[Poems by Piatt in] The Hesperian tree an annual of the Ohio Valley - 1903 |
 | PICTURES OF TRAVEL IN IRELAND |
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 | [Poems by Piatt in] The Hesperian tree |  |
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PICTURES OF TRAVEL IN IRELAND
I
DUNMAESE
In that dusk Land of tragic memories,How often I, when journeying to and fro,
Have watched a ruined solitary keep,
Four-square along the horizon far off, glide
Gray on the grayness of its misty height,
Fitfully seen, then vanishing again,
And thrilled with breath of Erin's ancient woes.
For 't was of old a seat of Leinster's kings,—
Eva Macmorough, once the place was thine,
Strongbow's sweet bribe, Earl Strongbow's royal bride!
Whose blood-bought union breeds disunion still,
Thy marriage-ring thy hapless country's curse!
Seen from the Great Southern and Western Railway between Cork and Dublin, some time before reaching Maryborough. There is a large painting by Maclise in the National Gallery at Dublin, representing the marriage of Eva to Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, on the battlefield at the capture of Waterford. A wounded and fallen Irish bard is shown in the foreground, supporting himself on his harp, while, with head uplifted, he watches the ceremony with an expression of prophetic horror.
II
THE ROCK OF CASHEL
Flying along the horizon far away,
Momently glimpsed, momently vanishing,
Through hurrying groups of intervening trees,
Or through the eddying vapor of the train,
Oft I had seen that awful mass of stone,
Crowned with its venerable walls and tower;
Cormac's strong chapel, scarcely touched by Time,
And broken palaces of Ireland's kings,
Hung lone o'er Tipperara's Golden Vale. ...
One quiet evening thitherward we drove,
September's hues on wayside ash and thorn,
And wild-rose berries thick on hedge or wall,
Seven miles along a still autumnal road,
Leaving the station when the sun was low.
Momently glimpsed, momently vanishing,
Through hurrying groups of intervening trees,
Or through the eddying vapor of the train,
Oft I had seen that awful mass of stone,
Crowned with its venerable walls and tower;
Cormac's strong chapel, scarcely touched by Time,
And broken palaces of Ireland's kings,
Hung lone o'er Tipperara's Golden Vale. ...
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September's hues on wayside ash and thorn,
And wild-rose berries thick on hedge or wall,
Seven miles along a still autumnal road,
Leaving the station when the sun was low.
The sun had set, and all the sky was flushed
Duskily red, with cloudy points of fire,
While distant first we saw the awful Shape.
An evening mist that crawled along the ground,
Chilling the twilight air (and we were chilled),
Had risen breast-high about through all the plain;
And there it stood before us, close at hand,
Based in that spectral, still, beleaguering tide;
Gray Ireland's genuine Picture, so it seemed,
(Itself an island in a misty sea);
The blurred new moon's weird light on tower and cross—
The Rock of Cashel, Cashel of the Kings!
Duskily red, with cloudy points of fire,
While distant first we saw the awful Shape.
An evening mist that crawled along the ground,
Chilling the twilight air (and we were chilled),
Had risen breast-high about through all the plain;
And there it stood before us, close at hand,
Based in that spectral, still, beleaguering tide;
Gray Ireland's genuine Picture, so it seemed,
(Itself an island in a misty sea);
The blurred new moon's weird light on tower and cross—
The Rock of Cashel, Cashel of the Kings!
The Rock of Cashel may be seen, but only by carefully watching, from the cars of the Great Southern and Western Railway, between Cork and Dublin, soon after passing Cashel Station, some miles away.
III
IRISH IVY
(AT KILCOLMAN CASTLE, COUNTY CORK)
Desmond's lost tower, the ruined kilu, as oneEqual it holds in green oblivion.
It breathes perennial grace o'er long decay,
And gives antiquity to yesterday.
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