 | Ballads of Irish chivalry |  |
104
THE DYING WARRIOR.
I
Brightly on the crest of DarraFell the day's last golden arrow,
And the moon smiled radiantly,
Calmly, lonely, mournfully,
On a leafy dell and narrow,
Opening out towards green Fear-muighe.
II
Low young Dermuid there is lying,Listening to the foemen flying,
For the close and bloody fray,
In the Red Gap raged all day—
Ah! that hapless youth is dying
In the pale moon's mournful ray!
III
There his rushing comrades left him,When the struggling foemen cleft him—
105
As he swept upon their flight—
Ah! that fatal blow has reft him
Of the joy he hoped that night.
IV
For beside his native forest,In the abbey old and hoarest,
Wife he was that night to call
The fairest maid in cot or hall;
And that thought afflicts him sorest,
On the brink of bliss to fall!
V
“Death”, he cries, “doth point his arrow—Make my bed so cold and narrow,
Where the sunlight falls in gold
On Glenroe's bright stream and wold,
'Neath the haunted Peak of Darra,
In the abbey gray and old!
VI
Thou, thy bridal dress adorning,When the war-scout gave the warning,—
When thou find'st thy Dermuid slain,
Kiss his cold brow once again,—
Thou wilt have at dawn of morning
Face of woe and heart of pain!”
VII
In that dell, like fairies glancing,Wildly the young fawns are dancing,
And the limping hares out-tread,
All their daylight terrors fled;
But none scares their bold advancing,
For the warrior youth is dead!
106
VIII
In that dell at morn's first peeping,Mad with sorrow, worn with weeping,
Mary bends the dead above;
He died in war,—she soon for love;
And side by side the twain are sleeping,
'Neath the abbey's haunted grove!
| Ballads of Irish chivalry | |