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

There is a height by Cloda's shore
With a grey crag upon its crown,
And from that crag a castle hoar
Looks over many a dale and down;
And in that castle is a room
Where I spent many an hour of gloom;
For from my birth some malady
Of power malign had seized on me,
So that I was a weakly child,
Cursed with a soul perverse and wild,
A mischievous and peevish child.

II.

I had four brothers, tall and brave,
Deft at the bridle and the glaive;
I had four sisters, fair to see;
A mother fond as fond could be;
My father was a comely man
As e'er drew sword in battle's van.

180

III.

Oft, when alone within my room,
Strange shapes arose in evening's gloom.
Wild shadowy forms would then arise
And pierce me with their searching eyes—
Vast shades of saffron-kilted chiefs
With beards like foam on Burren's reefs;
Huge Danes with looks of fire and bale
Dim glimmering in their shirts of mail;
Stern Norman knights with hearts as hard
As the blue flints of Bleannamard,
Came in their iron panoply,
Each in his turn, and gazed on me;
With many another phantom train—
The spawn of my distempered brain.

IV.

At morning too the playful elves,
Who in the lone raths hide themselves,
Came from each glen and forest glade,
And many a gambol round me played;
And when my wild weird laughter smote
The warders' ears beside the moat,
They crossed themselves, all shuddering,
And said I was no earthly thing,
But an unnatural changeling sprite
Left by the Deena Shee at night.

181

V.

Amongst that merry crowd was one,
An imp of mischief and of fun,
From the green rath by Cloda's hill,
Who said his name was Snaudadil.
I'd but to call, and presently
Up at my elbow started he,
To prompt me to such antics wild
As ne'er were played by mortal child:
Alas, one prank he made me play
I'll rue until my dying day.

VI.

One morn, my father, freres, and all,
At matin meal sat in the hall;
The steeds outside all saddled stood
To hunt the stag in Brona's wood;
When at my elbow Snaud appeared
With many an antic strange and weird;
He led me down the stair with speed,
And bade me mount my father's steed.
A moment—and I sat in selle;
A moment—with a vicious yell
Of elfish and exulting glee,
I shook the bossy bridle free
And pricked the great steed with a knife
I'd stolen from Gil the falconer's wife.
Madly he danced the court-yard round,
Then crossed the deep moat at a bound,
And, with a short and angry neigh
Of rage and terror, dashed away
Like lightning down the forest track,
As if a fiend was on his back!

182

VII.

At first I was of sense bereft,
The breath my little body left,
So fast and furious was the speed,
The pace of that strong sable steed.
At last I woke, full soon to find
My father and my freres behind,
Scouring along, with six good men,
To stop my course through Brona's Glen—
That fatal gorge of crags and pits,
Where Brone the Banshee moaning sits.
They called, but at their call the more
I yelled and pricked the good steed sore,
Until I clattered through the Pass,
Like the resounding rocky mass
That, loosened from the mountain's cope,
Thunders down Knock-an-Affrin's slope.
Then swifter swifter sped he on,
O'er bank and brake and clattering stone,
With mighty overwhelming force,
Showering the blossoms from the gorse,
Tearing the greensward's fretted woof
In thunder with his iron hoof;
Still on resistless fierce and fast,
Till out we dashed by Knocknaree,
Where dwelt Sir John de Prendergast,
For years my father's enemie.

183

VIII.

What saw I by that hostile hold
Within a green glade of the wold?
A little maiden fair and bright,
Mounted upon a palfrey white;
Her face by golden sunbeams kissed,
A goss-hawk on her slender wrist;
A small page at her bridle-rein,
With long bright plume of yellow stain;
Beside them two young wolf-hounds grey,
Upon the cool green grass at play.
One glimpse I had, and only one,
As doubly mad I thundered on,
To mark the look of wild surprise
And pity in her large grey eyes.

IX.

Away with lightning speed once more
Towards the great moor of Ballandore,
That dreary waste of trembling reeds
And marshes, where the wild duck feeds;
Where o'er the deep pools, black and dim,
The grassy eskers seem to swim,—
Away, till dell and dingle passed,
Like th' arrow from the arbalast,
We tore through splashing mire and scrog,
And plunged, half swallowed, in the bog.
Then turned the sweltering steed around,
With dripping breast and mane,
And stamped once more the solid ground,
And clanged his bridle rein.

184

X.

Ha! was it thunder from the Pass
That smote mine ear,
Loud rolling o'er the brown morass,
With sound of fear?
No; 'twas the vengeful battle-cry
That came in that fierce peal,
With the gun's loud volley rolling by,
And the ringing clash of steel.
Like the autumnal thunder knell
That shakes the mountains hoar,
From lowland base to highland fell,
It rose in one wild roar;
Then the gloomy marsh and the forest dell
And the heavens were still once more.

XI.

My heart swelled in my troubled breast,
Loud throbbing with a wild unrest;
Bitterly did the tear-drops rise,
And burn within mine aching eyes;
For much I feared that slogan yell
Might be my gallant father's knell.
Once more I shook the bridle free,
And bounded back towards Knocknaree,
Past the sweet spot where I had seen
The maiden in the glade of green,
Till up, with arrowy speed agen,
I clattered into Brona's Glen.

XII.

Ah! well might Brone the Banshee tear
Her shadowy robe and streaming hair,
And raise her unavailing cries,
All mournful to the breezy skies

185

For there, most foully murdered, lay
My father, freres, and men that day!
And there, above my father's corse,—
Horror struck, bending from his horse,
I found Sir John de Prendergast;
Moaning, while tears were falling fast—
My sire's firm friend long long ago,
But now for many a year his foe,
The father of the sylvan maid
I saw within the forest glade.

XIII.

With rage and grief I scarce had breath
To tax him with my father's death,
To brandish high that glittering knife,
And challenge him to mortal strife.
Sadly he looked down on his foe
Upon the bloody turf laid low,
Sadly he smiled at my wild wrath—
He saw me crazed with rage and woe,
And deigned me neither word nor blow—
But turned him silent down the path
With labouring breast and hollow groan,
And left me with the dead, alone.

XIV.

I looked upon my murdered sire,
Low lying in the gore and mire;
I looked upon my brothers brave,
Each grasping still his broken glaive,
And with a ringing shriek of dread
Up the wild vale of Brone I fled,
Till with commingled fear and hate
Mad yelling, shot I through the gate
On that great horse, in dust and foam,
And brought the direful tidings home.

186

XV.

Woe! woe! the keeners' cry,
How mournful it began!
Now dying low, now swelling high,
On the ears of the gathered clan;—
Woe! woe! my mother's wail,
And my sisters' grief and fear,
And the look of the dead, so still and pale,
Each on his sable bier;
Eleven corpses in the hall,
And my mad freak the cause of all.
I cursed that fairy, so that he
From that fatal morn ne'er came to me;
I cursed those heroes grim and old,
And their shades did I never again behold;
I cursed myself, and that dark ravine,
Where the murderers slew my kith and kin;
But the murderers never a curse I gave,—
I left them all for the lance and glaive.

XVI.

The suns of five long years had burned
O'er widow, sisters, son and clan,
And the light of health to mine eyes returned—
I'd grown a tall and stalwart man;
Spearing the salmon in the floods,
Hunting the grim wolf through the woods,
The dun deer up the mountain track,
Fighting in many a bold attack—
And, comrades, by the blessed sun,
For many a mile there was not one
Could manage the battle charger free,
Or handle the heavy lance with me!

XVII.

In those five years, through peace or strife,
Why took I not my foeman's life?

187

Why fell I not upon his clan,
Nor slew them all, both chief and man?
You'll hear. Within the secret wood
I met that maiden fair and good—
The daughter of my father's foe
I'd seen upon that day of woe.
She loved me earthly things above,
I loved her with an equal love;
And often, when the winds were bland,
And flowers were blooming o'er the land,
We met within the forest bower
For many a blissful secret hour,—
Or by the streamlet's vocal shore,
And told our love-vows o'er and o'er.
The chief himself and all his clan—
Them I avoided—every man,
Lest memory of the direful past,
Might break the bonds of love at last
And hurl me on De Prendergast.

XVIII.

Alas, that love must bow to hate,
That red revenge its ire must sate!
One day our bard had gathered all
Our warlike clan round Cloda's hall,
And spoke and told them, every one,
I was not like my father's son,
Else I had met my foeman stout,
And fought the bloody death feud out.

XIX.

Provoked at heart, with brow full black,
I threw my harness on my back,
Resolved my foeman's hold to sack,
And give it o'er to fire and wrack.
I mounted my battle-charger free,
And placed my lance beside my knee;

188

High in the sun by Cloda's shore
I raised the banner of Le Poer.
Merrily on that river marge
Glittered the light on helm and targe;
Merrily did the sunbeams strike
On the glancing points of sword and pike;
Merrily did the war-pipes play;
Yet my heart was sad as we marched away.

XX.

As we marched down through Brona's Glen
I made a vow unheard of men—
Whatever fortune happed that day,
De Prendergast I would not slay.

XXI.

Up for the storming of the gate
Rushed the fierce clan with hearts elate
That vengeance due had come at last
Upon our foe De Prendergast.
And there a welcome warm they got
Of molten pitch and leaden shot,
That laid their bodies many a row
The barbican's bloody gate below.
Then rose my hot blood boiling high,
And the light of battle lit mine eye
To see the sudden sally out,
The swaying onset stern and stout,
To hear the opposing clansmen shout,
And rattling steel and roaring rout;
And—as a charger that from far
Hears the loud clangour of the war,
Neighs fierce and shrill, and in his might
Bursts through the thickest of the fight—
So rushed I up the castle height,
And raised the war-cry of my clan,
And stormed the stubborn barbican

189

XXII.

Bloody were pike and partisan
When through the gateway rushed the clan;
Bloody were axe and skene and sword,
When 'cross the court-yard fast we poured,
Tumultuous as the mountain flood
That devastates some lowland wood.
My blood was hot, my rage unpent,
As first in that wild rush I went.
I saw my foeman 'mid the dead
Brandish a huge mace o'er his head;
I marked his eye, so cold and stern,
Glitter like those the mountain erne
Casts savagely upon his prey
Down from his rock so steep and grey;
I saw him strike three clansmen down
With his iron mace through helm and crown.
I thought upon my murdered sire
And rushed at him with eyes on fire;
I smote him with my bloody sperthe,
And dashed him sorely to the earth;
Heavy and deadly was the stroke,
His good steel basnet bar it broke,
And laid him on his back before
The archway of his castle door.
I placed my knee upon his breast,
And raised my skene on high—
When passion is strong and reason blind,
Our vows are scattered to the wind—
I raised the skene his life to take,
When the solid court-yard seemed to quake,
And I heard a sound like the sounds that break
From the wings of birds o'er the wild sea lake
When storms are in the sky.

190

I looked—and by the Holy Rood,
There 'mid that scene of wrath and blood,
My father's shade before me stood!

XXIII.

He raised his shadowy hand
Slowly and silently—
A strange weird look of stern command
In his eye as he gazed on me.
He spoke: his words were like the tone
Of runnels heard remote and lone
Through mountain woods—now strangely clear,
Now dying distant on the ear:—
“Strike not!” he said; “for now I know
De Prendergast was ne'er my foe;
True friends were we, long long ago,
Ere civil warfare's dire behest
With seeming hate filled either breast.
That day he singly strove to aid
And shield me 'gainst the ambuscade
Of him, my murderer—Macray,
The robber chieftain of Coumfay!”

XXIV.

Down upon the gory sand
I dropped my dagger from my hand—
Thank Heaven! it did not find a sheath
Within his heart who lay beneath.
I raised mine eyes to look upon
That awful shade again—'twas gone!—

191

The form that from my troubled sight
Hid the wild turmoil of the fight;
The voice that from my spellbound ear
Shut out the battle's sounds of fear!

XXV.

I sprang unto my feet, and back
I turned my clan from the attack;
I stopped the battle's thundering din,
And raised the chief and bore him in
To the chamber where my long-loved maid
For the souls departing prayed.
There I placed De Prendergast—
He and I were friends at last.
Night came. When morning rose agen,
Together through the mountain glen
Up swift we marched, with sword and fire,
And slew the murderers of my sire.
And scarce one happy week was o'er
When both our clans by Cloda's shore
Gathered beneath the sun to see
The plighting of my love and me.