Louise de la Valliaere and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

As red as battle, the dead sun's light
The spectral moon sailed through,
With mist for a shroud, and white as she
With silver wings trailed mournfully,
The Wild Geese eastward flew.
The sad stars watched through the weeping night
That glimmer ghostly pale,
And the nested birds did shuddering wake
For a wild, wild cry of hearts that break
Borne on the gathering gale.

O'er many a little tarn and lough,
The lovely land's blue eyes,
They passed, and the water quivered with pain,
The sapphire dimmed by a mournful stain,
In the reeds were wailing cries.
The wind a-moan made the tree-tops rock,
The blessed flowers lay dead,
The ripe fruits failed in the harvesting,
But these sailed fast on a drooping wing
And turned no more the head.

Wild Geese! Wild Geese! why did ye go?
Why did ye leave her forlorn,
Your lady Erin, who many a day,
While summer was green and winter was grey,
Waxed whiter, nor ceased to mourn?
Her sick eyes watched in the dawning's glow,
While, from the golden shore,
The sun's gem-laden argosies
Came sailing down the eastward skies,
But these returned no more.

The spring came up through meads of light,
With robes of primrose hue,
The stars were shed so thick in May
Each hedgerow shone a Milky Way,
The swallows homeward flew.
Rare ruby cups of incense bright,
The red fire at the core,
June roses swung in the garden close,
Gold autumn came, white winter's snows
Sped from the northern shore.

And they came not, O well-beloved!
In all the empty years,
Thine own fair heroes wandering,
No welcome beat of strong white wing
Made music in thine ears.
In Austria and France they roved
Through ways as sad as death;
In alien paths the tired feet bled,
The laurel crowns that decked the head
Were thorn-set underneath.

Ah! Patrick Sarsfield, when you lay,
With your life-blood flowing amain,
You looked at the dark stain on your hand,
And “Would it were shed for mine own dear land!”
You cried in your spirit's pain.
Did you long, true heart! in their alien clay
For a mossy churchyard mound,
With the shamrocks shrouding you close and sweet,
From the weary head to the weary feet,
In the blessed Irish ground?

The Irish soldiery, who, after the Williamite conquest and the treachery of the broken “Treaty of Limerick,” sailed away from Ireland and took service in the armies of France and Austria and Spain, were called “The Wild Geese.”