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

Afar in the vales of green Houra my heart lingers all the day long,
'Mid the dance of the light-footed maidens, with the music of Ounanaar's song,
Where the steep hills uprise all empurpled with the bloom of the bright heather bells,
Looking down on their murmuring daughters, the blue streams of Houra's wild dells.
In the hush of a calm summer sunset where sing these sweet streams as they flow,
As I sat with the blithe youths and maidens they made me their bard long ago;
Then I told of each valley some legend, some tale of each blue mountain crest,
But they loved of all old tales I sang them the lay of Sir Donall the best.
So I'll sing once again of his deeds in my boyhood's rude measures and rhymes,—
Then, gentles, all list to the story, this lay of old chivalrous times:—

100

II

Nigh the shores of the swift flowing Bregoge, on a rock tow'ring over the wold,
Walled in by the rough steeps of Houra, there standeth a grey feudal hold;
It is worn by the hard hail of battle, decay is at work on its hill,
Yet it stands like a sorrow-struck Titan, high, lone, and unconquerable still.
The green ivy clingeth around it, the blast is at play in its halls,
The weasel peeps out from its crannies, the black raven croaks on its walls;
The peasants who pass in the evening will hurry their steps from its height,
For they tell fearful things of its chambers and call it the Tower of the Sprite.
But its bleak ruined halls once rang merry with wassail and minstrel's sweet lay,
When it sheltered the youthful Sir Donall, its lord in the good olden day.

III

Sir Donall was first in the chase, and as morning upsprang from the sea,
He was out by the fay-haunted streams with his falcons in woody Fer-muighe;

101

Or away, far away 'mid the mountains, with stag-hound and bugle and steed,
Overmatching the grey wolf in boldness, outstripping the red deer in speed.
And his heart and his strong hand were bravest, when high rose the trumpet's wild strain,
When the war-fires blazed red on the hill-tops and the horsemen rode hard on the plain,
When dight in his harness and spurring to the Desmond's bright banner away,
His mountaineers dashing behind him with sabres athirst for the fray.
On the field, in the home, he was welcomed; and the dames of the crag castles tall
Were proud when he smiled on their daughters at eve in the gay festive hall.

IV

'Tis noon on the broad plain of Limerick and down by the calm Loobagh's tide,
The sunbeams smite hot on the meadows and burn by the green forest side;
And brightly they glint from a helmet and broadly they gleam from a shield,
Where a knight rideth up by the river in brave shining panoply steeled.
Kern crouch on his path in the greenwood with pikes ready raised for a foe;
But they know the high mien of Sir Donall and stay for some Saxon the blow;

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And the galloglass scowls from his ambush; but he too remembers that plume,
And wishing good luck to its owner, strides back to his lair in the gloom.
But why rides Sir Donall so lonely? and why is his gladness all fled?—
On a field by Lough Gur's lonely water the friend of his bosom lies dead.

V

Away then away to the mountains he giveth his warhorse the rein,
While he longs for the clangour of battle to drown his dejection again;
The blest Hill of Patrick slopes green with its tall hoary tower on his way,
But the good monk who waits in the abbey in vain looketh out for his stay;
And anon the Black Rock of the Eagle frowns down on his path by Easmore,
Till he crosseth the slow Oun-na-Geeragh, and windeth away from its shore.
Now nigh him Seefin riseth proudly o'er wild Glenosheen's ancient wood;
He glances at bright Lyre-na-Grena and drinks of its cool crystal flood,

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Then sweeps through the dark Poulaflaikin and on by a flat moorland side,
Till he lights nigh a clear fairy fountain at length by the Ounanaar's tide.

VI

It is on a small shrubby islet, with forests and cliffs all around,
Save where the bright stream from the blue hills leaps down with a low lulling sound;
And it seems as if step of nought human did e'er on its low strand alight;
Yet a lady peers out from the thicket anear the good steed of the knight.
She is old, yet there's fire in her dark eye, but sorrow is stamped on her mien,
And she knows the tall crest of Sir Donall and comes to his side from the screen;
She waveth her hand to him sadly; he follows her steps by the flood,
Till they enter a hut of thick brambles concealed in the dark spreading wood,
And there, on a rude couch of green fern, an old dying chieftain is laid,
And over him bitterly weeping, there bendeth a golden-haired maid.

104

VII

He turns to the knight as he enters, and thus in weak accents of woe:—
“Thy sire was my friend, good Sir Donall, in the days of our youth long ago;
The Saxons have scattered my people—alas, for that gloom-darkened hour,
When they forced me to fly, weak and wounded, thus far from Duarrigle's tower.
A friend—a friend treacherous and hollow—hath tracked me to Ounanaar's side,
And he swears on his sword to betray me or have this young maid for his bride;
Black Murrogh, false lord of Rathgoggan, soon soon from thy wiles I am free;
But alas for the wife of my bosom, alas, my loved daughter, for thee!”
He died on that eve, and they bore him away to the age-honoured spires
Of grey Kilnamullagh next noontide, and laid him to rest with his sires.

VIII

There was feasting that night in Kilcolman, and all in their bright martial gear,
Black Murrogh and fearless Sir Donall and many stout champions are there;

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And there speaks Sir Donall, uprising, and bends on black Murrogh his gaze:—
“List ye, freres of the feast and the battle, to a tale of the wild forest maze.
As I rode by the Ounanaar's water, Duarrigle's chieftain I found;
He was driven from his home by the Saxons, and said, ere he died of his wound:
‘A friend—a friend treacherous and hollow—has tracked me to Ounanaar's side,—
A friend who has sworn to betray me or have my young daughter his bride!’
By my faith he's a bold knightly traitor, to woo her with ardour so brave;
Now there lies my gauntlet before him: thus proof of his passion I crave!”

IX

Then up starts the lord of Rathgoggan and fierce is the flash of his eye,
As he glares on the dark brows around him with bearing defiant and high:
“False knight of a silly young maiden, thy gauntlet I take from the board,
And soon on thy crest in the combat I'll prove my good name with my sword;
And I'll clear a good path to my glory—a path through that black heart of thine,
But fired by the love of young damsels, but steeled by the red gushing wine;
And close be the palisade round us and short be the distance between,
Where a liar's black life-blood shall poison the bloom of the bright summer green!”
“And fair shine the sun,” quoth Sir Donall, “the bright evening sun on my sword,
Defending Duarrigle's maiden—avenging Duarrigle's lord!”

106

X

Calm eve on the fair hills of Houra and down by the Mulla's green marge,
The red beams are burning in glory from hauberk and sabre and targe,
And the warriors are circling around it—that smooth listed green by the wave—
Where two mailéd champions are standing with keen axe and target and glaive;
Flash lances around them in brightness, gleam banners along by the shore,
Fierce Condon's from Araglin's water, De Rupè's from lordly Glenore;
And the Barry's proud pennon is waving, and the flags of the chieftains whose towers
Defy from their crag-seats the foemen by Avonmore's gorges and bowers;
Yet still the two champions stand moveless, stern, frowning, and silent the while,
Like the panoplied statues that stand round the walls of some grey abbey aisle.

XI

But hark, how the clear martial trumpet outrolls the dread signal for strife,
And see how those motionless statues outstart from their postures to life!
The mailed heels go round on the greensward, the mailed hands ply weapons amain,
Till the targes are battered and cloven and the axes are shivered in twain.

107

Wide and deep are the wounds of Sir Donall, but deeper the gash of his foe,
As their sabres cross, gleaming and clashing—two flames in the red sunny glow:
One thrust through the blood-spattered hauberk, one stroke on the crest waving o'er,
And the lord of Rathgoggan lies fallen to rise to the combat no more;
And there, for a space, swaying, reeling, and faint from his wounds' gushing tide,
Sir Donall looks down on the vanquished, then sinketh in swoon by his side.

XII

They bear one away to his tower and they bear one away stark and cold;
One ne'er may awake; and one waketh, a bright blessèd scene to behold;
For the maid of Duarrigle bendeth above the dim couch where he lies,
With love as her spirit immortal and joy like the morn in her eyes.
O, sweet are the dreams of his slumbers o'erflowing with fairy delight,
But sweeter the dreams of his waking each day in the Tower of the Sprite.
And now 'tis the fullness of summer,—a fair breezy morning in June,—
And the streams of green Houra are leaping along with a sweet murm'ring tune,
And thy bells, Kilnamullagh, are ringing—not knells of the gloom-footed hours,
But the sweet bridal chimes of Sir Donall and the maid of Duarrigle's towers.