The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

James Fitz-Garret, son of the ‘Great Earl of Desmond,’ had been sent to England when a child as a hostage, and was for seventeen years kept a prisoner in the Tower, and educated in the Queen's religion. James Fitz-Thomas, the ‘Sugane Earl,’ having meantime assumed the title and prerogatives of Earl of Desmond, the Queen sent her captive to Ireland, attended by persons devoted to her, and provided with a conditional patent for his restoration. When he reached Kilmallock, on his way to Kerry, wheat and salt were there showered on him by the people, in testimony of loyalty. The next day was Sunday. When the young Earl left his house, it was with difficulty that a guard of English soldiers could keep a path open for him. From street and window and housetop every voice urged him to fidelity to his ancestral faith. The youth, who did not even understand the language in which he was adjured, having reached a spot where two roads separated, took that one which led to ‘the Queen's church,’ as it was called; and with loud cries his clan rushed forth from Kilmallock, and abandoned his standard for ever. Shortly afterwards he returned to England, where he fell sick; and in a few months the news of his death reached his ancient palatinate of Kerry.—See the Pacata Hibernia.

THE WAIL OF THE WOMEN OF DESMOND.

Strew the bed and strew the bier,
(Who rests upon it was never man)
With all that a little child holds dear,
With violets blue and violets wan.

Strew the bed and strew the bier
With the berries that redden thy shores, Corann:
Lay not upon it helmet or spear:—
He knew them never. He ne'er was man.

Far off he sleeps; yet we mourn him here;
Their tale is falsehood! he ne'er was man!

'Tis a phantom funeral! Strew the bier
With white lilies brushed by the floating swan.

They lie who say that the false Queen caught him
A child asleep on the mountains wide;
A captive reared him; a strange faith taught him;—
'Twas for no strange faith that his father died!

They lie who say that the child return'd
A man unmanned to his towers of pride;
That his people with curses the false Earl spurn'd;
Woe, woe, Kilmallock! they lie, and lied!

The Clan was wroth at an ill report,
But now the thunder-cloud melts in tears:
The child that was motherless play'd. 'Twas sport!
A child must sport in his childish years!

Ululah! Ululah! Low, sing low!
The women of Desmond loved well that child!
Our lamb was lost in the winter snow:
Long years we sought him in wood and wild.

How many a babe of Fitz-Gerald's blood
In hut was foster'd though born in hall!
The whole stock burgeon'd the fair new bud,
The old land welcomed them, each and all!

Glynn weeps to-day by the Shannon's tide,
And Shanid and she that frowns o'er Deal;
There is woe by the Laune and the Carra's side,
And where the Knight dwells by the woody Feale.

In Dingle and Beara they chant his dirge;
Far off he faded—our child—sing low!
We have made him a bed by the ocean's surge;
We have made him a bier on the mountain's brow.

The Clan was bereft! the old walls they left;
With cries they rushed to the mountains drear!
But now great sorrow their heart hath cleft;
See! one by one they are drawing near!

Ululah! Ululah! Low, sing low!
The flakes fall fast on the little bier:
The yew-branch and eagle-plume over them throw!
The last of the Desmond Chiefs lies here.

University of Virginia Library

THE PHANTOM FUNERAL;

OR, THE DIRGE OF THE LAST DESMOND.

A.D. 1601.