Ballads of Irish chivalry :: :: University of Virginia Library

I pledge ye, comrades, in this cup
Of usquebaugh, bright brimming up;
And now while winds are blowing rude
Around our camp fire in the wood,
I'll tell my tale, yet sooth to say
It will be but a mournful lay.

II.

Glenanner is a lovely sight,
Oun-Tarra's dells are fair and bright,
Sweet are the flowers of Lisnamar,
And gay the glynns 'neath huge Benn Gar;
But still, where'er our banner leads,
'Mid tall brown hills or lowland meads,
By storied dale or mossy down,
My heart goes back to Carrick town.

III.

By Carrick town a castle brave
Towers high above its river wave,
Well belted round by wall and fosse
That foot of foe ne'er strode across.
Look on me now—a man am I
Of mournful thoughts and bearing sad;
Yet once my hopes flowed fair and high,
And once a merry heart I had;
For I was squire to Ormond then,
First in his train each jovial morn

He flew his hawks by moor and fen,
Or chased the stag by rock and glen
With music sweet of hound and horn.
Young Ormond was a goodly lord
As ever sat at head of board.
If Europe's kings, some festal day,
Sat round the board in revel gay,
And he were there, and I in hall,
The seneschal to place them all,
I'd place him without pause or fault
Among their best above the salt.
You need not smile, Sir Hugh le Poer,
Nor you, young Donal of Killare;
I'd prove my words, ay, o'er and o'er,
With skian in hand and bosom bare,
Or sword to sword and jack to jack,
For sake of Thomas Oge the Black!

IV.

'Twas then the time when mortal strife,
Steel axe to axe and knife to knife,
Was waged between the Butler line
And the strong race of Geraldine.
And Desmond was a foeman stout
In battle, siege, or foray rout;
With spur on heel and sword in hand,
Upon the borders of our land,

With his fierce hobbelers he kept,
And often on our hamlets swept,
As swoops the eagle from the mountain
On the young lambkins by the fountain,
And in his talons bears away
To crags remote his bleeding prey.
And many a goodly tower and town
Before his hot assaults went down;
For havoc, flame, and woeful sack,
Forever marked his vengeful track.
Yet oft we met him sword to sword,
By mountain pass and lowland ford,
And turned the tide of war again
Far through each Desmond vale and glen.

V.

The March winds sang through bower and tree,
And shook the young reeds by the ferry,
And light cloud-shadows o'er the lea
Ran like the billows of the sea,
One day that in the tilt-yard we
Were making merry;
When swift as those light clouds that fled
Over each vale and moorland brown,
A mounted courier towards us sped
Wild spurring down,
Then rode unto the castle straight,
And blew his bugle at the gate.
The Decies' badge full well we knew,
On the light cap and folling blue,
The hasty clansman wore.

I wot that small delay had he,
So eager for his news were we,
For back the ponderous bolts we drew,
And led him straight our chief before.
He told how Desmond and his men
Had crossed the border mountain glen,
A small but hardy band,
Assailed his chieftain's hamlets free,
And levied coign and liverie
Within the Decies' land.
Then begged the noble Butler's aid
To stem the Desmond's ruthless raid.

VI.

In sooth, his prayer was not in vain,
For, ere one hour, o'er hill and plain
Full many an eager gillie trode,
And many a rushing easlach rode,
Till twilight, when on tower and mount
A hundred war-fires you might count.
Old Carrick town rang loud next morn
With roll of drum and bray of horn,
For from each forest, plain, and glynn,
The clansmen all had gathered in.

Then Butler issued from his hall
Among his gallant clansmen all,
And straightway took the southern track,
While we rode gayly at his back;
And never his charger rested he
By cross of road or fount or plain,
Until he reached, where, broad and strong,
Blackwater rushes by crag and tree,

With plaintive roar or gladsome song,
'Mid the bonnic woods of wild Affane.
Within those woods we camped that night,
And waited but the morning light
To fall upon proud Desmond's path,
And on his raiders vent our wrath.

VII.

When morn's first beams began to quiver
On crest of rock and wave of river,
A marshalled band we saw far south
Emerging from a valley's mouth,
And knew 'twas Desmond and his men.
He saw us by the ford arrayed—
The Desmond bold—and when they prayed—
His bearded knights—that he would flee
Our onset, stoutly answered he,
With knitted brow and flashing eye—
“Though we are only one to three,
Beside yon ford I'd rather lie,
Bloody and stiff within my jack,
Than on a Butler turn my back.”

Then hoarsely rose the battle yell,
And fast the Desmond clansmen fell;—
Yet stoutly still our charge they met,
Though gallantly to work we set,
Until Sir Edmund's petronel
Brought Desmond down, and he was made
A prisoner in that gory dell:
So ended his disastrous raid.

'Twas then, as five tall Butlers bore
The wounded Desmond by the shore,
“Where is the mighty Desmond now?”
They asked, amid that battle's wreck;
He raised himself, all red with gore,
And answered with exultant brow,—
“O, where, but on the Butler's neck!”

VIII.

The fight was fought, the noonday sun
Shone down on banner, glaive, and gun
Of the proud victors, as they sped
Back to their homes the hills across—
Shone on the vanquished as they fled
Through tangled woods and paths that led
O'er meadowy plain and desert moss;
And up the huge-ribbed hills so high,—
And with them, prisoner bound, was I.

IX.

They placed me in a dungeon strong,
Where distant Mulla winds among
The leafy woods of Houra's hills,
Fed by a hundred dancing rills;
And there I pined for many a day,
Till five long seasons passed away.
Then when they thought my spirit broke,
They freed me from their curséd yoke,
And bade me wander as I might,
Yet warned me 'gainst escape or flight.
I well remember, ay, and will
Till some brave foe my blood shall spill,

The day I crossed my dungeon door,
And sought the wild woods free;
The summer sky was laughing o'er;
And from green glen and height and shore
The jocund birds their songs did pour
So merrilie;
And to mine eyes all nature wore
A look of wondrous brilliancy.
An infant's strength was more than mine
As I went forth that morn;
I thought each stream a draught divine,
I rested 'neath each blossomed thorn,
Or slowly strayed o'er height and hollow,
Long draughts of balmy air to swallow.

X.

My strength returned. One golden eve
As up the hills I clomb,
Sweet dreams within my heart to weave,
And think upon my far-off home,
I gained a valley lone and deep,
Where Ounanaar's bright waters leap
And fill the thick green woods with song,
Wild tumbling through the dells along.
I sat me by the voiceful stream,—
I sat me in a pleasant dream;
For who could pass that valley fair
And stop not for a moment there?
The green ash o'er the torrent grew,
The oak his strong arms upwards threw
To the blue heavens, as if to clasp
Some wandering cloudlet in his grasp.
The leafy branches thick and green
On all sides made a shadowy screen,

Save where a little vista showed
Beneath me where the torrent sheen,
A mimic lake, all smoothly flowed,
With many a sparkling ripple stealing
Over its breast of radiancy,
Wild beauties on its banks revealing;
And, O, what it revealed to me!

XI.

There, on a green and mossy stone,
A young bright maiden stood alone
Gazing upon the foam-wreaths white
That sparkled on their pathway rude,
And ne'er was seen a fairer sight.
Methought that maiden, as she stood,
Some phantom, or a vision bright,
Or lovely spirit of the wood.
A moment—I was standing there
Beside that maid so young and fair;
A moment—and my heart was gone
With her bright face and sunny hair;
And ah! so sweet her blue eyes shone,
'Twas lost ere I was half aware.
A moment—for time went so fleet,
Long hours had minutes been to me—
And in that lone and wild retreat
There we were talking pleasantly.
I told her how in their strong tower
A prisoner I had lain,
And how I longed for that glad hour
When I might 'scape their chain;
And found she was a captive too,
For three long years,—
A captive from that sweet land where,
Above the blooming woods of Caher,
Wild Galty to the skies so blue
Its tall crest rears.

XII.

It boots not, comrades, now to tell
How oft we met in that lone dell,
And how we loved, and how we planned
To 'scape and reach the Butler's land.
One morn a brave black steed I caught,—
My captor's own fleet steed,—
And rode away to that wild spot
With headlong speed;
And towards far Ormond, glad and free,
I bore my love away with me.

XIII.

But sorrow came too soon—alas!
As we sped down Glendarra's pass,
The foe came thundering on our track
With matchlocks pointed at my back.
Away across Turlaggan's rill,
Up to the foot of Gurma's hill;
But when I gained its summit high,
Between my foemen and the sky,
A bullet hurtled through the air
And grazed my side with sudden smart,
And lodged within my true love's heart.

XIV.

Ah, woe is me! the look she gave,
It haunts me yet;
Its bitter anguish but the grave
Can make my heart forget.
One sudden look of woeful pain—
And she was dead;
And I—far down into the plain,
O'er rocks and glens I fled,

And speeding onward like the wind,
I left my foemen far behind;
Away, away on that swift horse,
Clasping close my true-love's corse!

XV.

I bore her to yon peakéd hill,
And scooped her narrow bed,
And laid the earth, so damp and chill,
Above my darling's head.
And, comrades, since that woeful day
I've never known
One hour of gladness: and I crave,
When I shall fall amid the fray,
You'll bear me to yon mountain lone,
And lay me in my true love's grave.