Ballads of Irish chivalry By Robert Dwyer Joyce: Edited, with Annotations, by his brother P. W. Joyce |
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MAIRGRÉAD BÁN. |
 | Ballads of Irish chivalry |  |
MAIRGRÉAD BÁN.
I
My wild heart's love, my woodland dove,The tender and the true,
She dwells beside a blue stream's tide
That bounds through sweet Glenroe;
Through every change her love's the same,—
A long bright summer dawn,
A gentle flame,—and O, her name
Is lovely Mairgréad Bán:
O, joy, that on her paths I came,
My lovely Mairgréad Bán.
II
When winter hoar comes freezing o'erThe mountains wild and grey,
Her neck is white as snow-wreaths bright
Upon thy crags, Knockea;
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On Darra's flowery lawn;
Her fairy feet are light and fleet,
My gentle Mairgréad Bán;
And O, her steps I love to meet,
My own dear Mairgréad Bán!
III
When silence creeps o'er Houra's steeps,As blue eve ends its reign,
Her long locks' fold is like the gold
That gleams o'er sky and main.
My heart's dark sorrow fled away
Like night before the dawn,
When one spring day I went astray,
And met my Mairgréad Bán,
And felt her blue eyes' witching ray,
My lovely Mairgréad Bán.
IV
One summer noon, to hear the tuneOf wild birds in the wood,
Where murmuring streams flashed back the beams,
All rapt in bliss I stood;
The birds sang from the fairy moat,
From greenwood, brake, and lawn;
But never throat could chant a note
So sweet as Mairgréad Bán,
As through the vales her wild songs float,
My lovely Mairgréad Bán.
| Ballads of Irish chivalry | |