sweet!
+ It sung upon a holly-bush, this little snow-white bird;
+ A song so full of gladness he never before had heard,
+ It sung upon a hazel, it sung upon a thorn;
+ He had never heard such music since the hour that he was born.
+ It sung upon a sycamore, it sung upon a briar;
+ To follow the song and hearken the Abbot would never tire.
+ Till at last he well bethought him, he might no longer stay;
+ So he bless'd the little white singing-bird, and gladly went
+ his way.
+
+ But, when he came to his Abbey, he found a wondrous wondrous change;
+ He saw no friendly faces there, for every face was strange.
+ The strange men spoke unto him; and he heard from all and each
+ The foreign tongue of the Sassenach, not wholesome Irish speech.
+ Then the oldest monk came forward, in Irish tongue spake he:
+ 'Thou wearest the holy Augustine's dress, and who hath given
+ it to thee?'
+ 'I wear the holy Augustine's dress, and Cormac is my name,
+ The Abbot of this good Abbey by grace of God I am.
+
+ I went forth to pray, at the dawn of day; and when my prayers
+ were said,
+ I hearken'd awhile to a little bird, that sang above my head.'
+ The monks to him made answer, 'Two hundred years have gone o'er,
+ Since our Abbot Cormac went through the gate, and never was
+ heard of more.
+ Matthias now is our Abbot, and twenty have pass'd away.
+ The stranger is lord of Ireland; we live in an evil day.
+ Days will come and go,' he said, 'and the world will pass away:
+ In Heaven a day is a thousand years, a thousand years are a day.'
+
+ 'Now give me absolution; for my time is come,' said he.
+ And they gave him absolution, as speedily as might be.
+ Then, close outside the window, the sweetest song they heard
+ That ever yet since the world began was utter'd by any bird.
+ The monks look'd out and saw the bird, its feathers all white
+ and clean;
+ And then in a moment, beside it, another white bird was seen.
+ Those two they sang together, waved their white wings, and fled;
+ Flew aloft and vanish'd; but the good old man was dead.
+ They buried his blessed body where lake and green-sward meet,
+ A carven cross above his head, a holly-bush at his feet;
+ Where spreads the beautiful water to gay or cloudy skies,
+ And the purple peaks of Killarney from ancient woods arise.
+
+ _William Allingham_
+
+
+
+
+TWILIGHT VOICES
+
+
+ Now, at the hour when ignorant mortals
+ Drowse in the shade of their whirling sphere,
+ Heaven and Hell from invisible portals
+ Breathing comfort and ghastly fear,
+ Voices I hear;
+ I hear strange voices, flitting, calling,
+ Wavering by on the dusky blast,--
+ 'Come, let us go, for the night is falling;
+ Come, let us go, for the day is past!'
+
+ Troops of joys are they, now departed?
+ Winged hopes that no longer stay?
+ Guardian spirits grown weary-hearted?
+ Powers that have linger'd their latest day?
+ What do they say?
+ What do they sing? I hear them calling,
+ Whispering, gathering, flying fast,--
+ 'Come, come, for the night is falling;
+ Come, come, for the day is past!'
+
+ Sing they to me?--'Thy taper's wasted;
+ Mortal, thy sands of life run low;
+ Thine hours like a flock of birds have hasted:
+ Time is ending;--we go, we go.'
+ Sing they so?
+ Mystical voices, floating, calling;
+ Dim farewells--the last, the last?
+ 'Come, come away, the night is falling;
+ Come, come away, the day is past.'
+
+ See, I am ready, Twilight voices!
+ Child of the spirit-world am I;
+ How should I fear you? my soul rejoices,
+ O speak plainer! O draw nigh!
+ Fain would I fly!
+ Tell me your message, Ye who are calling
+ Out of the dimness vague and vast;
+ Lift me, take me,--the night is falling;
+ Quick, let us go,--the day is past.
+
+ _William Allingham_
+
+
+
+
+FOUR DUCKS ON A POND
+
+
+ Four ducks on a pond,
+ A grass-bank beyond,
+ A blue sky of spring,
+ White clouds on the wing:
+ What a little thing
+ To remember for years--
+ To remember with tears!
+
+ _William Allingham_
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVER AND BIRDS
+
+
+ Within a budding grove,
+ In April's ear sang every bird his best,
+ But not a song to pleasure my unrest,
+ Or touch the tears unwept of bitter love;
+ Some spake, methought, with pity, some as if in jest.
+ To every word
+ Of every bird
+ I listen'd, or replied as it behove.
+
+ Scream'd Chaffinch, 'Sweet, sweet, sweet!
+ Pretty lovey, come and meet me here!'
+ 'Chaffinch,' quoth I, 'be dumb awhile, in fear
+ Thy darling prove no better than a cheat,
+ And never come, or fly when wintry days appear.'
+ Yet from a twig,
+ With voice so big,
+ The little fowl his utterance did repeat.
+
+ Then I, 'The man forlorn
+ Hears Earth send up a foolish noise aloft.'
+ 'And what'll _he_ do? What'll _he_ do?' scoff'd
+ The Blackbird, standing, in ancient thorn,
+ Then spread his sooty wings and flitted to the croft
+ With cackling laugh;
+ Whom I, being half
+ Enraged, called after, giving back his scorn.
+
+ Worse mock'd the Thrush, 'Die! die!
+ O, could he do it? could he do it? Nay!
+ Be quick! be quick! Here, here, here!' (went his lay).
+ 'Take heed! take heed!' then, 'Why? why? why? why? why?
+ See-ee now! see-ee now!' (he drawl'd) 'Back! back!
+ back! R-r-r-run away!'
+ O Thrush, be still!
+ Or at thy will
+ Seek some less sad interpreter than I.
+
+ 'Air, air! blue air and white!
+ Whither I flee, whither, O whither, O whither I flee!'
+ (Thus the Lark hurried, mounting from the lea)
+ 'Hills, countries, many waters glittering bright
+ Whither I see, whither I see! deeper, deeper, deeper,
+ whither I see, see, see!'
+ 'Gay Lark,' I said,
+ 'The song that's bred
+ In happy nest may well to heaven make flight.'
+
+ 'There's something, something sad
+ I half remember'--piped a broken strain.
+ Well sung, sweet Robin! Robin sung again.
+ 'Spring's opening cheerily, cheerily! be we glad!'
+ Which moved, I wist not why, me melancholy mad,
+ Till now, grown meek,
+ With wetted cheek,
+ Most comforting and gentle thoughts I had.
+
+ _William Allingham_
+
+
+
+
+THE CELTS
+
+
+ Long, long ago, beyond the misty space
+ Of twice a thousand years,
+ In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race
+ Taller than Roman spears;
+ Like oaks and towers, they had a giant grace,
+ Were fleet as deers:
+ With winds and waves they made their biding-place,
+ The Western shepherd seers.
+
+ Their ocean-god was _Mananan Mac Lir_,
+ Whose angry lips
+ In their white foam full often would inter
+ Whole fleets of ships:
+ _Crom_ was their day-god, and their thunderer
+ Made morning and eclipse:
+ _Bride_ was their queen of song, and unto her
+ They pray'd with fire-touch'd lips.
+
+ Great were their acts, their passions, and their sports;
+ With clay and stone
+ They piled on strath and shore those mystic forts,
+ Not yet undone;
+ On cairn-crown'd hills they held their council courts;
+ While youths--alone--
+ With giant-dogs, explored the elks' resorts,
+ And brought them down.
+
+ Of these was _Finn_, the father of the bard
+ Whose ancient song
+ Over the clamour of all change is heard,
+ Sweet-voiced and strong.
+ Finn once o'ertook Granu, the golden-hair'd,
+ The fleet and young:
+ From her, the lovely, and from him, the feared,
+ The primal poet sprung--
+
+ _Ossian!_--two thousand years of mist and change
+ Surround thy name;
+ Thy Finnian heroes now no longer range
+ The hills of Fame.
+ The very name of Finn and Gael sound strange;
+ Yet thine the same
+ By miscall'd lake and desecrated grange
+ Remains, and shall remain!
+
+ The Druid's altar and the Druid's creed
+ We scarce can trace;
+ There is not left an undisputed deed
+ Of all your race--
+ Save your majestic Song, which hath their speed,
+ And strength, and grace:
+ In that sole song they live, and love, and bleed--
+ It bears them on through space.
+
+ Inspired giant, shall we e'er behold,
+ In our own time,
+ One fit to speak your spirit on the wold,
+ Or seize your rhyme?
+ One pupil of the past, as mighty-soul'd
+ As in the prime
+ Were the fond, fair, and beautiful, and bold--
+ They of your song sublime?
+
+ _Thomas D'Arcy McGee_
+
+
+
+
+SALUTATION TO THE CELTS
+
+
+ Hail to our Celtic brethren wherever they may be,
+ In the far woods of Oregon, or o'er the Atlantic sea;
+ Whether they guard the banner of St. George, in Indian vales,
+ Or spread beneath the nightless North experimental sails--
+ One in name, and in fame,
+ Are the sea-divided Gaels.
+
+ Though fallen the state of Erin, and changed the Scottish land,
+ Though small the power of Mona, though unwaked Llewellyn's band,
+ Though Ambrose Merlin's prophecies are held as idle tales,
+ Though Iona's ruined cloisters are swept by northern gales:
+ One in name, and in fame,
+ Are the sea-divided Gaels.
+
+ In Northern Spain and Italy our brethren also dwell,
+ And brave are the traditions of their fathers that they tell:
+ The Eagle or the Crescent in the dawn of history pales
+ Before the advancing banners of the great Rome-conquering Gaels.
+ One in name, and in fame,
+ Are the sea-divided Gaels.
+
+ A greeting and a promise unto them all we send;
+ Their character our charter is, their glory is our end--
+ Their friend shall be our friend, our foe whoe'er assails
+ The glory or the story of the sea-divided Gaels.
+ One in name, and in fame,
+ Are the sea-divided Gaels.
+
+ _Thomas D'Arcy McGee_
+
+
+
+
+THE GOBBAN SAOR
+
+
+ He stepped a man, out on the ways of men,
+ And no one knew his sept, or rank, or name;
+ Like a strong stream far issuing from a glen,
+ From some source unexplored the Master came;
+ Gossips there were who, wondrous keen of ken,
+ Surmised that he must be a child of shame;
+ Others declared him of the Druids, then--
+ Thro' Patrick's labours--fallen from power and fame.
+
+ He lived apart, wrapt up in many plans;
+ He wooed not women, tasted not of wine;
+ He shunned the sports and councils of the clans;
+ Nor ever knelt at a frequented shrine.
+ His orisons were old poetic ranns
+ Which the new Olamhs deem'd an evil sign;
+ To most he seemed one of those Pagan Khans
+ Whose mystic vigour knows no cold decline.
+
+ He was the builder of the wondrous Towers,
+ Which, tall and straight and exquisitely round,
+ Rise monumental round this isle of ours,
+ Index-like, marking spots of holy ground.
+ In glooming silent glens, in lowland bowers,
+ On river banks, these _Cloichteachs_ old abound,
+ Where Art, enraptured, meditates long hours
+ And Science ponders, wondering and spell-bound.
+
+ Lo, wheresoe'er these pillar-towers aspire,
+ Heroes and holy men repose below;
+ The bones of some, gleaned from a Pagan pyre,
+ Others in armour lie, as for a foe;
+ It was the mighty Master's life-desire
+ To chronicle his great ancestors so;
+ What holier duty, what achievement higher
+ Remains to us, than this he thus doth show?
+
+ Yet he, the builder, died an unknown death;
+ His labours done, no man beheld him more;
+ 'Twas thought his body faded like a breath--
+ Or, like a sea-mist, floated off Life's shore.
+ Doubt overhangs his fate--and faith--and birth:
+ His works alone attest his life and love,
+ They are the only witnesses he hath,
+ All else Egyptian darkness covers o'er.
+
+ Men called him Gobban Saor, and many a tale
+ Yet lingers in the byways of the land,
+ Of how he cleft the rock, and down the vale
+ Led the bright river, child-like, in his hand;
+ Of how on giant ships he spread great sail
+ And many marvels else, by him first planned,
+ And tho' these legends fail, in Innisfail
+ His name and Towers for centuries still shall stand.
+
+ _Thomas D'Arcy McGee_
+
+
+
+
+PATRICK SHEEHAN
+
+
+ My name is Patrick Sheehan,
+ My years are thirty-four,
+ Tipperary is my native place,
+ Not far from Galtymore;
+ I came of honest parents,
+ But now they're lying low;
+ And many a pleasant day I spent
+ In the Glen of Aherlow.
+
+ My father died; I closed his eyes
+ _Outside_ our cabin-door;
+ The landlord and the sheriff too
+ Were there the day before!
+ And then my loving mother,
+ And sisters three also,
+ Were forced to go with broken hearts
+ From the Glen of Aherlow.
+
+ For three long months, in search of work,
+ I wandered far and near;
+ I went then to the poor-house,
+ For to see my mother dear;
+ The news I heard nigh broke my heart;
+ But still, in all my woe,
+ I blessed the friends who made their graves
+ In the Glen of Aherlow.
+
+ Bereft of home and kith and kin,
+ With plenty all around,
+ I starved within my cabin,
+ And slept upon the ground;
+ But cruel as my lot was,
+ I ne'er did hardship know
+ 'Till I joined the English army,
+ Far away from Aherlow.
+
+ 'Rouse up, there,' says the Corporal,
+ 'You lazy Hirish hound;
+ Why don't you hear, you sleepy dog,
+ The call "to arms" sound?'
+ Alas, I had been dreaming
+ Of days long, long ago;
+ I woke before Sebastopol,
+ And not in Aherlow.
+
+ I groped to find my musket--
+ How dark I thought the night!
+ O blessed God, it was not dark,
+ It was the broad daylight!
+ And when I found that I was _blind_,
+ My tears began to flow;
+ I longed for even a pauper's grave
+ In the Glen of Aherlow.
+
+ O blessed Virgin Mary,
+ Mine is a mournful tale;
+ A poor blind prisoner here I am,
+ In Dublin's dreary gaol;
+ Struck blind within the trenches,
+ Where I never feared the foe;
+ And now I'll never see again
+ My own sweet Aherlow.
+
+ A poor neglected mendicant,
+ I wandered through the street;
+ My nine months' pension now being out,
+ I beg from all I meet:
+ As I joined my country's tyrants,
+ My face I'll never show
+ Among the kind old neighbours
+ In the Glen of Aherlow.
+
+ Then, Irish youths, dear countrymen,
+ Take heed of what I say;
+ For if you join the English ranks,
+ You'll surely rue the day;
+ And whenever you are tempted
+ A-soldiering to go,
+ Remember poor blind Sheehan
+ Of the Glen of Aherlow.
+
+ _Charles J. Kickham_
+
+
+
+
+THE IRISH PEASANT GIRL
+
+
+ She lived beside the Anner,
+ At the foot of Sliev-na-mon,
+ A gentle peasant girl,
+ With mild eyes like the dawn;
+ Her lips were dewy rosebuds;
+ Her teeth of pearls rare;
+ And a snow-drift 'neath a beechen bough
+ Her neck and nut-brown hair.
+
+ How pleasant 'twas to meet her
+ On Sunday, when the bell
+ Was filling with its mellow tones
+ Lone wood and grassy dell!
+ And when at eve young maidens
+ Strayed the river-bank along,
+ The widow's brown-haired daughter
+ Was loveliest of the throng.
+
+ O brave, brave Irish girls--
+ We well may call you brave!--
+ Sure the least of all your perils
+ Is the stormy ocean wave,
+ When you leave our quiet valleys,
+ And cross the Atlantic's foam,
+ To hoard your hard-won earnings
+ For the helpless ones at home.
+
+ 'Write word to my own dear mother--
+ Say, we'll meet with God above;
+ And tell my little brothers
+ I send them all my love;
+ May the angels ever guard them,
+ Is their dying sister's prayer'--
+ And folded in the letter
+ Was a braid of nut-brown hair.
+
+ Ah, cold, and well-nigh callous,
+ This weary heart has grown
+ For thy helpless fate, dear Ireland,
+ And for sorrows of my own;
+ Yet a tear my eye will moisten
+ When by Anner's side I stray,
+ For the lily of the mountain foot
+ That withered far away.
+
+ _Charles J. Kickham_
+
+
+
+
+TO GOD AND IRELAND TRUE
+
+
+ I sit beside my darling's grave,
+ Who in the prison died,
+ And tho' my tears fall thick and fast,
+ I think of him with pride:--
+ Ay, softly fall my tears like dew,
+ For one to God and Ireland true.
+
+ 'I love my God o'er all,' he said,
+ 'And then I love my land,
+ And next I love my Lily sweet,
+ Who pledged me her white hand:--
+ To each--to all--I'm ever true,
+ To God--to Ireland and to you.'
+
+ No tender nurse his hard bed smoothed
+ Or softly raised his head:--
+ He fell asleep and woke in heaven
+ Ere I knew he was dead;--
+ Yet why should I my darling rue?
+ He was to God and Ireland true.
+
+ O, 'tis a glorious memory;
+ I'm prouder than a queen
+ To sit beside my hero's grave
+ And think on what has been:--
+ And O, my darling, I am true
+ To God--to Ireland and to you!
+
+ _Ellen O'Leary_
+
+
+
+
+THE BANSHEE
+
+
+ Green, in the wizard arms,
+ Of the foam-bearded Atlantic,
+ An isle of old enchantment,
+ A melancholy isle,
+ Enchanted and dreaming lies;
+ And there, by Shannon's flowing,
+ In the moonlight, spectre thin,
+ The spectre Erin sits.
+
+ An aged desolation
+ She sits by old Shannon's flowing,
+ A mother of many children,
+ Of children exiled and dead,
+ In her home, with bent head, homeless,
+ Clasping her knees she sits,
+ Keening, keening!
+
+ And at her keene the fairy-grass
+ Trembles on dun and barrow;
+ Around the foot of her ancient crosses
+ The grave-grass shakes and the nettle swings;
+ In haunted glens the meadow-sweet
+ Flings to the night-wind
+ Her mystic mournful perfume;
+ The sad spearmint by holy wells
+ Breathes melancholy balm.
+
+ Sometimes she lifts her head,
+ With blue eyes tearless,
+ And gazes athwart the reek of night
+ Upon things long past,
+ Upon things to come.
+
+ And sometimes, when the moon
+ Brings tempest upon the deep,
+ And roused Atlantic thunders from his caverns in the West,
+ The wolf-hound at her feet
+ Springs up with a mighty bay,
+ And chords of mystery sound from the wild harp at her side,
+ Strung from the heart of poets;
+ And she flies on the verge of the tempest
+ Around her shuddering isle,
+ With grey hair streaming:
+ A meteor of evil omen,
+ The spectre of hope forlorn,
+ Keening, keening!
+
+ She keenes, and the strings of her wild harp shiver
+ On the gusts of night:
+ O'er the four waters she keenes--over Moyle she keenes,
+ O'er the Sea of Milith, and the Strait of Strongbow,
+ And the Ocean of Columbus.
+
+ And the Fianna hear, and the ghosts of her cloudy hovering heroes;
+ And the swan, Fianoula, wails o'er the waters of Inisfail,
+ Chanting her song of destiny,
+ The rune of the weaving Fates.
+
+ And the nations hear in the void and quaking time of night,
+ Sad unto dawning, dirges,
+ Solemn dirges,
+ And snatches of bardic song;
+ Their souls quake in the void and quaking time of night,
+ And they dream of the weird of kings,
+ And tyrannies moulting, sick
+ In the dreadful wind of change.
+
+ Wail no more, lonely one, mother of exiles, wail no more,
+ Banshee of the world--no more!
+ Thy sorrows are the world's, thou art no more alone;
+ Thy wrongs, the world's.
+
+ _John Todhunter_
+
+
+
+
+AGHADOE
+
+
+ There's a glade in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
+ There's a green and silent glade in Aghadoe,
+ Where we met, my Love and I, Love's fair planet in the sky,
+ O'er that sweet and silent glade in Aghadoe.
+
+ There's a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
+ There's a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe,
+ Where I hid from the eyes of the red-coats and their spies
+ That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.
+
+ O! my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
+ On Shaun Dhuv, my mother's son in Aghadoe,
+ When your throat fries in hell's drouth salt the flame
+ be in your mouth,
+ For the treachery you did in Aghadoe!
+
+ For they tracked me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
+ When the price was on his head in Aghadoe;
+ O'er the mountain through the wood, as I stole to him with food,
+ When in hiding lone he lay in Aghadoe.
+
+ But they never took him living in Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
+ With the bullets in his heart in Aghadoe,
+ There he lay, the head--my breast keeps the warmth where
+ once 'twould rest--
+ Gone, to win the traitor's gold, from Aghadoe!
+
+ I walked to Mallow Town from Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
+ Brought his head from the gaol's gate to Aghadoe,
+ Then I covered him with fern, and I piled on him the cairn.
+ Like an Irish King he sleeps in Aghadoe.
+
+ O! to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe!
+ There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe!
+ Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I,
+ Your own love, cold on your cairn in Aghadoe.
+
+ _John Todhunter_
+
+
+
+
+A MAD SONG
+
+
+ I hear the wind a-blowing,
+ I hear the corn a-growing,
+ I hear the Virgin praying,
+ I hear what she is saying.
+
+ _Hester Sigerson_
+
+
+
+
+LADY MARGARET'S SONG
+
+
+ Girls, when I am gone away,
+ On this bosom strew
+ Only flowers meek and pale,
+ And the yew.
+
+ Lay these hands down by my side,
+ Let my face be bare;
+ Bind a kerchief round the face,
+ Smooth my hair.
+
+ Let my bier be borne at dawn,
+ Summer grows so sweet,
+ Deep into the forest green
+ Where boughs meet.
+
+ Then pass away, and let me lie
+ One long, warm, sweet day
+ There alone, with face upturned,
+ One sweet day.
+
+ While the morning light grows broad,
+ While noon sleepeth sound,
+ While the evening falls and faints,
+ While the world goes round.
+
+ _Edward Dowden_
+
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+ I made another garden, yea,
+ For my new Love.
+ I left the dead rose where it lay
+ And set the new above.
+ Why did my Summer not begin?
+ Why did my heart not haste?
+ My old Love came and walked therein
+ And laid the garden waste.
+
+ She entered with her weary smile,
+ Just as of old:
+ She looked around a little while
+ And shivered with the cold.
+ Her passing touch was death to all,
+ Her passing look a blight;
+ She made the white rose-petals fall,
+ And turned the red rose white.
+
+ Her pale robe clinging to the grass
+ Seemed like a snake
+ That bit the grass and ground, alas!
+ And a sad trail did make.
+ She went up slowly to the gate,
+ And then, just as of yore,
+ She turned back at the last to wait
+ And say farewell once more.
+
+ _Arthur O'Shaughnessy_
+
+
+
+
+FATHER O'FLYNN
+
+
+ Of priests we can offer a charming variety,
+ Far renowned for larnin' and piety,
+ Still I'd advance you, without impropriety,
+ Father O'Flynn as the flower of them all.
+ Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn,
+ _Slainte_, and _slainte_, and _slainte_ agin.
+ Powerfullest preacher,
+ And tindherest teacher,
+ And kindliest creature in Old Donegal.
+
+ Talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity,
+ Far renowned for Greek and Latinity,
+ Gad! and the divils and all at Divinity,
+ Father O'Flynn would make hares of them all.
+ Come, I venture to give you my word,
+ Never the likes of his logic was heard,
+ Down from mythology,
+ Into thayology,
+ Troth and conchology, if he'd the call.
+
+ Father O'Flynn, you've the wonderful way with you,
+ All the old sinners are wishful to pray with you,
+ All the young children are wild for to play with you,
+ You've such a way with you, Father _avick_!
+ Still for all you're so gentle a soul,
+ Gad, you've your flock in the grandest control;
+ Checking the crazy ones,
+ Coaxing unaisy ones,
+ Lifting the lazy ones on with the stick.
+
+ And though quite avoiding all foolish frivolity,
+ Still at all seasons of innocent jollity,
+ Where is the play-boy can claim an equality
+ At comicality, Father, with you?
+ Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest,
+ Till this remark set him off with the rest:
+ 'Is it leave gaiety
+ All to the laity?
+ Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too?'
+
+ _Alfred Perceval Graves_
+
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+ The silent bird is hid in the boughs,
+ The scythe is hid in the corn,
+ The lazy oxen wink and drowse,
+ The grateful sheep are shorn.
+ Redder and redder burns the rose,
+ The lily was ne'er so pale,
+ Stiller and stiller the river flows
+ Along the path to the vale.
+
+ A little door is hid in the boughs,
+ A face is hiding within;
+ When birds are silent and oxen drowse,
+ Why should a maiden spin?
+ Slower and slower turns the wheel,
+ The face turns red and pale,
+ Brighter and brighter the looks that steal,
+ Along the path to the vale.
+
+ _Rosa Gilbert_
+
+
+
+
+REQUIESCAT
+
+
+ Tread lightly, she is near
+ Under the snow,
+ Speak gently, she can hear
+ The daisies grow.
+
+ All her bright golden hair,
+ Tarnished with rust,
+ She that was young and fair
+ Fallen to dust.
+
+ Lily-like, white as snow,
+ She hardly knew
+ She was a woman, so
+ Sweetly she grew.
+
+ Coffin-board, heavy stone
+ Lie on her breast,
+ I vex my heart alone,
+ She is at rest.
+
+ Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
+ Lyre or sonnet,
+ All my life's buried here,
+ Heap earth upon it.
+
+ _Oscar Wilde_
+
+
+
+
+THE LAMENT OF QUEEN MAEV
+
+_From the Irish of the Book of Leinster_
+
+
+ Raise the cromlech high!
+ Mac Moghcorb is slain,
+ And other men's renown
+ Has leave to live again.
+
+ Cold at last he lies
+ 'Neath the burial stone.
+ All the blood he shed
+ Could not save his own.
+
+ Stately, strong he went,
+ Through his nobles all,
+ When we paced together
+ Up the banquet-hall.
+
+ Dazzling white as lime,
+ Was his body fair,
+ Cherry-red his cheeks,
+ Raven-black his hair.
+
+ Razor-sharp his spear,
+ And the shield he bore,
+ High as champion's head--
+ His arm was like an oar.
+
+ Never aught but truth
+ Spake my noble king;
+ Valour all his trust
+ In all his warfaring.
+
+ As the forked pole
+ Holds the roof-tree's weight,
+ So my hero's arm
+ Held the battle straight.
+
+ Terror went before him,
+ Death behind his back,
+ Well the wolves of Erinn
+ Knew his chariot's track.
+
+ Seven bloody battles
+ He broke upon his foes,
+ In each a hundred heroes
+ Fell beneath his blows.
+
+ Once he fought at Fossud,
+ Thrice at Ath-finn-fail.
+ 'Twas my king that conquered
+ At bloody Ath-an-Scail.
+
+ At the Boundary Stream
+ Fought the Royal Hound,
+ And for Bernas battle
+ Stands his name renowned.
+
+ Here he fought with Leinster--
+ Last of all his frays--
+ On the Hill of Cucorb's Fate
+ High his cromlech raise.
+
+ _T.W. Rolleston_
+
+
+
+
+THE DEAD AT CLONMACNOIS
+
+_From the Irish of Enoch O'Gillan_
+
+
+ In a quiet watered land, a land of roses,
+ Stands Saint Kieran's city fair;
+ And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations
+ Slumber there.
+
+ There beneath the dewy hillside sleep the noblest
+ Of the clan of Conn,
+ Each below his stone with name in branching Ogham
+ And the sacred knot thereon.
+
+ There they laid to rest the seven Kings of Tara,
+ There the sons of Cairbre sleep--
+ Battle-banners of the Gael, that in Kieran's plain of crosses
+ Now their final hosting keep.
+
+ And in Clonmacnois they laid the men of Teffia,
+ And right many a lord of Breagh;
+ Deep the sod above Clan Creide and Clan Conaill,
+ Kind in hall and fierce in fray.
+
+ Many and many a son of Conn the Hundred-Fighter
+ In the red earth lies at rest;
+ Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers,
+ Many a swan-white breast.
+
+ _T.W. Rolleston_
+
+
+
+
+THE SPELL-STRUCK
+
+
+ She walks as she were moving
+ Some mystic dance to tread,
+ So falls her gliding footstep,
+ So leans her listening head;
+
+ For once to fairy harping
+ She danced upon the hill,
+ And through her brain and bosom
+ The music pulses still.
+
+ Her eyes are bright and tearless,
+ But wide with yearning pain;
+ She longs for nothing earthly,
+ But O! to hear again
+
+ The sound that held her listening
+ Upon her moonlit path!
+ The rippling fairy music
+ That filled the lonely rath.
+
+ Her lips, that once have tasted
+ The fairy banquet's bliss,
+ Shall glad no mortal lover
+ With maiden smile or kiss.
+
+ She's dead to all things living
+ Since that November Eve;
+ And when she dies in autumn
+ No living thing will grieve.
+
+ _T.W. Rolleston_
+
+
+
+
+WERE YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN?
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ O, were you on the mountain, or saw you my love?
+ Or saw you my own one, my queen and my dove?
+ Or saw you the maiden with the step firm and free?
+ And say, is she pining in sorrow like me?
+
+ I was upon the mountain, and saw there your love,
+ I saw there your own one, your queen and your dove;
+ I saw there the maiden with the step firm and free
+ And she was _not_ pining in sorrow like thee.
+
+ _Douglas Hyde_
+
+
+
+
+MY GRIEF ON THE SEA
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ My grief on the sea,
+ How the waves of it roll!
+ For they heave between me
+ And the love of my soul!
+
+ Abandoned, forsaken,
+ To grief and to care,
+ Will the sea ever waken
+ Relief from despair?
+
+ My grief and my trouble
+ Would he and I wear,
+ In the province of Leinster,
+ Or County of Clare?
+
+ Were I and my darling--
+ O, heart-bitter wound!--
+ On board of the ship
+ For America bound.
+
+ On a green bed of rushes
+ All last night I lay,
+ And I flung it abroad
+ With the heat of the day.
+
+ And my love came behind me--
+ He came from the south;
+ His breast to my bosom,
+ His mouth to my mouth.
+
+ _Douglas Hyde_
+
+
+
+
+MY LOVE, O, SHE IS MY LOVE
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ She casts a spell, O, casts a spell,
+ Which haunts me more than I can tell.
+ Dearer because she makes me ill,
+ Than who would will to make me well.
+
+ She is my store, O, she my store,
+ Whose grey eye wounded me so sore,
+ Who will not place in mine her palm,
+ Who will not calm me any more.
+
+ She is my pet, O, she my pet,
+ Whom I can never more forget;
+ Who would not lose by me one moan,
+ Nor stone upon my cairn set,
+
+ She is my roon, O, she my roon,
+ Who tells me nothing, leaves me soon;
+ Who would not lose by me one sigh,
+ Were death and I within one room.
+
+ She is my dear, O, she my dear,
+ Who cares not whether I be here.
+ Who would not weep when I am dead,
+ Who makes me shed the silent tear.
+
+ Hard my case, O, hard my case,
+ How have I lived so long a space,
+ She does not trust me any more,
+ But I adore her silent face.
+
+ She is my choice, O, she my choice,
+ Who never made me to rejoice;
+ Who caused my heart to ache so oft,
+ Who put no softness in her voice.
+
+ Great is my grief, O, great my grief,
+ Neglected, scorned beyond belief,
+ By her who looks at me askance,
+ By her who grants me no relief.
+
+ She's my desire, O, my desire,
+ More glorious than the bright sun's fire;
+ Who more than wind--blown ice more cold,
+ Had I the boldness to sit by her.
+
+ She it is who stole my heart,
+ But left a void and aching smart,
+ But if she soften not her eye,
+ Then life and I shall surely part.
+
+ _Douglas Hyde_
+
+
+
+
+I SHALL NOT DIE FOR THEE
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ For thee I shall not die,
+ Woman high of fame and name;
+ Foolish men thou mayest slay,
+ I and they are not the same.
+
+ Why should I expire
+ For the fire of any eye,
+ Slender waist, or swan-like limb,
+ Is't for them that I should die?
+
+ The round breasts, the fresh skin,
+ Cheeks crimson, hair so long and rich;
+ Indeed, indeed, I shall not die,
+ Please God, not I, for any such.
+
+ The golden hair, the forehead thin,
+ The chaste mien, the gracious ease,
+ The rounded heel, the languid tone,
+ Fools alone find death from these.
+
+ Thy sharp wit, thy perfect calm,
+ Thy thin palm like foam of sea;
+ Thy white neck, thy blue eye,
+ I shall not die for thee.
+
+ Woman, graceful as the swan,
+ A wise man did nurture me,
+ Little palm, white neck, bright eye,
+ I shall not die for ye.
+
+ _Douglas Hyde_
+
+
+
+
+RIDDLES
+
+_From the Irish_
+
+
+ A great, great house it is,
+ A golden candlestick it is,
+ Guess it rightly,
+ Let it not go by thee.
+ _Heaven_.
+
+ There's a garden that I ken,
+ Full of little gentlemen,
+ Little caps of blue they wear,
+ And green ribbons very fair.
+ _Flax_.
+
+ He comes to ye amidst the brine
+ The butterfly of the sun,
+ The man of the coat so blue and fine,
+ With red thread his shirt is done.
+ _A Lobster_.
+
+ You see it come in on the shoulders of men,
+ Like a thread of the silk it will leave us again.
+ _Turf_.
+
+ _Douglas Hyde_
+
+
+
+
+LOUGH BRAY
+
+
+ A little lonely moorland lake,
+ Its waters brown and cool and deep--
+ The cliff, the hills behind it make
+ A picture for my heart to keep.
+
+ For rock and heather, wave and strand,
+ Wore tints I never saw them wear;
+ The June sunshine was o'er the land,
+ Before, 'twas never half so fair!
+
+ The amber ripples sang all day,
+ And singing spilled their crowns of white
+ Upon the beach, in thin pale spray
+ That streaked the sober sand with light.
+
+ The amber ripples sang their song,
+ When suddenly from far o'erhead
+ A lark's pure voice mixed with the throng
+ Of lovely things about us spread.
+
+ Some flowers were there, so near the brink
+ Their shadows in the waves were thrown;
+ While mosses, green and gray and pink,
+ Grew thickly round each smooth dark stone.
+
+ And, over all, the summer sky,
+ Shut out the town we left behind;
+ 'Twas joy to stand in silence by,
+ One bright chain linking mind to mind.
+
+ O, little lonely mountain spot!
+ Your place within my heart will be
+ Apart from all Life's busy lot
+ A true, sweet, solemn memory.
+
+ _Rose Kavanagh_
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILDREN OF LIR
+
+
+ Out upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses,
+ Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool,
+ Overhead the sunset fire and flame amasses,
+ And the moon to Eastward rises pale and cool:
+ Rose and green around her, silver-grey and pearly,
+ Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed;
+ For, to wake at daybreak birds must couch them early,
+ And the day's a long one since the dawn was red.
+
+ On the chilly lakelet, in that pleasant gloaming,
+ See the sad swans sailing: they shall have no rest:
+ Never a voice to greet them save the bittern's booming
+ Where the ghostly sallows sway against the West.
+ 'Sister,' saith the grey swan, 'Sister, I am weary,'
+ Turning to the white swan wet, despairing eyes;
+ 'O,' she saith, 'my young one.' 'O,' she saith, 'my dearie,'
+ Casts her wings about him with a storm of cries.
+
+ Woe for Lir's sweet children whom their vile step-mother
+ Glamoured with her witch-spells for a thousand years;
+ Died their father raving--on his throne another--
+ Blind before the end came from his burning tears.
+ She--the fiends possess her, torture her for ever,
+ Gone is all the glory of the race of Lir;
+ Gone and long-forgotten like a dream of fever:
+ But the swans remember all the days that were.
+
+ Hugh, the black and white swan with the beauteous feathers;
+ Fiachra, the black swan with the emerald breast;
+ Conn, the youngest, dearest, sheltered in all weathers,
+ Him his snow-white sister loves the tenderest.
+ These her mother gave her as she lay a-dying,
+ To her faithful keeping, faithful hath she been,
+ With her wings spread o'er them when the tempest's crying,
+ And her songs so hopeful when the sky's serene.
+
+ Other swans have nests made 'mid the reeds and rushes,
+ Lined with downy feathers where the cygnets sleep
+ Dreaming, if a bird dreams, till the daylight blushes,
+ Then they sail out swiftly on the current deep,
+ With the proud swan-father, tall, and strong, and stately,
+ And the mild swan-mother, grave with household cares,
+ All well-born and comely, all rejoicing greatly:
+ Full of honest pleasure is a life like theirs.
+
+ But alas! for my swans, with the human nature,
+ Sick with human longings, starved with human ties,
+ With their hearts all human, cramped in a bird's stature,
+ And the human weeping in the bird's soft eyes.
+ Never shall my swans build nests in some green river,
+ Never fly to southward in the autumn grey,
+ Rear no tender children, love no mates for ever,
+ Robbed alike of bird's joys and of man's are they.
+
+ Babbled Conn the youngest, 'Sister, I remember
+ At my father's palace how I went in silk,
+ Ate the juicy deer-flesh roasted from the ember,
+ Drank from golden goblets my child's draught of milk.
+ Once I rode a-hunting, laughed to see the hurly,
+ Shouted at the ball-play, on the lake did row;
+ You had for your beauty gauds that shone so rarely':
+ 'Peace,' saith Finnuola, 'that was long ago.'
+
+ 'Sister,' saith Fiachra, 'well do I remember
+ How the flaming torches lit the banquet hall,
+ And the fire leaped skyward in the mid-December,
+ And amid the rushes slept our staghounds tall.
+ By our father's right hand you sat shyly gazing,
+ Smiling half and sighing, with your eyes aglow,
+ As the bards sang loudly, all your beauty praising';
+ 'Peace,' saith Finnuola, 'that was long ago.'
+
+ 'Sister,' then saith Hugh, 'most do I remember
+ One I called my brother, you, earth's goodliest man,
+ Strong as forest oaks are where the wild vines clamber,
+ First at feast or hunting, in the battle's van.
+ Angus, you were handsome, wise and true and tender,
+ Loved by every comrade, feared by every foe:
+ Low, low lies your beauty, all forgot your splendour':
+ 'Peace,' saith Finnuola, 'that was long ago.'
+
+ Dews are in the clear air, and the roselight paling,
+ Over sands and sedges shines the evening star,
+ And the moon's disk high in heaven is sailing,
+ Silvered all the spear-heads of the rushes are--
+ Housed warm are all things as the night grows colder,
+ Water-fowl and sky-fowl dreamless in the nest,
+ But the swans go drifting, drooping wings and shoulder,
+ Cleaving the still waters where the fishes rest.
+
+ _Katharine Tynan Hinkson_
+
+
+
+
+ST. FRANCIS TO THE BIRDS
+
+
+ Little sisters, the birds,
+ We must praise God, you and I--
+ You with songs that fill the sky;
+ I, with halting words.
+
+ All things tell His praise,
+ Woods and waters thereof sing,
+ Summer, winter, autumn, spring,
+ And the nights and days.
+
+ Yea, and cold and heat,
+ And the sun, and stars, and moon,
+ Sea with her monotonous tune,
+ Rain and hail and sleet.
+
+ And the winds of heaven,
+ And the solemn hills of blue,
+ And the brown earth and the dew,
+ And the thunder even,
+
+ And the flowers' sweet breath,--
+ All things make one glorious voice;
+ Life with fleeting pains and joys
+ And our brother--Death.
+
+ Little flowers of air,
+ With your feathers soft and sleek
+ And your bright brown eyes and meek,
+ He hath made you fair.
+
+ He hath taught to you
+ Skill to weave on tree and thatch
+ Nests where happy mothers hatch
+ Speckled eggs of blue.
+
+ And hath children given:
+ When the soft heads overbrim
+ The brown nests; then thank ye Him
+ In the clouds of heaven.
+
+ Also in your lives,
+ Live His laws who loveth you.
+ Husbands, be ye kind and true;
+ Be homekeeping wives.
+
+ Love not gossiping;
+ Stay at home and keep the nest;
+ Fly not here and there in quest
+ Of the newest thing.
+
+ Live as brethren live;
+ Love be in each heart and mouth;
+ Be not envious, be not wroth,
+ Be not slow to give.
+
+ When ye build the nest
+ Quarrel not o'er straw or wool;
+ He who hath, be bountiful
+ To the neediest.
+
+ Be not puffed or vain
+ Of your beauty or your worth,
+ Of your children or your birth,
+ Or the praise you gain.
+
+ Eat not greedily:
+ Sometimes, for sweet mercy's sake,
+ Worm or insect spare to take;
+ Let it crawl or fly.
+
+ See ye sing not near
+ To our church on holy day,
+ Lest the human-folk should stray
+ From their prayer to hear.
+
+ Now depart in peace,
+ In God's name I bless each one;
+ May your days be long i' the sun
+ And your joys increase.
+
+ And remember me,
+ Your poor brother Francis, who
+ Loveth you, and thanketh you
+ For this courtesy.
+
+ Sometimes when ye sing,
+ Name my name, that He may take
+ Pity for the dear song's sake
+ On my shortcoming.
+
+ _Katharine Tynan Hinkson_
+
+
+
+
+SHEEP AND LAMBS
+
+
+ All in the April morning,
+ April airs were abroad;
+ The sheep with their little lambs
+ Passed me by on the road.
+
+ The sheep with their little lambs
+ Passed me by on the road;
+ All in the April evening,
+ I thought on the Lamb of God.
+
+ The lambs were weary, and crying
+ With a weak human cry,
+ I thought on the Lamb of God
+ Going meekly to die.
+
+ Up in the blue, blue mountains
+ Dewy pastures are sweet:
+ Rest for the little bodies,
+ Rest for the little feet.
+
+ Rest for the Lamb of God
+ Up on the hill-top green,
+ Only a cross of shame
+ Two stark crosses between.
+
+ All in the April evening,
+ April airs were abroad;
+ I saw the sheep with their lambs,
+ And thought on the Lamb of God.
+
+ _Katharine Tynan Hinkson_
+
+
+
+
+THE GARDENER SAGE
+
+
+ Here in the garden-bed,
+ Hoeing the celery,
+ Wonders the Lord has made
+ Pass ever before me.
+ I saw the young birds build,
+ And swallows come and go,
+ And summer grow and gild,
+ And winter die in snow.
+
+ Many a thing I note,
+ And store it in my mind;
+ For all my ragged coat,
+ That scarce will stop the wind.
+ I light my pipe and draw,
+ And, leaning on my spade,
+ I marvel with much awe
+ O'er all the Lord hath made.
+
+ Now, here's a curious thing:
+ Upon the first of March,
+ The crow goes house-building,
+ In the elms and in the larch.
+ And be it shine or snow,
+ Though many winds carouse,
+ That day the artful crow
+ Begins to build his house.
+
+ But then--the wonder's big!--
+ _If Sunday fall that day_
+ _Nor straw, nor scraw, nor twig,
+ Till Monday will he lay._
+ His black wings to his side,
+ He'll drone upon his perch,
+ Subdued and holy-eyed,
+ As though he were at church.
+
+ The crow's a gentleman
+ Not greatly to my mind,
+ He'll steal what seeds he can,
+ And all you hide he'll find.
+ Yet though he's bully and sneak,
+ To small birds bird of prey--
+ He counts the days of the week,
+ And keeps the Sabbath day.
+
+ _Katharine Tynan Hinkson_
+
+
+
+
+THE DARK MAN
+
+
+ Rose o' the world, she came to my bed
+ And changed the dreams of my heart and head:
+ For joy of mine she left grief of hers
+ And garlanded me with a crown of furze.
+
+ Rose o' the world, they go out and in,
+ And watch me dream and my mother spin:
+ And they pity the tears on my sleeping face
+ While my soul's away in a fairy place.
+
+ Rose o' the world, they have words galore,
+ And wide's the swing of my mother's door:
+ But soft they speak of my darkened eyes,
+ But what do they know, who are all so wise?
+
+ Rose o' the world, the pain you give
+ Is worth all days that a man may live:
+ Worth all shy prayers that the colleens say
+ On the night that darkens the wedding day.
+
+ Rose o' the world, what man would wed
+ When he might dream of your face instead?
+ Might go to his grave with the blessed pain
+ Of hungering after your face again?
+
+ Rose o' the world, they may talk their fill,
+ For dreams are good, and my life stands still
+ While their lives' red ashes the gossips stir,
+ But my fiddle knows: and I talk to her.
+
+ _Nora Hopper_
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIRY FIDDLER
+
+
+ 'Tis I go fiddling, fiddling,
+ By weedy ways forlorn:
+ I make the blackbird's music
+ Ere in his breast 'tis born:
+ The sleeping larks I waken
+ Twixt the midnight and the morn.
+
+ No man alive has seen me,
+ But women hear me play
+ Sometimes at door or window,
+ Fiddling the souls away,--
+ The child's soul and the colleen's
+ Out of the covering clay.
+
+ None of my fairy kinsmen
+ Make music with me now:
+ Alone the raths I wander
+ Or ride the whitethorn bough;
+ But the wild swans they know me,
+ And the horse that draws the plough.
+
+ _Nora Hopper_
+
+
+
+
+OUR THRONES DECAY
+
+
+ I said, my pleasure shall not move;
+ It is not fixed in things apart:
+ Seeking not love--but yet to love--
+ I put my trust in mine own heart.
+
+ I knew the fountain of the deep
+ Wells up with living joy, unfed;
+ Such joys the lonely heart may keep,
+ And love grow rich with love unwed.
+
+ Still flows the ancient fount sublime;
+ But, ah, for my heart shed tears, shed tears;
+ Not it, but love, has scorn of time;
+ It turns to dust beneath the years.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+IMMORTALITY
+
+
+ We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
+ For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
+ If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
+ As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.
+
+ Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days:
+ Surely here is soul: with it we have eternal breath:
+ In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,
+ By unnumbered ways of dream to death.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT BREATH
+
+
+ Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
+ Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
+ There where the ether like a diamond glows
+ Its petals fade away.
+
+ A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
+ Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
+ The great deep thrills for through it everywhere
+ The breath of Beauty blows.
+
+ I saw how all the trembling ages past,
+ Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath,
+ Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
+ And knows herself in death.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+SUNG ON A BY-WAY
+
+
+ What of all the will to do?
+ It has vanished long ago,
+ For a dream-shaft pierced it through
+ From the Unknown Archer's bow.
+
+ What of all the soul to think?
+ Some one offered it a cup
+ Filled with a diviner drink,
+ And the flame has burned it up.
+
+ What of all the hope to climb?
+ Only in the self we grope
+ To the misty end of time:
+ Truth has put an end to hope.
+
+ What of all the heart to love?
+ Sadder than for will or soul,
+ No light lured it on above;
+ Love has found itself the whole.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+DREAM LOVE
+
+
+ I did not deem it half so sweet
+ To feel thy gentle hand,
+ As in a dream thy soul to greet
+ Across wide leagues of land.
+
+ Untouched more near to draw to you
+ Where, amid radiant skies,
+ Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue,
+ My Bird of Paradise.
+
+ Let me dream only with my heart,
+ Love first, and after see:
+ Know thy diviner counterpart
+ Before I kneel to thee.
+
+ So in thy motions all expressed
+ Thy angel I may view:
+ I shall not in thy beauty rest,
+ But Beauty's ray on you.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSION
+
+
+ What is the love of shadowy lips
+ That know not what they seek or press,
+ From whom the lure for ever slips
+ And fails their phantom tenderness?
+
+ The mystery and light of eyes
+ That near to mine grow dim and cold;
+ They move afar in ancient skies
+ Mid flame and mystic darkness rolled.
+
+ O beauty, as thy heart o'erflows
+ In tender yielding unto me,
+ A vast desire awakes and grows
+ Unto forgetfulness of thee.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+JANUS
+
+
+ Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee,
+ Trembling I waken to a mystery,
+ How through one door we go to life or death
+ By spirit kindled or the sensual breath.
+
+ Image of beauty, when my way I go;
+ No single joy or sorrow do I know:
+ Elate for freedom leaps the starry power,
+ The life which passes mourns its wasted hour.
+
+ And, ah, to think how thin the veil that lies
+ Between the pain of hell and paradise!
+ Where the cool grass my aching head embowers
+ God sings the lovely carol of the flowers.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+CONNLA'S WELL
+
+
+ A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook,
+ With door and windows open wide where friendly stars may look;
+ The rabbit shy can patter in; the winds may enter free
+ Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.
+
+ And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air,
+ I think the sacred hazel tree is dropping berries there
+ From starry fruitage waved aloft where Connla's well o'erflows;
+ For sure the immortal waters run through every wind that blows.
+
+ I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew,
+ How every high and lonely thought that thrills my spirit through
+ Is but a shining berry dropped down through the purple air,
+ And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.
+
+ _A.E._
+
+
+
+
+NAMES
+
+
+ No temple crowned the shaggy capes,
+ No safety soothed the kind,
+ The clouds unfabled shifted shapes,
+ And nameless roamed the wind.
+
+ The stars, the circling heights of heaven,
+ The mountains bright with snows
+ Looked down, and sadly man at even
+ Lay down and sad he rose.
+
+ Till ages brought the hour again,
+ When fell a windless morn,
+ And, child of agonistic pain
+ And bliss, the Word was born.
+
+ Which grew from all it gazed upon,
+ And spread thro' soil and sphere,
+ And shrunk the whole into the one,
+ And fetched the farthest here.
+
+ High is the summer's night, but deep
+ The hidden mind unfolds:
+ Within it does an image sleep
+ Of all that it beholds.
+
+ Alas! when man with busy brow,
+ His conquering names hath set
+ To planet, plant, and worm, who now
+ Will teach us to forget?
+
+ What poet now, when wisdoms fail,
+ Another theme shall dare--
+ The Nameless, and remove the veil
+ Which hides it everywhere?
+
+ _John Eglinton_
+
+
+
+
+THAT
+
+
+ What is that beyond thy life,
+ And beyond all life around,
+ Which, when thy quick brain is still,
+ Nods to thee from the stars?
+ Lo, it says, thou hast found
+ Me, the lonely, lonely one.
+
+ _Charles Weekes_
+
+
+
+
+THINK
+
+
+ Think, the ragged turf-boy urges
+ O'er the dusty road his asses;
+ Think, on sea-shore far the lonely
+ Heron wings along the sand;
+
+ Think, in woodland under oak-boughs
+ Now the streaming sunbeam passes;
+ And bethink thee thou art servant
+ To the same all-moving hand.
+
+ _Charles Weekes_
+
+
+
+
+TE MARTYRUM CANDIDATUS
+
+
+ Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ!
+ White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, the Knights of God!
+ They, for their Lord and their Lover who sacrificed
+ All, save the sweetness of treading, where he first trod!
+
+ These through the darkness of death, the dominion of night,
+ Swept, and they woke in white places at morning tide:
+ They saw with their eyes, and sang for joy of the sight,
+ They saw with their eyes the Eyes of the Crucified.
+
+ Now, whithersoever He goeth, with Him they go:
+ White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, oh fair to see!
+ They ride, where the Rivers of Paradise flash and flow,
+ White Horsemen, with Christ their Captain: for ever He!
+
+ _Lionel Johnson_
+
+
+
+
+THE CHURCH OF A DREAM
+
+
+ Sadly the dead leaves rustle in the whistling wind,
+ Around the weather-worn gray church, low down the vale:
+ The Saints in golden vesture shake before the gale;
+ The glorious windows shake, where still they dwell enshrined;
+ Old Saints, by long dead, shrivelled hands, long since designed:
+ There still, although the world autumnal be, and pale,
+ Still in their golden vesture the old saints prevail;
+ Alone with Christ, desolate else, left by mankind.
+ Only one ancient Priest offers the sacrifice,
+ Murmuring holy Latin immemorial:
+ Swaying with tremulous hands the old censer full of spice,
+ In gray, sweet incense clouds; blue, sweet clouds mystical:
+ To him, in place of men, for he is old, suffice
+ Melancholy remembrances and vesperal.
+
+ _Lionel Johnson_
+
+
+
+
+WAYS OF WAR
+
+
+ A terrible and splendid trust
+ Heartens the host of Inisfail:
+ Their dream is of the swift sword-thrust,
+ A lightning glory of the Gael.
+
+ Croagh Patrick is the place of prayers,
+ And Tara the assembling place:
+ But each sweet wind of Ireland bears
+ The trump of battle on its race.
+
+ From Dursey Isle to Donegal,
+ From Howth to Achill, the glad noise
+ Rings: and the heirs of glory fall,
+ Or victory crowns their fighting joys.
+
+ A dream! a dream! an ancient dream!
+ Yet, ere peace come to Inisfail,
+ Some weapons on some field must gleam,
+ Some burning glory fire the Gael.
+
+ That field may lie beneath the sun,
+ Fair for the treading of an host:
+ That field in realms of thought be won,
+ And armed minds do their uttermost:
+
+ Some way, to faithful Inisfail,
+ Shall come the majesty and awe
+ Of martial truth, that must prevail,
+ To lay on all the eternal law.
+
+ _Lionel Johnson_
+
+
+
+
+THE RED WIND
+
+
+ Red Wind from out the East:
+ Red wind of blight and blood!
+ Ah, when wilt thou have ceased
+ Thy bitter, stormy flood?
+
+ Red Wind from over sea,
+ Scourging our holy land!
+ What angel loosened thee
+ Out of his iron hand?
+
+ Red Wind! whose word of might
+ Winged thee with wings of flame?
+ O fire of mournful night!
+ What is thy Master's name?
+
+ Red Wind! who bade thee burn,
+ Branding our hearts? Who bade
+ Thee on and never turn,
+ Till waste our souls were laid?
+
+ Red Wind! from out the West
+ Pour Winds of Paradise:
+ Winds of eternal rest,
+ That weary souls entice.
+
+ Wind of the East! Red Wind!
+ Thou scorchest the soft breath
+ Of Paradise the kind:
+ Red Wind of burning death!
+
+ O Red Wind! hear God's voice:
+ Hear thou, and fall, and cease.
+ Let Inisfail rejoice
+ In her Hesperian peace.
+
+ _Lionel Johnson_
+
+
+
+
+CELTIC SPEECH
+
+
+ Never forgetful silence fall on thee,
+ Nor younger voices overtake thee,
+ Nor echoes from thine ancient hills forsake thee,
+ Old music heard by Mona of the sea:
+ And where with moving melodies there break thee,
+ Pastoral Conway, venerable Dee.
+
+ Like music lives, nor may that music die,
+ Still in the far, fair Gaelic places:
+ The speech, so wistful with its kindly graces,
+ Holy Croagh Patrick knows, and holy Hy:
+ The speech, that wakes the soul in withered faces,
+ And wakes remembrance of great things gone by.
+
+ Like music by the desolate Land's End,
+ Mournful forgetfulness hath broken:
+ No more words kindred to the winds are spoken,
+ Where upon iron cliffs whole seas expend
+ That strength, whereof the unalterable token
+ Remains wild music, even to the world's end.
+
+ _Lionel Johnson_
+
+
+
+
+TO MORFYDD
+
+
+ A voice on the winds,
+ A voice on the waters,
+ Wanders and cries:
+
+ _O! what are the winds?
+ And what are the waters?
+ Mine are your eyes._
+
+ Western the winds are,
+ And western the waters,
+ Where the light lies:
+
+ _O! what are the winds?
+ And what are the waters?
+ Mine are your eyes._
+
+ Cold, cold, grow the winds,
+ And dark grow the waters,
+ Where the sun dies:
+
+ _O! what are the winds?
+ And what are the waters?
+ Mine are your eyes._
+
+ And down the night winds,
+ And down the night waters
+ The music flies:
+
+ _O! what are the winds?
+ And what are the waters?
+ Cold be the winds,
+ And wild be the waters,
+ So mine be your eyes._
+
+ _Lionel Johnson_
+
+
+
+
+CAN DOOV DEELISH
+
+
+ Can doov deelish, beside the sea
+ I stand and stretch my hands to thee
+ Across the world.
+ The riderless horses race to shore
+ With thundering hoofs and shuddering, hoar,
+ Blown manes uncurled.
+
+ Can doov deelish, I cry to thee
+ Beyond the world, beneath the sea,
+ Thou being dead.
+ Where hast thou hidden from the beat
+ Of crushing hoofs and tearing feet
+ Thy dear black head?
+
+ God bless the woman, whoever she be,
+ From the tossing waves will recover thee
+ And lashing wind.
+ Who will take thee out of the wind and storm,
+ Dry thy wet face on her bosom warm
+ And lips so kind?
+
+ I not to know. It is hard to pray,
+ But I shall for this woman from day to day,
+ 'Comfort my dead,
+ The sport of the winds and the play of the sea.'
+ I loved thee too well for this thing to be,
+ O dear black head!
+
+ _Dora Sigerson_
+
+
+
+
+ ANONYMOUS
+
+
+
+
+SHULE AROON
+
+ I would I were on yonder hill,
+ 'Tis there I'd sit and cry my fill,
+ And every tear would turn a mill,
+ _Is go de tu mo vuirnin slan.
+ Shule, shule, shule aroon,
+ Shule go succir, agus shule go cuin,
+ Shule go den durrus agus eligh lum,
+ Is go de tu mo vuirnin slan._
+
+ I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel,
+ I'll sell my only spinning-wheel,
+ To buy for my love a sword of steel,
+ _Is go de tu mo vuirnin slan._
+
+ _Chorus._
+
+ I'll dye my petticoats, I'll dye them red,
+ And around the world I'll beg my bread,
+ Until my parents shall wish me dead,
+ _Is go de tu mo vuirnin slan._
+
+ _Chorus._
+
+ I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
+ I wish I had my heart again,
+ And vainly think I'd not complain,
+ _Is go de tu mo vuirnin slan._
+
+ _Chorus._
+
+ But now my love has gone to France,
+ To try his fortune to advance;
+ If he e'er come back 'tis but a chance,
+ _Is go de tu mo vuirnin slan._
+
+ _Chorus._
+
+
+
+
+THE SHAN VAN VOCHT
+
+ O! the French are on the sea,
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ The French are on the sea,
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ O! the French are in the bay,
+ They'll be here without delay,
+ And the Orange will decay,
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+ _Chorus._
+
+ O! the French are in the bay,
+ They'll be here by break of day,
+ And the Orange will decay,
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+ And their camp it shall be where?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ Their camp it shall be where?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ On the Currach of Kildare,
+ The boys they will be there,
+ With their pikes in good repair,
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+ To the Currach of Kildare
+ The boys they will repair,
+ And Lord Edward will be there,
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+ Then what will the yeomen do?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ What will the yeomen do?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ What _should_ the yeomen do
+ But throw off the red and blue,
+ And swear that they'll be true
+ To the _shan van vocht_?
+
+ What _should_ the yeomen do
+ But throw off the red and blue,
+ And swear that they'll be true
+ To the _shan van vocht_?
+
+ And what colour will they wear?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ What colour will they wear?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ What colour should be seen
+ Where our fathers' homes have been,
+ But our own immortal Green?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+ What colour should be seen
+ Where our fathers' homes have been,
+ But our own immortal Green?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+ And will Ireland then be free?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ Will Ireland then be free?
+ Says the _shan van vocht_;
+ Yes! Ireland SHALL be free,
+ From the centre to the sea;
+ Then hurra! for Liberty!
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+ Yes! Ireland SHALL be free,
+ From the centre to the sea;
+ Then hurra! for Liberty!
+ Says the _shan van vocht_.
+
+
+
+THE WEARING OF THE GREEN
+
+
+ O Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that's going round?
+ The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;
+ St. Patrick's day no more we'll keep, his colours can't be seen,
+ For there's a bloody law agin the wearing of the green.
+ I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
+ And he said, 'How's poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?'
+ She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
+ They are hanging men and women for the wearing of the green.
+
+ Then if the colour we must wear be England's cruel red,
+ Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed.
+ You may take the shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod,
+ But 'twill take root and flourish there, though under foot
+ 'tis trod.
+ When law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow,
+ And when the leaves in summer-time their verdure dare not show,
+ Then I will change the colour that I wear in my caubeen,
+ But 'till that day, please God, I'll stick to wearing of the green.
+
+
+
+
+THE RAKES OF MALLOW
+
+
+ Beauing, belleing, dancing, drinking,
+ Breaking windows, damning, sinking,
+ Ever raking, never thinking,
+ Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+ Spending faster than it comes,
+ Beating waiters, bailiffs, duns,
+ Bacchus's true-begotten sons,
+ Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+ One time nought but claret drinking,
+ Then like politicians thinking
+ To raise the sinking funds when sinking,
+ Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+ When at home with dadda dying,
+ Still for Mallow water crying;
+ But where there's good claret plying,
+ Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+ Living short, but merry lives;
+ Going where the devil drives;
+ Having sweethearts, but no wives,
+ Live the rakes of Mallow.
+
+ Racking tenants, stewards teasing,
+ Swiftly spending, slowly raising,
+ Wishing to spend all their days in
+ Raking as at Mallow.
+
+ Then to end this raking life
+ They get sober, take a wife,
+ Ever after live in strife,
+ And wish again for Mallow.
+
+
+
+
+JOHNNY, I HARDLY KNEW YE
+
+_Street Ballad_
+
+
+ While going the road to sweet Athy,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ While going the road to sweet Athy,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ While going the road to sweet Athy,
+ A stick in my hand and a drop in my eye,
+ A doleful damsel I heard cry:--
+ 'Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!
+ With drums and guns and guns and drums
+ The enemy nearly slew ye,
+ My darling dear, you look so queer,
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!
+
+ 'Where are your eyes that looked so mild?
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ Where are your eyes that looked so mild?
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ Where are your eyes that looked so mild,
+ When my poor heart you first beguiled?
+ Why did you run from me and the child?
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!
+ With drums, etc.
+
+ 'Where are the legs with which you run?
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ Where are the legs with which you run?
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ Where are the legs with which you run,
+ When you went to carry a gun?--
+ Indeed, your dancing days are done!
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye
+ With drums, etc.
+
+ 'It grieved my heart to see you sail,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ It grieved my heart to see you sail,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ It grieved my heart to see you sail,
+ Though from my heart you took leg bail,--
+ Like a cod you're doubled up head and tail.
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!
+ With drums, etc.
+
+ 'You haven't an arm and you haven't a leg,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ You haven't an arm and you haven't a leg,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ You haven't an arm and you haven't a leg,
+ You're an eyeless, noseless, chickenless egg;
+ You'll have to be put in a bowl to beg:
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!
+ With drums, etc.
+
+ 'I'm happy for to see you home,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ I'm happy for to see you home,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ I'm happy for to see you home,
+ All from the island of Sulloon,
+ So low in flesh, so high in bone,
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!
+ With drums, etc.
+
+ 'But sad as it is to see you so,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ But sad as it is to see you so,
+ Hurroo! hurroo!
+ But sad as it is to see you so,
+ And to think of you now as an object of woe,
+ Your Peggy'll still keep ye on as her beau;
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!
+
+ 'With drums and guns and guns and drums,
+ The enemy nearly slew ye,
+ My darling dear, you look so queer,
+ Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!'
+
+
+
+
+KITTY OF COLERAINE
+
+
+ As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping
+ With a pitcher of milk from the fair of Coleraine,
+ When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher down tumbled,
+ And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain.
+ O! what shall I do now! 'Twas looking at you, now;
+ Sure, sure, such a pitcher I'll ne'er meet again;
+ 'Twas the pride of my dairy! O Barney O'Cleary,
+ You're sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine!
+
+ I sat down beside her, and gently did chide her,
+ That such a misfortune should give her such pain;
+ A kiss then I gave her, and ere I did leave her,
+ She vowed for such pleasure she'd break it again.
+ 'Twas haymaking season--I can't tell the reason--
+ Misfortunes will never come single 'tis plain;
+ For very soon after poor Kitty's disaster
+ The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine.
+
+
+
+
+LAMENT OF MORIAN SHEHONE FOR MISS MARY ROURKE
+
+_From an Irish keen_
+
+
+ 'There's darkness in thy dwelling-place, and silence reigns above,
+ And Mary's voice is heard no more, like the soft voice of love.
+ Yes! thou art gone, my Mary dear! and Morian Shehone
+ Is left to sing his song of woe, and wail for thee alone.
+ O! snow-white were thy virtues--the beautiful, the young,
+ The old with pleasure bent to hear the music of thy tongue:
+ The young with rapture gazed on thee, and their hearts in
+ love were bound,
+ For thou wast brighter than the sun that sheds its light around.
+ My soul is dark, O Mary dear! thy sun of beauty's set;
+ The sorrowful are dumb for thee--the grieved their tears forget;
+ And I am left to pour my woe above thy grave alone;
+ For dear wert thou to the fond heart of Morian Shehone.
+ Fast-flowing tears above the grave of the rich man are shed,
+ But they are dried when the cold stone shuts in his narrow bed;
+ Not so with my heart's faithful love--the dark grave cannot hide
+ From Morian's eyes thy form of grace, of loveliness, and pride.
+ Thou didst not fall like the sere leaf, when autumn's chill
+ winds blow--
+ 'Twas a tempest and a storm-blast that has laid my Mary low.
+ Hadst thou not friends that loved thee well? hadst thou not
+ garments rare?
+ Wast thou not happy, Mary? wast thou not young and fair?
+ Then why should the dread spoiler come, my heart's peace to destroy,
+ Or the grim tyrant tear from me my all of earthly joy?
+ O! am I left to pour my woes above thy grave alone?
+ Thou idol of the faithful heart of Morian Shehone!
+ Sweet were thy looks and sweet thy smiles, and kind wast thou
+ to all;
+ The withering scowl of envy on thy fortunes dared not fall;
+ For thee thy friends lament and mourn, and never cease to weep--
+ O! that their lamentations could awake thee from thy sleep!
+ O! that thy peerless form again could meet my loving clasp!
+ O! that the cold damp hand of Death could loose his iron grasp!
+ Yet, when the valley's daughters meet beneath the tall elm tree,
+ And talk of Mary as a dream that never more shall be,
+ Then may thy spirit float around, like music in the air,
+ And pour upon their virgin souls a blessing and a prayer.
+ O! am I left to pour my wail above thy grave alone?'
+ Then sinks in silence the lament of Morian Shehone!
+
+
+
+
+THE GERALDINE'S DAUGHTER
+
+
+ Speak low!--speak low--the banshee is crying;
+ Hark! hark to the echo!--she's dying! 'she's dying.'
+ What shadow flits dark'ning the face of the water?
+ 'Tis the swan of the lake--'tis _the Geraldine's Daughter_.
+
+ Hush, hush! have you heard what the banshee said?
+ O! list to the echo! she's dead! 'she's dead!'
+ No shadow now dims the face of the water;
+ Gone, gone is the wraith of _the Geraldine's Daughter_.
+
+ The step of yon train is heavy and slow,
+ There's wringing of hands, there's breathing of woe;
+ What melody rolls over mountain and water?
+ 'Tis the funeral chant of _the Geraldine's Daughter_.
+
+ The requiem sounds like the plaintive moan
+ Which the wind makes over the sepulchre's stone;
+ 'O, why did she die? our hearts' blood had bought her!
+ O, why did she die, _the Geraldine's Daughter_?'
+ The thistle-beard floats--the wild roses wave
+ With the blast that sweeps over the newly-made grave;
+ The stars dimly twinkle, and hoarse falls the water,
+ While night-birds are wailing _the Geraldine's Daughter_.
+
+
+
+
+BY MEMORY INSPIRED
+
+_Street Ballad_
+
+
+ By Memory inspired,
+ And love of country fired,
+ The deeds of Men I love to dwell upon;
+ And the patriotic glow
+ Of my spirit must bestow
+ A tribute to O'Connell that is gone, boys, gone!
+ Here's a memory to the friends that are gone.
+
+ In October 'Ninety-seven--
+ May his soul find rest in Heaven--
+ William Orr to execution was led on:
+ The jury, drunk, agreed
+ That Irish was his creed;
+ For perjury and threats drove them on, boys, on:
+ Here's the memory of John Mitchell that is gone.
+
+ In 'Ninety-Eight--the month July--
+ The informer's pay was high;
+ When Reynolds gave the gallows brave MacCann;
+ But MacCann was Reynolds' first--
+ One could not allay his thirst;
+ So he brought up Bond and Byrne, that are gone, boys, gone.
+ Here's the memory of the friends that are gone!
+
+ We saw a nation's tears
+ Shed for John and Henry Shears;
+ Betrayed by Judas, Captain Armstrong;
+ We may forgive, but yet
+ We never can forget
+ The poisoning of Maguire that is gone, boys, gone--
+ Our high Star and true Apostle that is gone!
+
+ How did Lord Edward die?
+ Like a man, without a sigh;
+ But he left his handiwork on Major Swan!
+ But Sirr, with steel-clad breast,
+ And coward heart at best,
+ Left us cause to mourn Lord Edward that is gone, boys, gone:
+ Here's the memory of our friends that are gone!
+
+ September, Eighteen-three,
+ Closed this cruel history,
+ When Emmett's blood the scaffold flowed upon
+ O, had their spirits been wise,
+ They might then realize
+ Their freedom--but we drink to Mitchell that is gone, boys, gone:
+ Here's the memory of the friends that are gone!
+
+
+
+
+A FOLK VERSE
+
+
+ When you were an acorn on the tree top,
+ Then was I an eagle cock;
+ Now that you are a withered old block,
+ Still am I an eagle cock.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+Page xxi, lines 21 to 25. A well-known poet of the Fenian times has made
+the curious boast--'Talking of work--since Sunday, two cols. notes, two
+cols. London gossip, and a leader one col., and one col. of verse for
+the _Nation_. For _Catholic Opinion_, two pages of notes and a leader.
+For _Illustrated Magazine_, three poems and a five col. story.'
+
+Page 1. 'The deserted village' is Lissoy, near Ballymahon, and Sir
+Walter Scott tells of a hawthorn there which has been cut up into
+toothpicks by Goldsmith enthusiasts; but the feeling and atmosphere of
+the poem are unmistakably English.
+
+Page 8. Some verses in 'The Epicurean' were put into French by Theophile
+Gautier for the French translation, and back again into English by Mr.
+Robert Bridges. If any Irish reader who thinks Moore a great poet, will
+compare his verses with the results of this double distillation, and
+notice the gradual disappearance of their vague rhythms and loose
+phrases, he will be the less angry with the introduction to this book.
+Moore wrote as follows--
+
+ You, who would try
+ Yon terrible track,
+ To live or to die,
+ But ne'er to turn back.
+
+ You, who aspire
+ To be purified there,
+ By the terror of fire,
+ Of water, and air,--
+
+ If danger, and pain,
+ And death you despise,
+ On--for again
+ Into light you shall rise:
+
+ Rise into light
+ With the secret divine,
+ Now shrouded from sight
+ By a veil of the shrine.
+
+These lines are certainly less amazing than the scrannel piping of his
+usual anapaests; but few will hold them to be 'of their own arduous
+fullness reverent'! Theophile Gautier sets them to his instrument in
+this fashion,
+
+ Vous qui voulez courir
+ La terrible carriere,
+ Il faut vivre ou mourir,
+ Sans regard en arriere:
+
+ Vous qui voulez tenter
+ L'onde, l'air, et la flamme,
+ Terreurs a surmonter
+ Pour epurer votre ame,
+
+ Si, meprisant la mort,
+ Votre foi reste entiere,
+ En avant!--le coeur fort
+ Reverra la lumiere.
+
+ Et lira sur l'autel
+ Le mot du grand mystere,
+ Qu'au profane mortel
+ Derobe un voile austere.
+
+Then comes Mr. Robert Bridges, and lifts them into the rapture and
+precision of poetry--
+
+ O youth whose hope is high,
+ Who dost to truth aspire,
+ Whether thou live or die,
+ O look not back nor tire.
+
+ Thou that art bold to fly
+ Through tempest, flood, and fire,
+ Nor dost not shrink to try
+ Thy heart in torments dire:
+
+ If thou canst Death defy,
+ If thy faith is entire,
+ Press onward, for thine eye
+ Shall see thy heart's desire.
+
+ Beauty and love are nigh,
+ And with their deathless quire--
+ Soon shall thine eager cry
+ Be numbered and expire.
+
+Page 27. 'Dark Rosaleen' is one of the old names of Ireland. Mangan's
+translation is very free; as a rule when he tried to translate
+literally, as in 'The Munster Bards,' all glimmer of inspiration left
+him.
+
+Page 32, line 20. 'This passage is not exactly a blunder, though at
+first it may seem one: the poet supposes the grave itself transferred to
+Ireland, and he naturally includes in the transference the whole of the
+immediate locality about the grave' (Mangan note).
+
+Page 47, line 6. The two Meaths once formed a distinct province.
+
+Page 55, line 7. This poem is an account of Mangan's own life, and is, I
+think, redeemed out of rhetoric by its intensity. The following poem,
+'Siberia,' describes, perhaps, his own life under a symbol.
+
+Page 59. Hy Brasail, or Teer-Nan-Oge, is the island of the blessed, the
+paradise of ancient Ireland. It is still thought to be seen from time to
+time glimmering far off.
+
+Page 61. _Mo Craoibhin Cno_ means my cluster of nuts, and is pronounced
+_Mo Chreevin Kno_.
+
+Page 64. Mr. O'Keefe has sent the writer a Gaelic version of this poem,
+possibly by Walsh himself. A correspondent of his got it from an old
+peasant who had not a word of English. A well-known Gaelic scholar
+pronounces it a translation, and not the original of the present poem.
+_Mairgread ni Chealleadh_ is pronounced _Mairgred nei Kealley_. The
+_Ceanabhan_, pronounced _Kanovan_, is the bog cotton, and the _Monadan_
+is a plant with a red berry found on marshy mountains.
+
+Page 69. _A cuisle geal mo chroidhe_, pronounced _A cushla gal mo chre_,
+means 'bright pulse of my heart.'
+
+Page 74. Sir Samuel Ferguson introduces the poem as follows:--
+
+Several Welsh families, associates in the invasion of Strongbow, settled
+in the West of Ireland. Of these, the principal, whose names have been
+preserved by the Irish antiquarians, were the Walshes, Joyces, Heils (_a
+quibus_ MacHale), Lawlesses, Tolmyns, Lynotts, and Barretts, which last
+draw their pedigree from Walynes, son of Guyndally, the _Ard Maor_, or
+High Steward of the Lordship of Camelot, and had their chief seats in
+the territory of the two Bacs, in the barony of Tirawley, and county of
+Mayo. _Clochan-na-n'all_, i. e. 'The Blind Men's Stepping-stones,' are
+still pointed out on the Duvowen river, about four miles north of
+Crossmolina, in the townland of Garranard; and _Tubber-na-Scorney_, or
+'Scrags Well,' in the opposite townland of Carns, in the same barony.
+For a curious _terrier_ or applotment of the Mac William's revenue, as
+acquired under the circumstances stated in the legend preserved by Mac
+Firbis, see Dr. O'Donovan's highly-learned and interesting 'Genealogies,
+&c. of Hy. Fiachrach,' in the publications of the _Irish Archaeological
+Society_--a great monument of antiquarian and topographical erudition.
+
+Page 90, line 6. 'William Conquer' was William Fitzadelm De Burgh, the
+Conqueror of Connaught.
+
+Page 91, line 4. Sir Samuel Ferguson introduces the poem as follows:--
+
+Aideen, daughter of Angus of Ben-Edar (now the Hill of Howth), died of
+grief for the loss of her husband, Oscar, son of Ossian, who was slain
+at the battle of Gavra (_Gowra_, near Tara in Meath), A.D. 284. Oscar
+was entombed in the rath or earthen fortress that occupied part of the
+field of battle, the rest of the slain being cast in a pit outside.
+Aideen is said to have been buried on Howth, near the mansion of her
+father, and poetical tradition represents the Fenian heroes as present
+at her obsequies. The Cromlech in Howth Park has been supposed to be her
+sepulchre. It stands under the summits from which the poet Atharne is
+said to have launched his invectives against the people of Leinster,
+until, by the blighting effect of his satires, they were compelled to
+make him atonement for the death of his son.
+
+Page 99. 'There was then no man in the host of Ulster that could be
+found who would put the sons of Usnach to death, so loved were they of
+the people and nobles. But in the house of Conor was one called Maine
+Rough Hand, son of the king of Lochlen, and Naesi had slain his father
+and two brothers, and he undertook to be their executioners. So the sons
+of Usnach were then slain, and the men of Ulster, when they beheld their
+death, sent forth their heavy shouts of sorrow and lamentation. Then
+Deirdre fell down beside their bodies wailing and weeping, and she tore
+her hair and garments and bestowed kisses on their lifeless lips and
+bitterly bemoaned them. And a grave was opened for them, and Deirdre,
+standing by it, with her hair dishevelled and shedding tears abundantly,
+chanted their funeral song.' (_Hibernian Nights' Entertainment_.)
+
+Page 102. _Uileacan Dubh O_', pronounced _Uileacaun Doov O_, is a phrase
+of lamentation.
+
+Page 108, line 16. 'Anna Grace' is the heroine of another ballad by
+Ferguson. She also was stolen by the Fairies.
+
+Page 112, line 6. Thomas Davis had an Irish father and a Welsh mother,
+and Emily Bronte an Irish father and a Cornish mother, and there seems
+no reason for including the first and excluding the second. I find,
+perhaps fancifully, an Irish vehemence in 'Remembrance.' Several of the
+Irish poets have been of mixed Irish-Celtic and British-Celtic blood.
+William Blake has been recently claimed as of Irish descent, upon the
+evidence of Dr. Carter Blake; and if, in the course of years, that claim
+becomes generally accepted, he should be included also in Irish
+anthologies.
+
+Page 119, line 13. 'The little Black Rose' is but another form of 'Dark
+Rosaleen,' and has a like significance. 'The Silk of the Kine' is also
+an old name for Ireland.
+
+Page 138. _Maire Bhan Astor_ is pronounced _Mauria vaun a-stor_, and
+means 'Fair Mary, my treasure.'
+
+Page 140. _Mo bhuachaill_, pronounced _mo Vohil_, means 'my boy.'
+
+Page 174. The Goban Saor, the mason Goban, is a familiar personage in
+Irish folk-lore, and the reputed builder of the round towers.
+
+Page 191. _Slainte_, ['your] health.'
+
+Page 207. 'And their step-mother, being jealous of their father's great
+love for them, cast upon the king's children, by sorcery, the shape of
+swans, and bade them go roaming, even till Patrick's mass-bell should
+sound in Erin; but no farther in time than that did her power
+extend.'--_The Fate of the Children of Lir_.
+
+Page 222. The wind was one of the deities of the Pagan Irish. 'The
+murmuring of the Red Wind from the East,' says an old poem, 'is heard in
+its course by the strong as well as the weak; it is the wind that wastes
+the bottom of the trees, and injurious to man is that red wind.'
+
+Page 226. _Can Doov Deelish_ means 'dear black head.'
+
+Page 231. The chorus is pronounced _Shoo-il, shoo-il, shoo-il, a rooin,
+Shoo-il go socair, ogus shoo-il go kiune, Shoo-il go den durrus ogus
+euli liom, Iss go de too, mo vourneen, slaun_, and means--
+
+ 'Move, move, move, O treasure,
+ Move quietly and move gently,
+ Move to the door, and fly with me,
+ And mayest thou go, my darling, safe!'
+
+Page 232. _Shan van vocht_, meaning 'little old woman', is a name for
+Ireland.
+
+Page 235. This is not the most ancient form of the ballad, but it is the
+form into which it was recast by Boucicault, and which has long taken
+the place of all others.
+
+Page 237, line 2. 'Sinking,' violent swearing.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+=IRISH BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.=
+
+_VERSE._
+
+ THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN.
+ THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE.
+ THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN.
+
+_PROSE._
+
+ THE CELTIC TWILIGHT.
+ JOHN SHERMAN AND DHOYA.
+
+_ANTHOLOGIES._
+
+ IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES.
+ IRISH FAIRY STORIES.
+ STORIES FROM CARLETON.
+ IRISH TALES.
+
+RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Book of Irish Verse, by William Butler Yeats
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF IRISH VERSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 37845.txt or 37845.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+ http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/8/4/37845/
+
+Produced by Brian Foley, Ron Stephens and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+ the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+ you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
+ owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+ has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+ Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
+ must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+ prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+ returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+ sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+ address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+ the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+ you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+ does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+ License. You must require such a user to return or
+ destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+ and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+ Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+ money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+ electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+ of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+ distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+ Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+ Chief Executive and Director
+ gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+ http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-07-01 08:44:05 +0000