Irish Songs and Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Irish Songs and Poems

By William Allingham: Second Edition: With Nine Airs for Voice and Pianoforte, and a Permanent Photograph of the Waterfall of Asaroe

Allingham, William (1824-1889)

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[The Western Wind blows free and far]

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Think of her, were it but a little while,
Free of all smirch of passion, care, and wrong;
A green-hill'd, old-world, fairy-haunted Isle,
Warm-hearted, tearful, merry, full of song.

[The Western Wind blows free and far]

The Western Wind blows free and far
Under the lonely Evening Star
Across an ocean vague and vast,
And sweeps that Island Bay at last;
Blows over cliff there, over sand,
Over mountain-guarded land,
Rocky pastures, moors and lakes,
Rushing River that forsakes
His inland calm to find the tide;
Homes where Men in turn abide;
And blows into my heart with thrills,
Remembered thrills of love and joy.
I see thee, Star, above the hills
And waves, as tho' again a Boy,
And yet through mist of tears. O shine
In other hearts, as once in mine,
And thou, Atlantic Wind, blow free
For others now, as once for me!

Cluinem cláirseach agus dearmuidem brón.

THE LADY OF THE SEA.

A LEGEND OF ANCIENT ERIN.

TO DEAR GEORGE PETRIE.

The Sea-Maid, Moruach, of Irish tradition, wears a Cohnleen Driuth—magical (Druidic?) little cap, on which depends her power of living under water. The scene of this poem is laid in Pagan Ireland. Parthalon and Balor are two of the traditional ancestors of the Irish: Parthalon, a Greek who landed with a small body of colonists; Balor, a giant, with one eye in the middle of his forehead and one in the back of his head. Raths were the usual habitations of the wealthier; they were very numerous, and varied much in size, the most important being distinguished by the name of Dūn. A Rath occupied a hill or mound, and consisted of circular earthworks palisaded, enclosing the wooden dwellings (sometimes large), the cattle-byres, etc. Remains of the earthworks are very common all over Ireland (near Belashanny they abound), and are much the same in character as the ‘British Camps’ and ‘Rings’ in England.

Lake-houses, mostly of wood, on artificial islands, were anciently very numerous in Ireland, and are often spoken of in the Annals. The island was commonly made by a ring of oaken piles filled in with stones, earth, etc. The Irish name for such a dwelling-place is Crannog (Crann=a tree). The first examined in modern times was that of Lagore (properly Loch Gabhair), County Meath, in or about the year 1839. A good account of the crannoges is given by Sir William Wilde in the Royal Irish Academy Museum Catalogue, pp. 220-235. In 1853-54 similar structures were discovered in Switzerland, the water being unusually low, in the Lakes of Zurich, Biel, Sempach, Neufchatel, and Geneva. Some of these have been described by Professor F. Keller, under the name of Keltische Psahlbauten (Trans. Antiq. Soc., Zurich, vol. ix.).

In this piece an interval of several lines is sometimes allowed, with definite metrical intention, between a rhyme and its fellow; but, with proper elocution, it is believed that no stitch will be dropt to the ear—which is the final judge of all metre.

I.

When summer days are hot and blue,
How well for thee that mayst pursue
Far from the city's crowded street
The winding brook with wandering feet,
Conquer the mountain's airy crest,
Lose thee in woodland glade; or, best,
Breathe ocean-wind where curl'd waves roar,
Dart from the land in merry boat,
Dive into crystal green, swim, float,
Watch, on your cliff-sward stretch'd at rest,
Cloud-shadows cross the mighty floor,
Or pleated crimsons dye the west
As bit by bit the great Sun goes,
And soft the lazy ripple flows
Like sleep upon a wearied brain.

Suppose it thus; suppose thee fain
Of song or story, some wild thing
Reported from the mystic main,—
Of Dalachmar now hear me sing,
Son of a long-forgotten king.

King Erc the Fortunate was dead,
Diarmad ruled the clans instead,
Of West Ierné, strong in war,
Generous in peace; and Dalachmar,
His younger brother, dwelt with him.
Nor showed the sun and moonlight dim
In those long-faded seasons; bright
Was many a fresh new morrow's light
Along the mountains, evening gold
Fell on the wave, in times of old.

Their Fortress-Hill, a mighty mound,
With houses built of the strong oak-tree,
Entrench'd and palisaded round,
Ring within ring, o'erlook'd the sea
And rugged woods of wolf and bear;
A land of gloomy pathways where
Wild men crept also to and fro
To snatch a prey with club and bow;
Till sharply blew the signal-horn
The warriors of the Rath to warn,
And bid them smite the plunderers back
With blood upon their hasty track.
Or sometimes ocean-rovers fierce
Dared with their waspish navy pierce
A river-mouth or guardless bay
And sting the land with fire and sword;
Then sped the warriors forth, to slay
And chase and scatter, and drive aboard.

But when the battle spoil was won,
Or when the hunting-day was done,
They heard, o'er fragrant cups of mead,
Their bards rehearse each daring deed
To ringing harps, or duly count
Those high ancestral steps that mount
To Balor and to Parthalon,

Or some thrice-famous story tell
Of war, or dark Druidic spell
(To-day no weaker), or how well
A Spirit loved a mortal Youth;
And all was heard and held for truth.

Ancient Ireland.

two mythic heroes.

Archpoet Conn was old and blind.
No whiter to the autumnal wind
Marsh-cotton waves on rushy moor
Than flow'd his hair and beard, and pure
His raiment when he sat in hall
As torrent-foam or seagull's breast.
The King, in seven rich colours drest,
Pledged him at feast and festival,
And gladly to his master's voice
Conn bow'd the snowy, sightless head.
Young Dalachmar, in robe of red,
Sat next the Bard, of kindly choice,
And spake to him and carved his dish,
And fill'd the goblet to his wish,
That love for loss might make amends;
For youth and age were steadfast friends.
And many a time with careful hand
He led the Sage to the salt sea-sand,
Slow-pacing by the murmurous flood,
Or to a shelter'd glen where stood
One sacred oak-tree, broad and low,
Firm as the rocks that saw it grow,
A cromlech, and a pillar-stone.
And, year by year, of things unknown
He learn'd.

In shadow of that oak
Conn taught the Prince of fairy-folk
Who dwell within the hollow hills,
In founts of rivers and of rills,

In caves and woods, and some that be
Underneath the cold green sea;
The spells they cast on mortal men,
And spells to master these again;
And Dalachmar all that strange lore
Longing heard and lonely ponder'd,
Musing, wondering, as he wander'd
Through the forest or by the shore.
And when his elder Brother said,
‘My Brother, with the brow of care!
O Dalachmar! I rede thee, wed;
No lack of noble maids and fair;’—
Ever the younger Chief replied,
‘Yea—but I have not seen my bride,
Though many beauties; when I see,
Know her I shall, and she know me.’
—‘I dread lest thou have turn'd thy mind
To something man may never find,
Some love the wide earth cannot give.’
—‘So must I ever loveless live!’
Nor thought his pensive fortune hard,
Communing with the wise old Bard.

But winter came, and Conn no more
Slow enter'd hall, or paced on sand,
Or sat in shadow of oak-tree bough;
If you should search the sea and land
You could not find his white head now,
Unless beneath a cairn of stones
Where round Slieve Rann the north-wind moans.
And young Prince Dalachmar thought long
The nights of darkness; tale or song,
Or maiden's eyes, to youth so dear,
Banquet, or jest, or hunting-spear,
He nothing prized, or warrior-fame
Once green with promise round his name.
Though gentle, he could wield a sword,
And plunge into the waves of war;

Lorcan, who spake an evil word,
Hand to hand in fight he slew;
And when a wildboar overthrew
His elder brother, Dalachmar
Leapt from his horse with ready knife
And found the fierce brute's throbbing life
In one sharp stroke. But weary pass'd
Midwinter now. The barren sea
Roar'd, and the forest roar'd, and he
Was lonely in his thoughts.

At last
One day 'twas spring. Dim swelling buds
Thicken'd the web of forest boughs,
Bird and beast began to arouse,
Caper'd and voiced in glad relief;
The salmon cleft the river-floods,
The otter launch'd from his hole in the bank,
Away went the wild swans' airy rank
From salt lagoon; far out on the reef
The seals lay basking; broadly bright
Ocean glitter'd in morning light;
And the young Chief sprang to his little boat
And paddled away on the deep afloat,
By dreadful precipice and cave,
Where slumbers now the greedy wave
Lull'd by that blue heav'n above.

Then, so it chanced, his coracle
Glided into a rocky cove
And up a lonely little strand;
And out he stept on sunny sand
Whereon a jagged shadow fell
From the steep o'erhanging cliff,
And drew ashore his fragile skiff.

What spies he on the tawny sand?
A cold sea-jelly, cast away
By fling of ebbing water?——nay!
A little Cap, of changeful sheen,

A seamless Cap of rippled green
Mingling with purple like the hue
Of ocean weeds.

He stoop'd; its touch
Like thinnest lightning ran him through
With blissful shiver, sharp and new!
What might it mean? for never such
A chance had come to Dalachmar;
He felt as when, in dream, a star
Flew to him, bird-like, from the sky.

But then he heard a sad low cry,
And, turning, saw five steps away—
Was it a Woman?—strange and bright,
With long loose hair, and her body fair
Shimmering as with watery light;
For nothing save a luminous mist
Of tender beryl and amethyst
Over the living smoothness lay,
Statue-firm from head to feet,—
A breathing Woman, soft and sweet,
And yet not earthly.

So she stood
One marvellous moment in his sight;
Then, lapsing to another mood,
Her mouth's infantine loveliness
Trembling pleaded in sore distress;
Her wide blue eyes with great affright
Were fill'd; two slender hands she press'd
Against the roundlings of her breast,
Then with a fond face full of fears
She held them forth, and heavy tears
Brimm'd in silence and overflow'd.

He, doubting much what this might be,
Watch'd her.

Swiftly pointed she;
Utter'd some sound of foreign speech;
But Dalachmar held out of reach

The Cap, behind-back,—and so each
Regarded other.

Then she flung
Her arms aloft,—stood straight,—her wide
Eyes gazed on his, and into him;
And she began a solemn song,
Of words uncouth, slow up and down;
A song that deepen'd as she sung,
That soon was loud and swift and strong
Like the rising of a tide,
With power to seize and drench and drown
The senses,—till his sight grew dim,
A torpor crept on every limb.
What could he do?—an ocean-spell
Was on him.

But old wisdom rush'd
Into his mind, and with a start,
One gasp of breath, one leap of heart,
He pluck'd his dagger from its sheath,
Held forth the little Cap beneath
Its glittering point. The song was hush'd.
Prone on the yellow sand she fell.

He kneels, he takes her hands, with gentle,
Tender, passionate words—in vain;
Then with a heart of love and pain
Wraps her in his crimson mantle,
Lifts her, lays her down with care,
As she a one-year infant were,
Within his woven coracle,
And o'er the smooth sea guides it well,
And bears her up the rocky path,
And through the circles of the Rath,
To Banva's bower, his sister dear.
There, half in pity, half in fear,
The women tend her, till she sighs
And opens wide her wondrous eyes.

Dalachmar alone of all

In his deep heart understood
Of this Damsel dimly bright
Wafted from the salt-sea flood;
Like a queen when cloth'd aright.
Only a little web, more light
Than any silk, that halfway goes
Between the fingers and the toes,
Her under-ocean breeding shows.
She hath wept and ceased to weep;
Slow her wearied eyelids fall;
Lay her softly, let her sleep.

a kind of stone sepulchre.

‘Bright and strange One, where wert found?
(Sleep! while Banva sings)
From caves and waves of the fishful sea,
From swell and knell of the rolling tide
(Slumber! while we sing to thee),
Borne forlorn to our fortress-mound
(Sleep! while Banva sings).
Fairest maiden, sea-blue-eyed,
Sea-shell-tinted, thy unbound
And wavy-flowing hair is dried
And comb'd away on either side
(While Banva sings, and Derdra sings),
Down from smoothly pillow'd head;
Safe art thou on shadowy bed;
Sleep now—safe art thou
In the Dūn of Kings.’
She slept. They heard a thrush outside
Clear across vernal woods, the tide
Searching among his rocks below,
And the spearman pacing to and fro.

II.

Along the level sands I heard
The mystic water, how it stirr'd
And whisper'd of the days of old,
While Sun touch'd ocean, sank,—and soon
Eastward a tawny vaporous Moon
Rose ghostlike, to that solemn tune
Of waves. A path of ruddy gold,
Of yellow gold, in turn unroll'd
Full to my feet. Without a word,
I heard an ancient story told.

A Princess of the sea, a Prince
Of the West Isle,—and never since
Was any fairer couple wed
Or loved each other more. As fled
Month after month, year after year,
Their love grew every day more dear,
Glad, sad, together, or apart;
Tender they were, and true of heart.

Askest what love is? Hast thou known
Love's true religion? from thy own
Learn all true lovers' creed; there is
No other way to learn but this.
The best things thou hast found or dream'd—
Howso they new and special seem'd,
Most intimately thine,—are part
Of Man's inheritance; thou art
Co-heir with many. That bright Road,

Where only wingèd Fancy trode,
Stretch'd on the wave by moon or sun,
Did over darkling waters run
Directly to the gazer's feet,—
And was not thus; and yet no cheat.
If any radiancy divine
Doth straight into thy spirit shine,
Lo, it is thine—not singly thine.
The wondrous light that shone to thee
A child, the children saw, and see;
And Love's wide-spread celestial glow
To each peculiarly doth flow.
If thou hast been a lover, so
These loved in by-gone days.

Befell
One spring-day, from the circling mound,
Where her Sun-chamber builded well
Look'd wide on all the prospect round,
Fair Merraunee watch'd the sea
(For thus she chose her name to be),
Her two young sons beside her knee.
Her solemn eyes of changeful blue
Larger, it seem'd, and darker grew,
And mournful as they never were
Till now. The children gazed on her,
With awe of that strange mournfulness,
The sense whereof they might not guess.
But youth still turns to thoughts of joy,
And quickly spake the younger Boy,
‘O Mother! would we had a boat
Upon these merry waves afloat,
To sail away and leave the land!’
The elder Brother shouted—‘I
Would dive beneath the waves, and spy
Who live there!’

Nothing did she say,
But stared upon them, seized a hand

Of each, and hurried them away.
Then, to her husband, ‘Grant me grace!’
She said, ‘and take me from this place!
The moaning restless water kills
All peace within me, day or night,
And soon will be my death outright;
Take me to inland woods and hills.
I love the quiet grassy earth,
Calm lakes, tree-shadows, wild birds' mirth,
I hate this heaving watery floor,
Its ceaseless voices, more and more.
Take me away!—O love, forgive!’
He marvell'd; but he loved her best
Of all things, and on this behest
Sought out an inland place to live.

Amid the hills, wide-forested,
With rocky pastures interspread,
The sky is in a placid lake,
Steep-shored, transparent-water'd, lonely,—
A bed of reeds at one place only,
'Twixt the water and the brake.
There, driving many an oaken stake
Into the shallow, skilful hands
A stedfast island-dwelling make,
Seen from the hill-tops like a fleet
Of wattled houses; beams of oak
Fix them; and soon a light blue smoke
Goes up across the crowd of trees,
Where greening Spring is busy anew,
Dark holly intermixt, and yew,
And here and there a hoary rock.

The wolf, the wild-cat, and the bear
Prowl'd in these woods or made their lair;
Strange yells at midnight came, or oft
At dead of night, while safe and soft
Within their Island-Houses slept,
On rushy mat and woollen cloak

And fur of beast, the Prince's folk,
Save who in turn the nightwatch kept;
The Prince himself, and Merraunee,
And two brave Boys, where they should be;
While, underneath, the ripple crept,
And morning rose behind the hills.

There bide they while the Spring refills
Earth's cup with life-wine to the brink,
And every creature joys to drink.
They fish'd, they hunted, ranged afar
Through labyrinthine woods, made war
On catamount and cruel wolf;
And, three times, Dalachmar himself
Spear-smote the spreading-antler'd elk
And dash'd to ground his mighty bulk.
They drove the milky kine to feed
In forest lawn and marshy mead,
Or swam their wolf-hounds, pure of breed,
Or hollow'd the tree-trunk for canoe,
Made nets and lines, and bows of yew,
Goblets, and other things of wood
For a hundred uses good,
Nor bare of carving. Merraunee,
Span with her tall handmaidens three,
Taught her sons whate'er she could,
Tended the household well, prepared
The evening feast which all folk shared;
Then gladly heard the minstrel sing
His tales, or touched herself the string
(But seldom this) to music strange
Floating through many a subtle change;
And thus fled summertime away.

‘Art thou at peace?’ he said one day,
Kissing her lips. ‘O Dalachmar!
Lov'st thou me yet? Thou dost, I know,
But still I'd have thee tell me so!’

I loved thee first ten years ago;

And now I love thee better far.
Nay, thou hast kept thy bloom of youth
All perfect.’

‘Dalachmar, in sooth,
There is my sorrow! I can see
A touch or two of time on thee,
Dearer for this,—but—may thy wife
Now tell thee somewhat of the life
Of those beneath the waves, and teach
What I have always shunn'd in speech,
Nay, shunn'd in thought?—but year by year
Brings the inevitable near.

‘In those vast kingdoms under sea,
Dusky at noontide, some there be
Of mine, a magic race, that dwell,
And how we came there none can tell,
Imperial mid the monstrous forms
Of Ocean's creeping, gliding swarms;
We live three hundred years or more,
Three hundred years, and sometimes four,
And then—ah misery! and then—

‘I said, It is not so with men
Of that bright Upper World, who breathe
Crystalline ether, live beneath
The great dominion of the Sun
And Starry Night—(O Night with Stars!).
Sure nothing there, I said, debars
Or daunts them, be it life or death,
Inspired with such transcendent breath,
And clear Infinity begun!

‘Fearful our visits, short and rare,
To your unbounded World of Air,
By an old secret, told to few,
And perilous of proof. I knew
The danger, but I loved it too;
And sometimes, good or evil hap,
Would even doff that precious Cap

Which all beneath the sea must wear,
Because I thus felt greater share
Of earth-life, an unwonted sense
Of fearful hope and joy intense
Commingling,—seem'd almost to rise
And float immortal through those skies
Without a limit.

‘I have proved
Earth's life and love, through thee, Belov'd
And through thee, happy. Former days
Withdrew into a distant haze;
First I had Thee, then twofold bliss,
And threefold: better lot than this
Heart could not dream of—might it stay.

‘It smote me suddenly one day,
Like arrow from an unseen bow,
A poison'd arrow—He must go,
And thou remain! He shall wax old
Ere fifth part of thy life be told,
And die, and leave thee desolate,
With all the endless years to wait!
My sons too—'tis not death I fear;
If we all die, then death is dear;
But long sad lonely life. O Sea,
At least thou hast a death for me!
Nay, husband, kiss me, clasp me tight,
Albeit I lack the human right
Of growing old along with thee!’

She wept; he sooth'd her as he could
And cheer'd her to a brighter mood.
But grief came shadowing back; and when
Dark autumn gain'd on wood and fen
She felt the moaning of the trees
Was worse to suffer than the sea's.
‘It taunts us with the distant shore—
Return we!’

They return'd. Once more
The salt gale stirr'd her robes and hair,
But could not breathe away her care;
The trouble grew, the sad unrest,
And most of all when moony nights
Whiten'd the surf, or spread afar
O'er lonely tracts of sea. His best
Of comforting tried Dalachmar;
Beyond the hour availing nought,
For in their lives a change was wrought.

One dreamy afternoon, while She
Sat gazing on the doleful sea,
She saw her Husband by her stand,
The Cap of Magic in his hand,
His face was ashy, his voice low
And hollow, and his words came slow:
‘My strange dear Lady of the Sea,
If thou hast mind to part from me
And live no longer on the land,
Take this, and let thy choice be free.’
She did not speak, she did not look;
As in a trance the Cap she took.
At its touch a tremor shook
Suddenly through her, from head to feet,
And back she lay in the carven seat,
With staring eyes and visage wan,
As though she were at point to die;
Then started up with sudden cry—
‘O Dalachmar!’—but he was gone.

And none saw Her go; nor found trace;
Nor henceforth look'd upon her face.
From that hour, empty was her place.

III.

On a winter night, when the fire burn'd bright,
After flocks of years had flown away,
Voiceful O'Kennedy sung his lay,
And his yearning harp was tuned aright
For ripples of music that keep afloat
The little tale like a gliding boat:
‘Who will hearken to harp and rhyme,
Of things that befell in olden time?

For one more voyage Prince Dalachmar sail'd;
His two bold sons in the ship with him;
Tho' his beard was white, and his eyesight dim,
And his strength was fail'd.

Weary was he with endless quest
By watery way and island bay;
Never seeing by night or day
One he loved best.

‘For he had wedded a fairy wife,
And she had left him, he knew not why,
And till he had found her he would not die,
Though sad was life.
(Hush a little for harp and rhyme:
This befell in olden time.)

‘A sunset over mid-ocean spread,
Where the ship, becalm'd, did gently sway:
And there on deck Prince Dalachmar lay,
As well nigh dead.

‘Closed were his eyes, and pallid his face,
His sons and his sailors standing round;
They thought, “He is far from the burial-mound
Of his chieftain-race.”

‘But he opens his eyes, he lifts his hands,
Like one who sees some wonderful sight;
He raises himself, his eyes grow bright;
Straight up he stands.

‘He sighs, “Long-while have I lived alone.”
He smiles, “It is Thou!” and then, with one leap
Into the heave of the glassy deep,
Sinks like a stone.
(Hush a little for harp and rhyme:
This befell in olden time.)

‘Swifter than cormorants plunged the men,
Rose for breath, and dived anew;
But they swam to the ship when dark it grew,
All silent then.

‘Voyaging homewards, often a gleam
Encompass'd the vessel, and with the light
A waft of music. One still midnight
There came a Dream.

‘At full moon, full tide,—to each Brother the same:
His Father and Mother, hand in hand,
Immortally fair, beside him stand,
And speak his name.

(Hush a little for harp and rhyme:
This befell in olden time.)

“‘Child! I left what I loved the most,
Feeling a fire within me burn,
For a day, an hour,—but not to return:
My sea-life was lost.

“‘Love brings all together at last.
Keep love safe, it will guide thee well.
We watch thee,—more I may not tell,
Till the years be past.”

‘Softly the vision seem'd to rise,
Enclosed in a radiant atmosphere,
And to float aloft, and disappear
Into the skies.
(Hush a little for harp and rhyme:
This befell in olden time.)

‘The ship sail'd fast in the morning sun
By point and cave, as the fair wind blew,
And into a little port she knew,
And her voyage was done.

‘Where the mounded Rath overlooks the sea
The Pillar-Stone is a beacon afar;
Graven in ogham, “Dalachmar—
Merraunee.”
(This was all in olden time;
And here is the end of harp and rhyme.)’

But this too is a bygone song.
The Rath has been for ages long
A grassy hill; the Standing-stone
Looks on a country bare and lone,
And lonelier billows,—half a word

Of ogham

(the O pronounced long) ‘consists of lines or groups of lines variously arranged with reference to a single stem-line, or to an edge of the substance on which they are traced.’ Examples may be seen in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. They were in use after the Christian era, but probably descended from a remote antiquity.

at the edge, all blurr'd
With crust of lichens yellow and gray.
There you may sit of a summer day,
And watch the white foam rise and fall
On rampart cliffs of Donegal,
And the wild sheep on the greensward stray,
And the sea-line sparkle far away.

THE WINDING BANKS OF ERNE:

Or, The Emigrant's Adieu to his Birthplace.

The river Erne rises in Lough Gowna, not very far from the middle of Ireland, and, after a course of some seventy miles through a chain of islanded lakes, pours its foaming waters over the Fall of Asaroe into ‘Ballyshannon’ Harbour on Donegal Bay. The name ‘Ballyshannon’ is modern, and corrupt both in the ‘Bally’ and the ‘Shannon’; the Irish form is Bel-atha-Seanaigh, that is, ‘Seanach's Ford,’ and the people call it, properly, ‘Bel-a-shanny.’ Bel-atha means literally ‘Mouth or Opening of the Ford,’ but the compound, which is common in Irish names, seems to have no other meaning than Ath by itself, and merely to signify ‘ford.’ ‘Seanach’ is a man's name, but the man is forgotten. Ath-Seanaigh is the name by which the town and castle are usually designated in the Irish Annals; it was a ford a little above the present bridge.

I own the accompaniment to this and seven other songs in the volume to my kind and valued friend, Mrs. Tom Taylor. The music for The Nobleman's Wedding, and the accompaniment for The Milkmaid, are from Dr. Petrie's ‘Ancient Music of Ireland.’

[_]

(A Local Ballad.)

I

Adieu to Belashanny! where I was bred and born;
Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn.
The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known,
And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own;
There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill,
But, east or west, in foreign lands, I'll recollect them still.
I leave my warm heart with you, tho' my back I'm forced to turn—
Adieu to Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne!

II

No more on pleasant evenings we'll saunter down the Mall,
When the trout is rising to the fly, the salmon to the fall.
The boat comes straining on her net, and heavily she creeps,
Cast off, cast off—she feels the oars, and to her berth she sweeps;

Now fore and aft keep hauling, and gathering up the clew,
Till a silver wave of salmon rolls in among the crew.
Then they may sit, with pipes a-lit, and many a joke and ‘yarn’;—
Adieu to Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne!

III

The music of the waterfall, the mirror of the tide,
When all the green-hill'd harbour is full from side to side,
From Portnasun to Bulliebawns, and round the Abbey Bay,
From rocky Inis Saimer to Coolnargit sandhills gray;
While far upon the southern line, to guard it like a wall,
The Leitrim mountains clothed in blue gaze calmly over all,
And watch the ship sail up or down, the red flag at her stern;—
Adieu to these, adieu to all the winding banks of Erne!

IV

Farewell to you, Kildoney lads, and them that pull an oar,
A lug-sail set, or haul a net, from the Point to Mullaghmore;
From Killybegs to bold Slieve-League, that oceanmountain steep,
Six hundred yards in air aloft, six hundred in the deep,
From Dooran to the Fairy Bridge, and round by Tullen strand,
Level and long, and white with waves, where gull and curlew stand;

Head out to sea when on your lee the breakers you discern!—
Adieu to all the billowy coast, and winding banks of Erne!

V

Farewell, Coolmore,—Bundoran! and your summer crowds that run
From inland homes to see with joy th' Atlanticsetting sun;
To breathe the buoyant salted air, and sport among the waves;
To gather shells on sandy beach, and tempt the gloomy caves;
To watch the flowing, ebbing tide, the boats, the crabs, the fish;
Young men and maids to meet and smile, and form a tender wish;
The sick and old in search of health, for all things have their turn—
And I must quit my native shore, and the winding banks of Erne!

VI

Farewell to every white cascade from the Harbour to Belleek,
And every pool where fins may rest, and ivy-shaded creek;
The sloping fields, the lofty rocks, where ash and holly grow,
The one split yew-tree gazing on the curving flood below;
The Lough, that winds through islands under Turaw mountain green;
And Castle Caldwell's stretching woods, with tranquil bays between;

And Breesie Hill, and many a pond among the heath and fern,—
For I must say adieu—adieu to the winding banks of Erne!

VII

The thrush will call through Camlin groves the livelong summer day;
The waters run by mossy cliff, and banks with wild flowers gay;
The girls will bring their work and sing beneath a twisted thorn,
Or stray with sweethearts down the path among the growing corn;
Along the river-side they go, where I have often been,
O, never shall I see again the days that I have seen!
A thousand chances are to one I never may return,—
Adieu to Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne!

VIII

Adieu to evening dances, when merry neighbours meet,
And the fiddle says to boys and girls, ‘Get up and shake your feet!’
To ‘shanachus’ and wise old talk of Erin's days gone by—
Who trench'd the rath on such a hill, and where the bones may lie
Of saint, or king, or warrior chief; with tales of fairy power,
And tender ditties sweetly sung to pass the twilight hour.
The mournful song of exile is now for me to learn—
Adieu, my dear companions on the winding banks of Erne!

IX

Now measure from the Commons down to each end of the Purt,
Round the Abbey, Moy, and Knather,—I wish no one any hurt;
The Main Street, Back Street, College Lane, the Mall, and Portnasun,
If any foes of mine are there, I pardon every one.
I hope that man and womankind will do the same by me;
For my heart is sore and heavy at voyaging the sea.
My loving friends I'll bear in mind, and often fondly turn
To think of Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne.

X

If ever I'm a money'd man, I mean, please God, to cast
My golden anchor in the place where youthful years were pass'd;
Though heads that now are black and brown must meanwhile gather gray,
New faces rise by every hearth, and old ones drop away—
Yet dearer still that Irish hill than all the world beside;
It's home, sweet home, where'er I roam, through lands and waters wide.
And if the Lord allows me, I surely will return
To my native Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne.

The vernacular, and more correct, form of the name.

old stories,—histories, genealogies.

ON A FORENOON OF SPRING.

I'm glad I am alive, to see and feel
The full deliciousness of this bright day
That's like a heart with nothing to conceal;
The young leaves scarcely trembling; the blue-gray
Rimming the cloudless ether far away;
Brairds, hedges, shadows; mountains that reveal
Soft sapphire; this great floor of polish'd steel
Spread out amidst the landmarks of the bay.

I stoop in sunshine to our circling net
From the black gunwale; tend these milky kine
Up their rough path; sit by yon cottage door
Plying the diligent thread; take wings and soar—
Thou small Sky-Poet! never lyric yet
From human mouth was such pure joy as thine.

‘Braird’ means, in the North of Ireland, the first growth of young green corn of any sort. Brord (Ang.-Sax.), ‘the first blade or spire of grass or corn.’—Bosworth.

THE PILOT'S DAUGHTER.

I

O'er western tides the fair Spring day
Sent back a smile as it withdrew,
And all the harbour, glittering gay,
Return'd a blithe adieu;
Great clouds above the hills and sea
Kept brilliant watch, and air was free
For last lark first-born star to greet,—
When, for the crowning vernal sweet,
Among the slopes and crags I meet
The Pilot's pretty Daughter.

II

Round her gentle, happy face,
Dimpled soft, and freshly fair,
Danced with careless ocean grace
Locks of auburn hair:
As lightly blew the veering wind,
They touch'd her cheeks, or waved behind,
Unbound, unbraided, and unloop'd;
Or when to tie her shoe she stoop'd
Below her chin the half-curls droop'd,
And veil'd the Pilot's Daughter.

III

Rising, she toss'd them gaily back,
With gesture infantine and brief,
To fall around as smooth a neck
As any wild-rose leaf.

Her Sunday frock of lilac shade
(That choicest tint) was neatly made,
And not too long to hide from view
The stout but noway clumsy shoe,
And stocking's trimly-fitting blue
That graced the Pilot's Daughter.

IV

With look half timid and half droll,
And then with slightly downcast eyes,
And something of a blush that stole,
Or something from the skies
Deepening the warmth upon her cheek,
She turn'd when I began to speak;
The firm young step a sculptor's choice;
How clear the cadence of her voice!
Health bade her virgin soul rejoice,—
The Pilot's lovely Daughter!

V

Were it my lot (the sudden wish)
To hand a pilot's oar and sail,
Or haul the dripping moonlight mesh
Spangled with herring-scale;
By dying stars, how sweet 'twould be,
And dawn upon the glimmering sea,
With weary, cheery pull to shore,
To gain my cottage-home once more,
And clasp, before I reach the door,
My love, the Pilot's Daughter!

VI

This element beside my feet
Allures, a tepid wine of gold;
One touch, one taste, dispels the cheat,
'Tis salt and nipping cold:

A fisher's hut, the scene perforce
Of narrow thoughts and manners coarse,
Coarse as the curtains that beseem
(Festoons of net) the smoky beam,
Would never lodge my favourite dream,
Though fair my Pilot's Daughter.

VII

To the large riches of the earth,
Endowing men in their despite,
The Poor, by privilege of birth,
Stand in the closest right.
Yet not alone the palm grows dull
With clayey delve and watery pull:
And this for me,—or hourly pain;
But could I sink and call it gain?
Unless a pilot true, 'twere vain
To wed a Pilot's Daughter.

VIII

Lift her, perhaps?—but ah! I said,
Much wiser leave such thoughts alone.
So may thy beauty, simple maid,
Be mine, yet all thy own;
Join'd in my free contented love
With companies of stars above,
Who from their throne of airy steep
Do kiss these ripples as they creep
Across the boundless darkening deep,—
Low voiceful wave! hush soon to sleep
The Pilot's gentle Daughter!

KATE O' BEL-A-SHANNY.

[_]

(Tune, Munnymusk.)

I

Seek up and down, both fair and brown,
We've purty lasses many, O;
But brown or fair, one girl most rare,
The Flow'r o' Belashanny, O.
As straight is she as poplar-tree
(Tho' not as aisy shaken, O),

And walks so proud among the crowd,
For queen she might be taken, O.
From top to toe, where'er you go,
The loveliest girl of any, O,—
Ochone! your mind I find unkind,
Sweet Kate o' Belashanny, O!

II

One summer day the banks were gay,
The Erne in sunshine glancin' there,
The big cascade its music play'd
And set the salmon dancin' there.
Along the green my Joy was seen;
Some goddess bright I thought her there;
The fishes, too, swam close, to view
Her image in the water there.
From top to toe, where'er you go,
The loveliest girl of any, O,—
Ochone! your mind I find unkind,
Sweet Kate o' Belashanny, O!

III

My dear, give ear!—the river's near,
And if you think I'm shammin' now,
To end my grief I'll seek relief
Among the trout and salmon, now;
For shrimps and sharks to make their marks,
And other watery vermin there;
Unless a mermaid saves my life,—
My wife, and me her merman there.
From top to toe, where'er you go,
The loveliest girl of any, O,—
Mavrone! your mind I find unkind,
Sweet Kate o' Belashanny, O!

IV

'Tis all in vain that I complain;
No use to coax or chide her there;
As far away from me as Spain,
Although I stand beside her there.
O cruel Kate! since that's my fate,
I'll look for love no more in you;
The seagull's screech as soon would reach
Your heart, as me implorin' you.
Tho' fair you are, and rare you are,
The loveliest flow'r of any, O,—
Too proud and high,—good-bye, say I,
To Kate o' Belashanny, O!

OUR MOUNTAIN.

I

All hail to our Mountain! form well-known!
His skirts of heath, and his scalp of stone;
Guardian of streams in their fitful youth,
Let them leap in spate or linger in drouth,
Who sets o'er the clouds an Olympian seat,
Where thunder is roll'd beneath our feet,
Where storm and lightning
And sunshine bright'ning
Solemnly girdle our steep retreat!

II

A day on the Hills!—true king am I,
In my solitude, public to earth and sky.
Men have not tainted this atmosphere,
Wing'd thoughts only can follow here,
Folly and falsehood and babble stay
In the ground-smoke somewhere, far away.
Let them greet and cheat
In the narrow street,—
Who cares what all the city-folk say?

III

Oh, the tyrant eagle's palace to share,
And the loneliest haunts of the shy brown hare!
The fields like a map, the lakes a-shine,
Hamlets and towns, and the ocean line,
Beechen valley and bilberry dell,

And glen where the Echoes and Fairies dwell,
With heaps and bosses
Of plume-ferns and mosses,
Scarlet rowan and slight blue-bell!

IV

Plume-ferns grow by the Waterfall,
Wide in the shimmering spray and tall,
Where the ash-twigs tremble, one and all,
And cool air murmurs, and wild birds call,
And the glowing crag lifts a dizzy wall
To the blue, through green leaves' coronal,
And foam-bells twinkle
Where sunlights sprinkle
The deep dark pool of the waterfall.

V

By a great cliff's foot, on the heather-flower,
I sit with the Shepherd Boy an hour,
Simple of life as his nibbling sheep,
Dotted far down the verdant steep;
I climb the path which sometimes fails
A peasant bound to more distant vales,
When Night, descending,
The world is blending,
Or fog, or the rushing blast, assails.

VI

My feast on a marble block is spread,
I dip my cup in a cold well-head.
The poet's page is strong and fine,
I read a new volume in one old line,
Leap up for joy, and kiss the book;
Then gaze far forth from my lofty nook,
With fresh surprise,
And yearning eyes
To drink the whole beauty in one deep look.

VII

From these towers the first gray dawn is spied,
They watch the last glimmer of eventide,
Wear shadows at noon, or vapoury shrouds,
And meet in council with mighty clouds;
And at dusk the ascending stars appear
On their pinnacle crags, or the chill moon-sphere,
Whitening only
Summits lonely,
Circled with gulfs of blackest fear.

VIII

When ripe and dry is the heathery husk,
Some eve, like a judgment-flame through the dusk
It burns the dim line of a huger dome
Than is clad in the paschal blaze of Rome,
And to valley, river, and larch-grove spires,
Signals with creeping scarlet fires,
Keen o'erpowering
Embers cowering
Low where the western flush retires.

IX

But the stern dark days with mutter and moan
Gather, like foes round a hated throne;
Terror is peal'd in the trumpet gale,
Crash'd on the cymbals of the hail,
Vapours move in a turbulent host,
Caves hold secret daggers of frost;
And silently white
In some morning's light
Stands the alter'd Mountain—a wintry ghost.

X

Till pack'd in hollows the round clouds lie,
And wild geese flow changing down the sky
To the salt sea-fringe; then milder rains

Course like young blood through the wither'd veins
That sweeping March left wasted and weak;
And the gray old Presence, dim and bleak,
With sudden rally,
O'er mound and valley,
Laughs with green light to his topmost peak!

XI

Thy soft blue greeting through distant air
Is home's first smile to the traveller,—
Mountain, from thee, home's last farewell.
In alien lands there are tales to tell
Of thy haunted lake, and elvish ring,
And carn of an old Milesian king,
And the crumbling turrets
Where miser spirits
Batlike in vaults of treasure cling.

XII

Giant! of mystical, friendly brow,
Protector of childhood's landscape thou,
Long golden seasons with thee abide,
And the joy of song, and history's pride.
Of all earth's hills I love thee best,
Reckon from thee mine east and west;
Fondly praying,
Wherever straying,
To leave in thy shadow my bones at rest.

MORNING PLUNGE.

I scatter the dreams of my pillow,
I spring to a sunshiny floor;
O New Day!—how sparkles the billow,
How brilliant are sea, sky, and shore!

The cliff with its cheerful adorning
Of matted sea-pink under foot,
A lark gives me ‘top o' the morning!’
A sailing-boat nods a salute.

Fresh-born from the foam, with new graces,
Comes many a winsome fair maid,
Peep children's damp hair and bright faces
From straw hats' or sun-bonnets' shade.

Green crystal in exquisite tremble,
My tide-brimming pool I behold;
What shrimps on the sand-patch assemble!
I vanish! embraced with pure cold;

A king of the morning-time's treasures,
To revel in water and air,
Join salmon and gull in their pleasures;
Then home to our sweet human fare.

There stand the blue cups on white table,
Rich nugget of gold from the hive,
And there's Uncle George and Miss Mabel,
And Kitty, the best child alive!

Now two little arms round my neck fast,
A kiss from a laugh I must win,—
You don't deserve one bit of breakfast,
You unbaptized people within!

A BOY'S BURIAL.

Mullinashee Churchyard: Mark Coane died from an accidental blow of an oar when boating.

I

On a sunny Saturday evening
They laid him in his grave,
When the sycamore had not a shaking leaf,
And the harbour not a wave.
The sandhills lay in the yellow ray
Ripe with the sadness of parting May;
Sad were the mountains blue and lone
That keep the landscape as their own;
The rocky slope of the distant fell;
The river issuing from the dell;—
And when had ended the voice of pray'r
The Fall's deep bass was left on the air,
Rolling down.

II

Young he was and hopeful,
And ah, to die so soon!
His new grave lies deserted
At the rising of the moon;
But when morn comes round, and the church bells sound,
The little children may sit on the mound,
And talk of him, and as they talk,
Puff from the dandelion stalk
Its feathery globe, that reckons best
Their light-wing'd hours;—while the town is at rest,
And the stone-chat clacking here and there,
And the glittering Fall makes a tune in the air,
Rolling down.

ABBEY ASAROE.

At the head of a small creek in the Harbour, in an old and crowded graveyard, stand or crumble the ruins of this Abbey of the Cistercian Order, founded in or about the year 1178, by Roderick O' Cananan, Prince of Tirconnel (Archdall, Monas. Hib.). Only some venerable fragments of wall remain. The windows are shapeless gaps; weeds and old ragged bushes grow within; many of the stones are built into fishermen's huts, or help to fence their scanty potato patches, while pieces of archivolts, mullions, and other carved work are more reverently set for headstones in the neighbouring graveyard. The Abbey took its name from the Waterfall. More than twenty-five centuries ago (say the oldest histories) Aedh Ruadh (Red Hugh), High-King of Erin, was drowned in the river Erne—swept away, it would seem, in attempting to cross one of the fords. He ‘was buried in the mound over the margin of the cataract’ [Donegal Annals, Anno Mundi 4518]. Hence Eas-Aedha-Ruaidh, ‘Waterfall of Red Hugh,’—written in English in various ways, of which ‘Asaroe’ appears the most suitable. May I be pardoned for saying here that this little piece had the good fortune to win the special praise of dear and good George Petrie? He thought the incident of the Old Man very characteristic of Ireland, adding, in his letter, ‘It is one that has occurred to me in my solitary ramblings among our ancient abbeys more than once.’

I

Gray, gray is Abbey Asaroe, by Belashanny town,
It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down;
The carven-stones lie scatter'd in briar and nettle-bed;
The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead.
A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide,
Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride;
The boortree

elder: provincial pronunciation of boretree, name probably given to it because the pith is easy to remove.

and the lightsome ash across the portal grow,
And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Asaroe.

II

It looks beyond the harbour-stream to Gulban mountain blue;
It hears the voice of Erna's fall,—Atlantic breakers too;
High ships go sailing pastit; the sturdy clank of oars
Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores;
And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done,
Slow sculls the weary fisherman across the setting sun;
While green with corn is Sheegus Hill, his cottage white below;
But gray at every season is Abbey Asaroe.

III

There stood one day a poor old man above its broken bridge;
He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain-ridge;
He turn'd his back on Sheegus Hill, and view'd with misty sight
The Abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white;
Under a weary weight of years he bow'd upon his staff,
Perusing in the present time the former's epitaph;
For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of woe,
This man was of the blood of them who founded Asaroe.

IV

From Derry to Bundrowas Tower, Tirconnell broad was theirs;
Spearmen and plunder, bards and wine, and holy abbot's prayers;
With chanting always in the house which they had builded high
To God and to Saint Bernard,—where at last they came to die.
At worst, no workhouse grave for him! the ruins of his race
Shall rest among the ruin'd stones of this their saintly place.
The fond old man was weeping; and tremulous and slow
Along the rough and crooked lane he crept from Asaroe.

INVITATION TO A PAINTER,

SENT FROM THE WEST OF IRELAND.

I.

Flee from London, good my Walter! boundless jail of bricks and gas,
Weary purgatorial flagstones, dreary parks of burnt-up grass,
Exhibitions, evening parties, dust and swelter, glare and crush,
Fashion's costly idle pomp, Mammon's furious race and rush;
Leave your hot tumultuous city for the breaker's rival roar,
Quit your small suburban garden for the rude hills by the shore,
Leagues of smoke for morning vapour lifted off a mountain-range,
Silk and lace for barefoot beauty, and for ‘something new and strange’
All your towny wit and gossip. You shall both in field and fair,
Paddy's cunning and politeness with the Cockney ways compare,
Catch those lilts and old-world tunes the maidens at their needle sing,
Peep at dancers, from an outskirt of the blithe applausive ring,
See our petty Court of Justice, where the swearing's very strong,

See our little plain St. Peter's with its kneeling peasant throng;
Hear the brogue and Gaelic round you; sketch a hundred Irish scenes,
(Not mere whisky and shillelagh)—wedding banquets, funeral keenes;
Rove at pleasure, noon or midnight; change a word with all you meet;
Ten times safer than in England, far less trammell'd in your feet.
Here, the only danger known
Is walking where the land's your own.
Landscape-lords are left alone.

II.

We are barren, I confess it; but our scope of view is fine;
Dignifying shapes of mountains wave on each horizonline,
So withdrawn that never house-room utmost pomp of cloud may lack,
Dawn or sunset, moon or planet, or mysterious zodiac;
Hills beneath run all a-wrinkle, rocky, moory, pleasant green;
From its Lough the Flood descending, flashes like a sword between,
Through our crags and woods and meadows, to the mounded harbour-sand,
To the Bay, calm blue, or, sometimes, whose Titanic arms expand
Welcome to the mighty billow rolling in from New-foundland.
Oats, potatoes, cling in patches round the rocks and boulder-stones,
Like a motley ragged garment for the lean Earth's jutting bones;
Moors extend, and bogs and furzes, where you seldom meet a soul,

But the Besom-man or woman, who to earn a stingy dole
Stoops beneath a nodding burden of the scented heather-plant,
Or a jolly gaiter'd Sportsman, striding near the grouse's haunt,—
Slow the anchoritic heron, musing by his voiceless pond,
Startled with the startled echo from the lonely cliff beyond,
Rising, flaps away. And now a summit shows us, wide and bare,
All the brown uneven country, lit with waters here and there;
Southward, mountains—northward, mountains—westward, golden mystery
Of coruscation, when the Daystar flings his largesse on the sea;
Peasant cots with humble haggarts; mansions with obsequious groves;
A Spire, a Steeple, rival standards, which the liberal distance loves
To set in union. There the dear but dirty little Town abides,
And you and I come home to dinner after all our walks and rides.
You shall taste a cleanly pudding;
But, bring shoes to stand a mudding.

III.

Let me take you by the murvagh, sprinkled with those Golden Weeds

Merry troops of Irish Fairies mount by moonlight for their steeds,—
Wherefore sacred and abundant over all the land are they.
Many cows are feeding through it; cooling, of a sultry day,
By the River's brink, that journeys under Fairy Hill, and past
Gentle cadences of landscape sloping to the sea at last.
Now the yellow sand is round us, drifted in fantastic shapes,
Heights and hollows, forts, and bastions, pyramids and curving capes,
Breezy ridges thinly waving with the bent-weed's pallid green,
Delicate for eye that sips it, till a better feast is seen,
Where the turf swells thick-embroider'd with the fragrant purple thyme,
Where, in plots of speckled orchis, poet larks begin their rhyme,
Honey'd galium wafts an invitation to the gipsy bees,
Rabbits' doorways wear for garlands azure tufts of wild heartsease,
Paths of sward around the hillocks, dipping into ferny dells,
Show you heaps of childhood's treasure—twisted, vary-tinted shells
Lapt in moss and blossoms, empty, and forgetful of the wave.
Ha! a creature scouring nimbly, hops at once into his cave;
Brother Coney sits regardant,—wink an eye, and where is he?
Rabbit villages we pass through, but the people skip and flee.

Over sandy slope, a Mountain lifts afar his fine blue head;
There the savage twins of eagles, gaping, hissing to be fed,
Welcome back their wide-wing'd parent with a rabbit scarcely dead
Hung in those powerful yellow claws, and gorge the bloody flesh and fur
On ledge of rock, their cradle. Shepherd-boy! with limbs and voice bestir
To your watch of tender lambkins on a lonesome valley-side,
If you, careless in the sunshine, see a rapid shadow glide
Down the verdant undercliff. Afar that conquering eye can sweep
Mountain-glens, and moy, and warren, to the margin of the deep,
Worse than dog or ferret;—vanish from your goldgreen-mossy dells,
Nibbling natives of the burrow! seek your inmost winding cells
When such cruelties appear;
But a Painter do not fear,
Nor a Poet loitering near.

IV.

Painter, what is spread before you? 'Tis the great Atlantic Sea!
Many-colour'd floor of ocean, where the lights and shadows flee;
Waves and wavelets running landward with a sparkle and a song,

Crystal green with foam enwoven, bursting, brightly spilt along;
Thousand living shapes of wonder in the clear pools of the rock;
Lengths of strand, and seafowl armies rising like a puff of smoke;
Drift and tangle on the limit where the wandering water fails;
Level faintly-clear horizon, touch'd with clouds and phantom sails,—
O come hither! weeks together let us watch the big Atlantic,
Blue or purple, green or gurly, dark or shining, smooth or frantic.
Far across the tide, slow-heaving, rich autumnal daylight sets;
See our crowd of busy row-boats, hear us noisy with our nets,
Where the glittering sprats in millions from the rising mesh are stript,
Till there scarce is room for rowing, every gunwale nearly dipt;
Gulls around us, flying, dropping, thick in air as flakes of snow,
Snatching luckless little fishes in their silvery overflow.
Now one streak of western scarlet lingers upon ocean's edge,
Now through ripples of the splendour of the moon we swiftly wedge
Our loaded bows; the fisher hamlet beacons with domestic light;
On the shore the carts and horses wait to travel through the night
To a distant city market, while the boatmen sup and sleep,
While the firmamental stillness arches o'er the dusky deep,

Ever muttering chants and dirges
Round its rocks and sandy verges.

V.

Now I've thought of something! mind me, for no artist's clever sake,
Merely artist, should I dare to sit his comrade at a Wake;
You're at home with tears and laughter, friend of mine, and bear a heart
Full of sympathetic kindness, taking every brother's part.
Through the mob that fills the kitchen, clouded with tobacco-fume,
Joking, singing—we have cross'd the threshold of that inside room
Where the seniors and relations sitting gravely by the wall
Speak in murmurs; on a table, lighted candles thick and tall;
Straight the bed-quilt and the curtains; on the pillow calm within
A moveless Face with close-shut eyelids and a cloth about the chin,
Under a crucifix. You see: and sideways through the open door
Laughing looks and odd grimaces, and you hear a blithe uproar
From the youthful merrymakers. Kneeling silent by the bed
Prays a woman; weeps a woman, rocking, sobbing, at its head,
Nigh the Face, which spoke this morning, unregarding, undiscerning.
Louder bursts the lively voices; wearily the candles burning;

Elders gravely on the whisper; Time for ever slowly turning;
Bringing round the book and spade,
Another hillock duly made,
The cottage swept, the grief allay'd.

VI.

Ere we part at winter's portal, I shall row you of a night
On a swirling Stygian river, to a ghostly yellow light.
When the nights are black and gusty, then do eels in myriads glide
Through the pools and down the rapids, hurrying to the ocean-tide,
(But they fear the frost or moonshine, in their mudbeds coiling close)
And the wearmen, on the platform of that pigmy water-house
Built among the river-currents, with a dam to either bank,
Pull the purse-net's heavy end to swing across their wooden tank,
Ere they loose the cord about it, then a slimy wriggling heap
Falls with splashing, where a thousand fellow-prisoners heave and creep.
Chill winds roar above the wearmen, darkling rush the floods below;
There they watch and work their eel-nets, till the late dawn lets them go.
There we'll join their eely supper, bearing smoke the best we can,
(House's furniture a salt-box, truss of straw, and frying-pan),
Hearken Con's astounding stories, how a mythologic eel

Chased a man o'er miles of country, swallow'd two dogs at a meal,
To the hissing, bubbling music of the pan and pratie-pot.
Denser grows the reek around us, each like Mussulman a-squat,
Each with victuals in his fingers, we devour them hot and hot;
Smoky rays our lantern throwing,
Ruddy peat-fire warmly glowing,
Noisily the River flowing.

VII.

Time's at hand, though, first of all, to journey to our Holy Well,
Clear as when the old Saint bless'd it, rising in its rock-bound cell.
Two great Crosses, carved in bosses, curves, and fillets interlacing,
Spread their aged arms of stone, as if in sempiternal blessing;
Five much-wrinkled thorntrees bend, as though in everlasting pray'r.
Greenly shines the growing crop, along the shelter'd hill-side there;
But the tristful little Abbey, crumbling among weeds and grass,
Nevermore can suns or seasons bring a smile to as they pass;
By a window-gap or mullion creeps the fringe of ivy leaves,
Nettles crowd the sculptured doorway, where the wind goes through and grieves;
Sad the tender blue of harebells on its ledges low and high;
Merry singing of the goldfinch there sounds pensive as a sigh.

'Tis a day of summer: see you, how the pilgrims wend along;
Scarlet petticoat, blue mantle, gray frieze, mingling in the throng.
By the pathway sit the Beggars, each an ailment and a whine;
Lame and sickly figures pass them, tottering in that pilgrim line;
Children carried by their parents, very loth to let them die;
Lovely girls, too, with their eyelids downcast on a rosary;
Shrunken men, and witch-like women; young men in their proudest prime;
Guilty foreheads, hot-blood faces, penance-vow'd for secret crime.
All by turn, in slow procession, pace the venerable bounds,
Barefoot, barehead, seven times duly kneeling in th' accustom'd rounds;
Thrice among the hoary ruins, once before the wasted shrine,
Once at each great carven cross, and once to form the Mystic Sign,
Dipping reverential finger in the Well, on brow and breast.
Meanwhile worn and wan, the Sick under those rooted thorntrees rest,
Waiting sadly. Here are human figures of our land and day,
On a thousand-years-old background,—still in keeping, it and they!
Walter, make a vow nor break it; turn your pilgrim steps our way.
Oh might you come, before there fell
One hawthorn-flow'r in Columb's Well!

Sea-plain, level place near the sea, salt marsh.

ragwort, called ‘boughaleen bwee’ (little yellow boy), also ‘fairy-horse.’

‘Moy,’ math, a plain.

WINNY.

Her blue eyes they beam and they twinkle,
Her lips, they make smiling more fair;
On cheek and on brow there's no wrinkle,
But thousands of curls in her hair.

She's little,—you don't wish her taller;
Just half through the teens is her age;
And baby or lady to call her,
Were something to puzzle a sage.

Her walk is far better than dancing;
She speaks as another might sing;
And all by an innocent chancing,
Like lambkins and birds in the spring.

Unskill'd in the airs of the city,
She's perfect in natural grace;

She's gentle, and truthful, and witty,
And ne'er spends a thought on her face.

Her face, with the fine glow that's in it,
As fresh as an apple-tree bloom—
And O! when she comes, in a minute,
Like sunbeams she brightens the room.

As taking in mind as in feature,
How many will sigh for her sake!
—I wonder, the sweet little creature,
What sort of a wife she would make.

THE MUSIC-MASTER

A LOVE STORY.

TO LEIGH HUNT, WITH AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE.

This was, at least in point of time, the humble precursor of many notable modern poems with music for the warp, as it were, of their interest.

I. Part I.

I

Music and Love!—If lovers hear me sing,
I will for them essay the simple tale,
To hold some fair young listeners in a ring
With echoes gathered from an Irish vale,
Where still, methinks, abide my golden years,
Though I not with them,—far discern'd through tears

II

When evening fell upon the village-street
And brother fields, reposing hand in hand,
Unlike where flaring cities scorn to meet
The kiss of dusk that quiets all the land,
'Twas pleasant laziness to loiter by
Houses and cottages, a friendly spy,

III

And hear the frequent fiddle that would glide
Through jovial mazes of a jig or reel,
Or sink from sob to sob with plaintive slide,
Or mount the steps of swift exulting zeal;
For our old village was with music fill'd
Like any grove where thrushes wont to build.

IV

Mixt with the roar of bellows and of flame,
Perhaps the reed-voice of a clarionet
From forge's open ruddy shutter came;
Or round some hearth were silent people set,
Where the low flute, with plantive quivering, ran
Through tender ‘Colleen Dhas’ or ‘Feilecan.’

V

Or pictured on those bygone, shadowy nights
I see a group of girls at needlework,
Placed round a candle throwing soft half-lights
On the contrasted faces, and the dark
And fair-hair'd heads, a bunch of human flow'rs,
While many a ditty cheers th' industrious hours.

VI

Pianoforte's sound from curtain'd pane
Would join the lofty to the lowly roof
In the sweet links of one harmonious chain;
And often down the street some Glee's old woof,
‘Hope of my heart’—‘Ye Shepherds’—‘Lightly tread,’
Enmesh'd my steps or wrapt me round in bed.

VII

The most delicious chance, if we should hear,
Pour'd from our climbing glen's enfoliaged rocks,
At dusk some solitary bugle, clear,
Remote, and melancholy; echo mocks
The strain delighted, wafting it afar
Up to the threshold of the evening star.

VIII

And Gerald was our music-master's name;
Young Gerald White; whose mother, not long wed,
Only to make him ours by birthright came.
Her Requiescat I have often redd,
Where thickest ivy hangs its ancient pall
Over the dumb and desolate abbey wall.

IX

The father found a music-pupil rare,
More ready still to learn than he to teach
His art no longer was his only care,
But now young Gerald with it, each for each
And with a secret and assiduous joy
The grave musician taught his happy boy.

X

The boy's whole thought to Music lean'd and sway'd;
He heard a minor in the wind at night,
And many a tune the village noises play'd;
The thunder roar'd like bands before the might
Of marching armies; in deep summer calm
The falling brooklet would intone a psalm.

XI

The Chapel organ-loft, his father's seat,
Was to the child his earthly paradise;
And that celestial one that used to greet
His infant dreams, could take no other guise
Than visions of green curtains and gold pipes,
And angels of whom quire girls were the types.

XII

Their fresh young voices from the congregation,
Train'd and combined by simple rules of chant,
And lifted on the harmonious modulation
Roll'd from the lofty organ, ministrant
To sacred triumph, well might bring a thought
Of angels there,—perhaps themselves it brought.

XIII

Poor girls the most were: this one had her nest,
A mountain mavis, in the craggy furze;
Another in close lane must toil and rest,
And never cage-bird's song more fine than hers,
Humming at work all through the busy week,
Set free in Sunday chorus, proud and meek.

XIV

And when young Gerald might adventure forth
Through Music-land,—where hope and memory kiss,
And singing fly beyond the bourne of earth,
And the whole spirit full of aching bliss
Would follow as the parting shrouds reveal
Glimpses ineffable, but soon conceal—

XV

While all the hills, mayhap, and distant plain,
Village and brook were shaded, fold on fold,
With the slow dusk, and on the purpling pane
Soft twilight barr'd with crimson and with gold
Lent to that simple little house of prayer
A richly solemn, a cathedral air;

XVI

His symphonies to suit the dying close
Suffused it with a voice that could not ask
In vain for tears; not ask in vain from those
Who in the dew fulfill'd their pious task,
Kneeling with rosaries beside a grave;
To whom a heavenly comforting it gave.

XVII

Thus village years went by. Day after day
Flow'd, as a stream unvext with storms or floods
Flows by some islet with a hawthorn gray;
Where circling seasons bring a share of buds,
Nests, blossoms, ruddy fruit; and, in their turn,
Of withering leaves and frosty twigs forlorn.

XVIII

So went the years, that never may abide;
Boyhood to manhood, manly prime to age,
Ceaselessly gliding on, as still they glide;
Until the father yields for heritage
(Joyful, yet with a sigh) the master's place
To Gerald—who could higher fortune grace.

XIX

But the shy youth has yet his hours of leisure:
And now, the Spring upon the emerald hills
Dancing with flying clouds, how keen his pleasure,
Plunged in deep glens or tracking upland rills,
Till lessening light recal him from his roaming
To breathe his gather'd secrets to the gloaming.

XX

Spring was around him, and within him too.
Delightful season!—life without a spur
Bounds gaily forward, and the heart is new
As the green wand fresh budded on a fir;
And Nature, into jocund chorus waking,
Bids every young voice to her merry-making.

XXI

Gerald, high echoing this delightful Spring,
Pour'd from his finger-tips electric power
In audible creations swift of wing,
Till sunshine glimpsing through an April shower,
And clouds, and delicate glories, and the bound
Of lucid sky came melting into sound.

XXII

Our ear receives in common with our eye
One Beauty, flowing through a different gate,
With melody its form, and harmony
Its hue; one mystic Beauty is the mate
Of Spirit indivisible, one love
Her look, her voice, her memory do move.

XXIII

Yet sometimes in his playing came a tone
Not learn'd of sun or shadow, wind or brook,
But thoughts so much his own he dared not own,
Nor, prizing much, appraise them; dared not look
In fear to lose an image undefined
That brighten'd every vista of his mind.

XXIV

Two pupils dwelt upon the river-side,
At Cloonamore, a cottage near the rush
Of narrow'd waters breaking from a wide
And pond-like smoothness, brimming green and flush
On dark groves; here for Gerald, truth to say,
His weekly task was more than holiday.

XXV

A quiet home it was; compact and neat
As a wren's nest. A gentle woman's choice
Had built and beautified the green retreat;
But in her labours might she not rejoice,
Being call'd away to other place of rest;
And spent her last breath in a dear behest.

XXVI

That was for her two daughters: she had wed
A plain, rough husband, though a kind and true;
And ‘Dearest Patrick,’ from her dying bed
She whisper'd, ‘Promise me you'll try to do
For Ann and Milly what was at my heart,
If God had spared me to perform my part.’

XXVII

As well as no abundant purse allow'd,
Or as the neighbouring village could supply,
The father kept his promise, and was proud
To see the girls grow up beneath his eye
Two ladies in their culture and their mien;
Though not the less there lay a gulf between.

XXVIII

A spirit unrefined the elder had,
An envious eye, a tongue of petty scorn.
That women these may own—how true! how sad!
And these, though Ann had been a countess born,
Had mark'd her meaner to the dullest sight
Than stands a yellow lily with a white.

XXIX

White lily,—Milly,—darling little girl!
I think I see as once I saw her stand;
The soft hair waving in a single curl
Behind her ear; a kid licking her hand;
Her fair young face with health and racing warm,
And loose frock blown about her slender form.

XXX

The dizzy lark, a dot on the white cloud,
That sprinkles music to the vernal breeze,
Was not more gay than Milly's joyous mood;
The silent lark that starry twilight sees
Cradled among the braird in closest bower,
Not more quiescent than her tranquil hour.

XXXI

Her mind was open, as a flowery cup
That gathers richness from the sun and dew,
To knowledge, and as easily drew up
The wholesome sap of life; unwatch'd it grew,
A lovely blossom in a shady place;
And like her mind, so was her innocent face.

XXXII

At all times fair, it never look'd so fair
As when the holy glow of harmonies
Lighted it through; her spirit as it were
An azure heav'n outshining at her eyes;
With Gerald's tenor, while the fountain sprung
Of her contralto, fresh and pure and young.

XXXIII

In years a child when lessons thus began,
Child is she still, yet nearly woman grown;
For childhood stays with woman more than man,
In voice and cheek and mouth, nor these alone;
And up the sky with no intense revealing
May the great dawn of womanhood come stealing.

XXXIV

Now must the moon of childhood, trembling white,
Faint in the promise of the flushing heaven;
Looks are turn'd eastward, where new orient light
Suffuses all the air with subtle leaven;
And shadowy mountain-paths begin to show
Their unsuspected windings 'mid the glow.

XXXV

Her silky locks have ripen'd into brown,
Her soft blue eyes grown deeper and more shy,
And lightly on her lifted head the crown
Of queenly maidenhood sits meek and high;
Her frank soul lives in her ingenuous voice,
Most purely tuned to sorrow or rejoice.

XXXVI

Within the chapel on a Sunday morn
She bows her mild head near the altar-rail,
And raises up that mild full voice unworn
Into the singing;—should a Sunday fail,
There's one would often mark her empty seat,
There's one would find the anthem incomplete.

XXXVII

Few her companions are, and few her books;
And in a ruin'd convent's circling shade,
The loveliest of tranquil river-nooks,
Where trailing birch, fit bow'r for gentle maid,
And feather'd fir-tree half shut out the stream,
She often sits alone to read or dream.

XXXVIII

Sometimes through leafy lattice she espies
A flitting figure on the other shore;
But ever past th' enchanted precinct hies
That wanderer, and where the rapids roar
Through verdured crags, shelters his beating heart,
Foolishly bent to seek, yet stay apart.

XXXIX

Then Milly can resume her reverie,
About a friend, a friend that she could love;
But finds her broken thought is apt to flee
To what seem other musings; slowly move
The days, and counted days move ever slowest:
Milly! how long ere thy own heart thou knowest?

XL

Sooner than Gerald his. His path-side birds
Are scarcely more unconscious or more shrinking.
Yet would he tell his love in simple words
Did love stand clearly in his simple thinking.
High the discovery, and too high for one
Who counts his life as though not yet begun.

XLI

For all the rest seem sage and busy men;
And he alone despised, and justly too,
Or borne with merely;—could he venture then
To deem this rich inheritance his due?
Slowly the fine and tender soul discerns
Its rareness, and its lofty station learns.

XLII

And now, 'tis on a royal eventide
When the ripe month sets glowing earth and air,
And summer by a stream or thicket side
Twists amber honeysuckles in her hair,—
Gerald and Milly meet by trembling chance,
And step for step are moving, in a trance,

XLIII

Their pathway foliage-curtain'd and moss-grown;
Behind the trees the white flood flashing swift,
Through many moist and ferny rocks flung down,
Roars steadily, where sunlights play and shift.
How oft they stop, how long, they nothing know,
Nor how the pulses of the evening go.

XLIV

Their talk?—the dappled hyacinthine glade
Lit up in points of blue,—the curious treble
That sometimes by the kine's deep throat is made,—
The quail's ‘twit-wit-wit,’ like a hopping pebble
Thrown along ice,—the dragonflies, the birds,
The rustling twig,—all noticed in few words.

XLV

A level pond, inlaid with lucid shadows
Of groves and crannied cliffs and evening sky,
And rural domes of hay, where the green meadows
Slope to embrace its margin peacefully,
The slumb'ring river to the rapid draws;
And here, upon a grassy jut, they pause.

XLVI

How shy a strength is Love's, that so much fears
Its darling secret to itself to own!
Their rapt, illimitable mood appears
A beauteous miracle for each alone;
Exalted high above all range of hope
By the pure soul's eternity of scope.

XLVII

Yet in both hearts a prophecy is breathed
Of how this evening's phantom may arise,
In richer hues than ever sunlight wreathed
On hill or wood or wave: in brimming eyes
The glowing landscape melts away from each;
And full their bosoms swell, too full for speech.

XLVIII

Is it a dream? The countless happy stars
Stand silently into the deepening blue;
In slow procession all the molten bars
Of cloud move down; the air is dim with dew;
Eve scatters roses on the shroud of day;
The common world sinks far and far away.

XLIX

With goodnight kiss the zephyr, half asleep,
Sinks to its cradle in the dusk of trees,
Where river-chimings tolling sweet and deep
Make lullaby, and all field-scents that please
The summer's children float into the gloom
Dream-interwoven in a viewless loom.

L

Clothed with an earnest paleness, not a blush,
And with th' angelic gravity of love,
Each lover's face amid the twilight hush
Is like a saint's whose thoughts are all above
In perfect gratitude for heavenly boon;
And o'er them for a halo comes the moon.

LI

Thus through the leaves and the dim dewy croft
They linger homeward. Flowers around their feet
Bless them, and in the firmament aloft
Night's silent ardours. And an hour too fleet,
Tho' stretching years from all the life before,
Conducts their footsteps to her cottage door.

LII

Thenceforth they meet more timidly?—in truth,
Some lovers might, but all are not the same;
In the clear ether of their simple youth
Steady and white ascends the sacred flame.
They do not shrink hereafter; rather seek
More converse, but with graver voices speak.

LIII

One theme at last preferred to every other,
Joying to talk of that mysterious land
Where each enshrines the image of a mother,
Best of all watchers in the guardian band;
To highest, tenderest thought is freedom given
Amid this unembarrass'd air of Heaven.

LIV

For when a hymn has wing'd itself away
On Palestrina's full-resounding chords,
And at the trellis'd window loiter they,
Deferring their good-night with happy words,
Almost they know, without a throb of fear,
Of spirits in the twilight standing near.

LV

And day by day and week by week pass by,
And Love still poised upon a trembling plume
Floats on the very verge of sovereignty,
Where ev'n a look may call him to assume
The rich apparel and the shining throne,
And claim two loyal subjects for his own.

LVI

Wondrous, that first, full, mutual look of love
Coming ere either looker is aware;
Unbounded trust, a tenderness above
All tenderness; mute music, speechless pray'r;
Life's mystery, reality, and might,
Soft-swimming in a single ray of light!

LVII

When shall it fly, this talismanic gleam,
Which melts like lightning every prison-bar,
Which penetrates the mist with keener beam
Than flows from sun or moon or any star?
Love waits; like vulgar pebble of the ground
Th' imperial gem lies willing to be found.

LVIII

One evening, Gerald came before his hour,
Distrustful of the oft-consulted clock;
And waits, with no companion, till his flow'r—
Keeping the time as one of Flora's flock,
Whose shepherdess, the Sunset Star, doth fold
Each in its leaves—he may again behold,

LIX

Nor thinks it long. Familiar all, and dear,
A sanctity pervades the silent room.
Autumnal is the season of the year;
A mystic softness and love-weighty gloom
Gather with twilight. In a dream he lays
His hand on the piano, dreaming plays.

LX

Most faint and broken sounds at first are stealing
Into the shadowy stillness; wild and slow
Imperfect cadences of captive feeling,
Gathering its strength, and yet afraid to know
Its chance of freedom,—till on murmuring chords
Th' unguarded thought strays forth in passionate words.

LXI

Angel of Music! when our finest speech
Is all too coarse to give the heart relief,
The inmost fountains lie within thy reach,
Soother of every joy and every grief;
And to the stumbling words thou lendest wings
On which aloft th' enfranchised spirit springs.

LXII

Much love may in not many words be told;
And on the sudden love can speak the best.
These mystical melodious buds unfold,
On every petal showing clear imprest
The name of Love. So Gerald sung and play'd
Unconscious of himself, in twilight shade.

LXIII

He has not overheard (O might it be!)
This stifled sobbing at the open door,
Where Milly stands arrested tremblingly
By that which in an instant tells her more
Than all the dumb months mused of; tells it plain
To joy that cannot comprehend its gain.

LXIV

One moment, and they shall be face to face,
Free in the gift of this great confidence,
Wrapt in the throbbing calm of its embrace,
No more to disunite their spirits thence.
The myrtle crown stoops close to either brow,—
But ah! what alien voice distracts them now?

LXV

Her sister comes. And Milly turns away;
Hurriedly bearing to some quiet spot
Her tears and her full heart, longing to lay
On a dim pillow cheeks so moist and hot.
When midnight stars between her curtains gleam
Fair Milly sleeps, and dreams a happy dream.

LXVI

Dream on, poor child! beneath the midnight stars;
O slumber through the kindling of the dawn;
The shadow's on its way; the storm that mars
The lily even now is hurrying on.
All has been long fulfill'd; yet I could weep
At thought of thee so quietly asleep.

LXVII

But Gerald, through the night serenely spread,
Walks quickly home, intoxicate with bliss
Not named and not examined; overhead
The clustering lights of worlds are full of this
New element; the soft wind's dusky wings
Grow warmer on his cheeks, with whisperings.

LXVIII

And yet to-night he has not seen his Love.
His Love—in that one word all comfort dwells;
Reaching from earth to those clear flames above,
And making common food of miracles.
Kind pulsing Nature, touch of Deity,
Sure thou art full of love, which lovers see!

LXIX

Most cruel Nature, so unmoved, so hard,
The while thy children shake with joy or pain!
Thou wilt not forward Love, nor Death retard
One finger-push, for mortal's dearest gain.
Our Gerald, through the night serenely spread,
Walks quickly home, and finds his father dead.

LXX

Great awe must be when the last blow comes down,
Tho' but the ending of a weary strife,
Tho' years on years weigh low the hoary crown
Or sickness tenant all the house of life;
Stupendous ever is the great event,
The frozen form most strangely different!

LXXI

To Gerald follow'd many doleful days,
Like wet clouds moving through a sullen sky.
A vast unlook'd-for change the mind dismays,
And smites its world with instability;
Rocks appear quaking, towers and treasures vain,
Peace foolish, Joy disgusting, Hope insane.

LXXII

For even Cloonamore, that image dear,
Returns to Gerald's mind like its own ghost,
In melancholy garments, drench'd and sere,
Its joy, its colour, and its welcome lost.
Wanting one token sure to lean upon,
(How almost gained!) his happy dream is gone.

LXXIII

Distracted purposes, a homeless band,
Throng in his meditation; now he flies
To rest his soul on Milly's cheek and hand,—
Now he makes outcry on his fantasies
For busy cheats: the lesson not yet learn'd
How Life's true coast from vapour is discern'd.

LXXIV

Ah me! 'tis like the tolling of a bell
To hear it—“Past is past, and gone is gone;”
With looking back afar to see how well
We could have 'scaped our losses, and have won
High fortune. Ever greatest turns on least,
Like Earth's own whirl to atom poles decreased.

LXXV

For in the gloomiest hour a letter came,
Shot arrow-like across the Western sea,
Praising the West; its message was the same
As many a time ere now had languidly
Dropp'd at his feet, but this the rude gale bore
To heart,—Gerald will quit our Irish shore.

LXXVI

And quit his Love whom he completely loves;
Who loves him just as much? Nay, downcast youth!
Nay, dear mild maiden!—Surely it behoves
That somewhere in the day there should be ruth
For innocent blindness?—lead, oh, lead them now
One step, but one!—Their fates do not allow.

LXXVII

The parting scene is brief and frosty dumb.
The unlike sisters stand alike unmoved;
For Milly's soul is wilder'd, weak, and numb,
That reft away which seem'd so dearly proved.
While thought and speech she struggles to recover
Her hand is prest—and he is gone for ever.

LXXVIII

Time speeds: on an October afternoon
Across the well-known view he looks his last;
The valley clothed with peace and fruitful boon,
The chapel where such happy hours were pass'd,
With rainbow-colour'd foliage round its eaves,
And windows all a-glitter through the leaves.

LXXIX

The cottage-smokes, the river;—gaze no more,
Sad heart! although thou canst not, wouldst not shun
The vision future years will oft restore,
Whereon the light of many a summer sun,
The stars of many a winter night shall be
Mingled in one strange sighing memory.

END OF PART I.

Part II.

I

The shadow Death o'er Time's broad dial creeps
With never-halting pace from mark to mark,
Blotting the sunshine; as it coldly sweeps,
Each living symbol melts into the dark,
And changes to the name of what it was;—
Shade-measured light, progression proved by loss.

II

Blithe Spring expanding into Summer's cheer,
Great Summer ripening into Autumn's glow,
The yellow Autumn and the wasted year,
And hoary-headed Winter stooping slow
Under the dark arch up again tò Spring,
Have five times compass'd their appointed ring.

III

See once again our village, with its street
Dozing in dusty sunshine. All around
Is silence; save, for slumber not unmeet,
Some spinning-wheel's continuous whirring sound
From cottage door, where, stretch'd upon his side,
The moveless dog is basking, drowsy-eyed.

IV

The hollyhocks that rise above a wall
Sleep in the richness of their crusted blooms;
Up the hot glass the sluggish blue flies crawl;
The heavy bee is humming into rooms
Through open window, like a sturdy rover,
Bringing with him warm scents of thyme and clover.

V

With herb and flow'r you smell the ripening fruit
In cottage gardens, on the sultry air;
But every bird has vanish'd, hiding mute
In eave and hedgerow; save that here and there
With twitter swift, the sole unrestful thing,
Shoots the dark lightning of a swallow's wing.

VI

Yet in this hour of sunny peacefulness
There's one whom all its influence little calms,
One who now leans in agony to press
His throbbing forehead with his throbbing palms,
Now paces quickly up and down within
The narrow parlour of the village inn.

VII

He thought he could have tranquilly beheld
The scene again. He thought his faithful grief,
Spread level in the soul, could not have swell'd
To find once more a passionate relief.
Three years, they now seem hours, have sigh'd their breath
Since when he heard the tidings of her death.

VIII

Last evening in the latest dusk he came,
A holy pilgrim from a distant land;
And objects of familiar face and name,
As at the wave of a miraculous wand,
Rose round his steps; his bedroom window show'd
His small white birthplace just across the road.

IX

Yet in that room he could not win repose;
The image of the past perplex'd his mind;
Often he sigh'd and turn'd and sometimes rose
To bathe his forehead in the cool night-wind,
And vaguely watch the curtain broad and gray
Lifting anew from the bright scene of day.

X

When creeping sultry hours from noontide go,
He rounds the hawthorn hedge's well-known turn,
Melting in Midsummer its bloomy snow,
And through the chapel gate. His heart forlorn
Draws strength and comfort from the pitying shrine
Whereat he bows with reverential sign.

XI

Behind the chapel, down a sloping hill,
Circling the ancient abbey's ivied walls
The graveyard sleeps. A little gurgling rill
Pour'd through a corner of the ruin, falls
Into a dusky-water'd pond, and lags
With lazy eddies 'mid its yellow flags.

XII

Across this pool, the hollow banks enfold
An orchard, overrun with rankest grass,
Of gnarl'd and mossy apple-trees as old
As th' oldest graves almost; and thither pass
The smooth-worn stepping-stones that give their aid
To many a labourer and milking-maid,

XIII

And not unfrequently to rustic bound
On a more solemn errand. When we see
A suppliant in such universal ground,
Let all be reverence and sympathy;
Assured the life in every real pray'r
Is that which makes our life of life to share.

XIV

But resting in the sunshine very lone
Is each green hummock now, each wooden cross;
And save the rillet in its cup of stone
That poppling falls, and whispers through the moss
Down to the quiet pool, no sound is near
To break the stilliness to Gerald's ear.

XV

The writhen elder spreads its creamy bloom;
The thicket-tangling, tenderest briar-rose
Kisses to air its exquisite perfume
In shy luxuriance; spiry foxglove glows
With elvish crimson;—nor all vainly greet
The eye which unobserved they seem to meet.

XVI

Under the abbey wall he wends his way,
Admitted through a portal arching deep,
To where no roof excludes the common day;
Though some few tombstones in the shadows sleep
Of hoary fibres and a throng of leaves,
Which venerable ivy slowly weaves.

XVII

First hither comes, in piety of heart,
Over his mother's, father's grave to bend,
The faithful exile. Let us stand apart,
While his sincere and humble pray'rs ascend,
As such devout aspirings do, we trust,
To Him who sow'd them in our breathing dust.

XVIII

And veil our very thoughts lest they intrude
(Oh, silent death; oh, living pain full sore!)
Where lies enwrapt in grassy solitude
That gentle matron's grave, of Cloonamore;
And on the stone these added words are seen—
‘Also, her daughter Milly, aged eighteen.’

XIX

Profound the voiceless aching of the breast,
When weary life is like a gray dull eve
Emptied of colour, withering and waste
Around the prostrate soul, too weak to grieve—
Stretch'd far below the tumult and strong cry
Of passion—its lamenting but a sigh.

XX

Grief's mystery desire not to disperse,
Nor wish the secret of the world outspoken;
'Tis not a toy, this vital Universe,
That thus its inner caskets may be broken.
Sorrow and pain, as well as hope and love,
Stretch out of view into the heavens above.

XXI

Yet, oh! the cruel coldness of the grave,
The keen remembrance of the happy past,
The thoughts which are at once tyrant and slave,
The sudden sense that drives the soul aghast,
The drowning horror, and the speechless strife,
That fain would sink to death or rise to life!

XXII

As Gerald lifted up his pallid face,
He grew aware that he was not alone.
Amid the silence of the sacred place
Another form was stooping o'er the stone;
A grayhair'd woman's. When she met his eyes
She shriek'd aloud in her extreme surprise.

XXIII

‘The Holy Mother keep us day and night!
And who is this?—Oh, Master Gerald, dear,
I little thought to ever see this sight!
Warm to the King above I offer here
My praises for the answer He has sent
To all my pray'rs; for now I'll die content!’

XXIV

Then, as if talking to herself, she said,
‘I nursed her when she was a little child.
I smooth'd the pillow of her dying bed.
And just the way that she had often smiled
When sleeping in her cradle—that same look
Was on her face with the last kiss I took.’

XXV

‘'Twas in the days of March,’ she said again.
‘And so it is the sweetest blossom dies,
The wrinkled leaf hangs on, though falling fain.
I thought your hand would close my poor old eyes,
And not that I'd be sitting in the sun
Beside your grave,—the Lord's good will be done!’

XXVI

Thus incoherently the woman spoke,
With many interjections full of woe;
And wrapping herself up within her cloak
Began to rock her body to and fro;
And moaning softly, seem'd to lose all sense
Of outward life in memories so intense.

XXVII

Till Gerald burst his silence and exclaim'd,
With the most poignant earnestness of tone,
‘O nurse, I loved her!—though I never named
The name of love to her, or any one.
'Tis to her grave here—’ He could say no more,
But these few words a load of meaning bore.

XXVIII

Beside the tombstone mute they both remain'd.
At last the woman rose, and coming near,
Said with a tender voice that had regain'd
A tremulous calm, ‘Then you must surely hear
The whole from first to last, cushla-ma-chree;
For God has brought together you and me.’

XXIX

And there she told him all the moving tale,
Broken with many tears and sobs and sighs;
How gentle Milly's health began to fail;
How a sad sweetness grew within her eyes,
And trembled on her mouth, so kind and meek,
And flush'd across her pale and patient cheek.

XXX

And how about this time her sister Ann
‘Entered Religion,’ and her father's thought
Refused in Milly's face or voice to scan,
Or once so lively step, the change that wrought;
Until a sad conviction flew at last,
And with a barb into his bosom pass'd.

XXXI

Then, with most anxious haste, her dear old nurse
Was sent for to become her nurse again;
But still the pretty one grew worse and worse.
For with a gradual lapsing, free of pain,
And slow removes, that fond eyes would not see,
Crept on the hopeful, hopeless malady.

XXXII

Spring came, and brought no gift of life to her,
Of all it lavish'd in the fields and woods.
Yet she was cheer'd when birds began to stir
About the shrubbery, and the pale gold buds
Burst on the willows, and with hearty toil
The ploughing teams upturn'd the sluggish soil.

XXXIII

‘'Twas on a cold March evening, well I mind,’
The nurse went on, ‘we sat and watch'd together
The long gray sky; and then the sun behind
The clouds shone down, though not like summer weather,
On the hills far away. I can't tell why,
But of a sudden I began to cry.

XXXIV

‘I dried my tears before I turn'd to her,
But then I saw that her eyes too were wet,
And pale her face, and calm without a stir;
Whilst on the lighted hills her look was set.
Where strange beyond the cold dark fields they lay,
As if her thoughts, too, journey'd far away.

XXXV

‘After a while she ask'd me to unlock
A drawer, and bring a little parcel out.
I knew it was of it she wish'd to talk,
But long she held it in her hand in doubt;
And whilst she strove, there came a blush and spread
Her face and neck with a too passing red.

XXXVI

‘At length she put her other hand in mine;
“Dear nurse,” she said, “I'm sure I need not ask
Your promise to fulfil what I design
To make my last request, and your last task.
You knew young Master Gerald” (here her speech
Grew plain) “that used to come here once to teach?”

XXXVII

‘I said I knew you well; and she went on,—
“Then listen: if you ever see him more,
And he should speak of days long past and gone,
And of his scholars and his friends before—
Should ask you questions—knowing what you've been
To me,—Oh! could I tell you what I mean!”

XXXVIII

‘But, sir, I understood her meaning well;
Not from her words so much as from her eyes.
I saw it all; my heart began to swell,
I took her in my arms with many sighs
And murmurs, and she lean'd upon my neck
Till we both cried our fill without a check.

XXXIX

‘She saw I knew her mind, and bade me give
Into your hand, if things should so befall,
The parcel:—else, as long as I should live,
It was to be a secret kept from all,
And say you never wrote, never return'd,
When my last hour drew near, was to be burn'd.

XL

‘I promised to observe her wishes duly;
But said I hoped in God that she would still
Live many years beyond myself. And truly
While she was speaking, like a miracle
Her countenance lost every sickly trace.
Ah, dear! 'twas setting light was in her face.

XLI

‘She told me she was tired, and went to bed,
And I sat watching by her until dark,
And then I lit her lamp, and round her head
Let down the curtains. 'Twas my glad remark
How softly she was breathing, and my mind
Was full of hope and comfort,—but we're blind!

XLII

‘The night wore on, and I had fall'n asleep,
When about three o'clock I heard a noise
And sprang up quickly. In the silence deep
Was some one praying with a calm weak voice;
Her own voice, though not sounding just the same;
And in the pray'r I surely heard your name.

XLIII

‘Sweet Heaven! we scarce had time to fetch the priest.
How sadly through the shutters of that room
Crept in the blessed daylight from the east
To us that sat there weeping in the gloom;
And touch'd the close-shut eyes and peaceful brow,
But brought no fear of her being restless now.

XLIV

‘The wake was quiet. Noiseless went the hours
Where she was lying stretch'd so still and white;
And near the bed, a glass with some Spring flowers
From her own little garden. Day and night
I watch'd, until they took my lamb away,
The child here by the mother's side to lay.

XLV

‘The holy angels make your bed, my dear!
But little call have we to pray for you:
Pray you for him that's left behind you here,
To have his heart consoled with heavenly dew!
And pray too for your poor old nurse, asthore;
Your own true mother scarce could love you more!’

XLVI

Slow were their feet amongst the many graves,
Over the stile and up the chapel-walk,
Where stood the poplars with their timid leaves
Hung motionless on every slender stalk.
The air in one hot calm appear'd to lie,
And thunder mutter'd in the heavy sky.

XLVII

Along the street was heard the laughing sound
Of boys at play, who knew no thought of death;
Deliberate-stepping cows, to milking bound,
Lifted their heads and low'd with fragrant breath;
The women knitting at their thresholds cast
A look upon our stranger as he pass'd.

XLVIII

Scarce had the mourners time a roof to gain,
When, with electric glare and thunder-crash,
Heavy and straight and fierce came down the rain,
Soaking the white road with its sudden plash,
Driving all folk within-doors at a race,
And making every kennel gush apace.

XLIX

The storm withdrew as quickly as it came,
And through the broken clouds a brilliant ray
Glow'd o'er the dripping earth in yellow flame,
And flush'd the village panes with parting day.
Sudden and full that swimming lustre shone
Into the room where Gerald sat alone.

L

The door is lock'd, and on the table lies
The open parcel. Long he wanted strength
To trust its secrets to his feverish eyes;
But now the message is convey'd at length;—
A note; a case; and folded with them there
One finest ringlet of brown-auburn hair.

LI

The case holds Milly's portrait—her reflection:
Lips lightly parted, as about to speak;
The frank broad brow, young eyes of grave affection,
Even the tender shadow on the cheek:
Swift image of a moment snatch'd from Time,
Fix'd by a sunbeam in eternal prime.

LII

The note ran thus, ‘Dear Gerald, near my death,
I feel that like a Spirit's words are these,
In which I say, that I have perfect faith
In your true love for me,—as God, who sees
The secrets of all hearts, can see in mine
That fondest truth which sends this feeble sign.

LIII

‘I do not think that He will take away,
Even in Heaven, this precious earthly love;
Surely He sends its pure and blissful ray
Down as a message from the world above.
Perhaps it is the full light drawing near
Which makes the doubting Past at length grow clear.

LIV

‘We might have been so happy!—But His will
Said no, who orders all things for the best.
O may His power into your soul instil
A peace like this of which I am possess'd!
And may He bless you, love, for evermore,
And guide you safely to His heavenly shore!’

LV

Hard sits the downy pillow to a head
Aching with memories. And Gerald sought
The mournful paths where happy hours had fled,—
Pacing through silent labyrinths of thought.
Yet sometimes, in his loneliness of grief,
The richness of the loss came like relief.

LVI

Minutely he recall'd, with tender pride,
How one day—which is gone for evermore—
Among his bunch of wild flowers left aside,
He found a dark carnation, seen before
In Milly's girdle,—but alas, too dull
To read its crimson cypher in the full!

LVII

She smiled, the centre of a summer's eve:
She sung, with all her countenance a-glow,
In her own room, and he could half believe
The voice did far-off in the darkness flow:
He saw her stretch'd in a most silent place,
With the calm light of prayer upon her face.

LVIII

All this night long the water-drops he heard
Vary their talk of chiming syllables.
Dripping into the butt; and in the yard
The ducks gabbling at daylight; till the spells
Of misty sense recall'd a childish illness
When the same noises broke the watching stillness.

LIX

Wellnigh he hoped that he had sadly dream'd,
And all the interval was but a shade.
But now the slow dawn through his window gleam'd,
And whilst in dear oblivion he was laid,
And Morning rose, parting the vapours dim,
A happy heavenly vision came to him.

LX

Kind boons of comfort may in dream descend,
Nor wholly vanish in the broad daylight.
—When this our little story hath an end,
That flickers like a dream in woof of night,
Its slender memory may perchance be wrought
Among the tougher threads of waking thought?

LXI

Thus Gerald came and went. Till far away,
His coming and his errand were not told.
And years had left behind that sunny day,
Ere some one from the New World to the Old
Brought news of him, in a great Southern town,
Assiduous there, but seeking no renown.

LXII

After another silent interval,
The little daily lottery of the post
Gave me a prize; from one who at the call
Of ‘Westward ho!’ had left our fair green coast,
With comrades eager as himself to press
Into the rough unharrow'd wilderness.

LXIII

‘Through these old forests’ (thus he wrote) ‘we came
One sundown to a clearing. Western light
Burn'd in the pine-tops with a fading flame
Over untrodden regions, and dusk night
Out of the solemn woods appear'd to rise
To some strange music, full of quivering sighs.

LXIV

‘Such must have been the atmosphere, we thought,
The visionary light of ancient years,
When Red Man east or west encounter'd nought
Save bear and squirrel, with their wild compeers.
But other life was now; and soon we found
The little citadel of this new ground.

LXV

‘The neat log-cabin from its wall of pines
Look'd out upon a space of corn and grass
Yet thick with stumps; 'twas eaved with running vines,
As though among the vanquish'd woods to pass
For something native. Drawing to its door,
We question'd of the mystic sounds no more.

LXVI

‘They blended with the twilight and the trees,
At hand, around, above, and far away,
So that at first we thought it was the breeze
Hymning its vespers in the forest gray;
But now we heard not airy strains alone,
But human feeling throb in every tone.

LXVII

‘A swelling agony of tearful strife
Being wearied out and hush'd—from the profound
Arose a music deep as love or life,
That spread into a placid lake of sound,
And took the infinite into its breast,
With Earth and Heaven in one embrace at rest;

LXVIII

‘And then the flute-notes fail'd. Approaching slow,
Whom found we seated in the threshold shade?
Gerald,—our Music-Master long ago
In poor old Ireland; much inquiry made
Along our track for him had proved in vain;
And here at once we grasp'd his hand again!

LXIX

‘And he received us with the warmth of heart
Our brothers lose not under any sky.
But what was strange, he did not stare or start
As if astonish'd, when, so suddenly,
Long-miss'd familiar faces from the wood
Emerged like ghosts, and at his elbow stood.

LXX

‘'Twas like a man who joyfully was greeting
(So thought I) some not unexpected friends.
And yet he had not known our chance of meeting
More than had we: but soon he made amends
For lack of wonder, by the dextrous zeal
That put before us no unwelcome meal.

LXXI

‘We gave him all our news, and in return
He told us how he lived,—a lonely life!
Miles from a neighbour, sow'd and reap'd his corn,
And hardy grew. One spoke about a wife
To cheer him in that solitary wild,
But Gerald only shook his head and smiled.

LXXII

‘Next dawn, when each one of our little band
Had on a mighty Walnut carved his name,—
Henceforth a sacred tree, he said, to stand
'Mid his enlarging bounds,—the moment came
For farewell words. But long, behind our backs,
We heard the echoes of his swinging axe.’

Took conventual vows.

AN IRISHMAN TO THE NIGHTINGALES.

I.

You sweet fastidious Nightingales!
The Myrtle blooms in Irish vales,
By Avondhu and rich Lough Lene,
Through many a grove and bowerlet green,
Fair mirror'd round the loitering skiff.
The purple peak, the tinted cliff,
The glen where mountain-torrents rave
And foliage blinds their leaping wave,
Broad emerald meadows fill'd with flow'rs,
Embosom'd ocean-bays are ours
With all their isles; and mystic tow'rs
Lonely and gray, deserted long,—
Less sad if they might hear that perfect song.

II.

What scared ye? (ours, I think, of old)
The sombre Fowl hatch'd in the cold?
King Henry's Normans, mail'd and stern,
Smiters of galloglas and kern?
Or, most and worst, fraternal feud,
Which sad Iernè long hath rued?
Forsook ye, when the Geraldine,
Great chieftain of a glorious line,
Was hunted on his hills and slain,
And one to France and one to Spain,
The remnant of the race withdrew?
Was it from anarchy ye flew,
And fierce oppression's bigot crew,
Wild complaint, and menace hoarse,
Misled, misleading voices, loud and coarse?

100

III.

Come back, O Birds,—or come at last!
For Ireland's furious days are past;
And, purged of enmity and wrong,
Her eye, her step, grow calm and strong.
Why should we miss that pure delight?
Brief is the journey, swift the flight;
And Hesper finds no fairer maids
In Spanish bow'rs or English glades,
No loves more true on any shore,
No lovers loving music more.
Melodious Erin, warm of heart,
Entreats you;—stay not then apart,
But let the Merles and Throstles know
(And ere another May-time go)
Their place is in the second row.
Come to the west, dear Nightingales!
The Rose and Myrtle bloom in Irish vales.

Native Irish foot-solidiers; the first heavy-armed, the second light.

101

KITTY O'HEA.

English readers are requested to pronounce the young woman's name ‘O'Hay,’ and to consider the verses addressed to her as delivered in a moderate brogue, for there are brogues of many sorts, and they are but vaguely expressible by spelling. The minimum of unusual spelling is always, I think, to be aimed at.—Catholics may not, without special permission, marry in Lent, and therefore ‘Shrove Tuesday’ is in Ireland a great day for weddings.—The tune of this song I picked up in Ireland many years ago, also its refrain, or something like it. Of other words no trace remains in my memory, if I ever heard them.

102

I

Now, Kitty O'Hea, darling jewel,
I wish you'd consider my case!
O, who could believe you're so cruel
To look in that beautiful face?

103

Let roses be jealous,—no matter!
The sunshine's in love with your cheek;
What singing-bird wouldn't I flatter
To say it's her voice when you speak?
Kitty O'Hea, O'Hea,
Kitty, give ear to my song.
Kitty O'Hea, O'Hea,
Kitty, I'm courting you long.

II

My thoughts I can never keep steady,
No more nor a man in a dream,
They caper like straws in an eddy,
In place of pursuing the stream.
Amusement or meat I don't care for,
I moan like a cow gone astray;
Myself knows the why and the wherefore,—
I'm thinking of Kitty O'Hea.
Kitty O'Hea, O'Hea, etc.

III

I never objected, in reason,
To bear with a slight or a scoff,
But snow isn't always in season,
And Lent isn't very far off.
Shrove-Tuesday's the time for to shake one,
And single I'll not pass the day,
Young, old, maid or widow, I'll take one,—
So mind yourself, Kitty O'Hea!
Kitty O'Hea, O'Hea,
Kitty, give heed to my song.
Kitty O'Hea, O'Hea,
Kitty, I'm courting too long!

104

THE ABBOT OF INISFĀLEN.

A beautiful Island in the Lower Lake of Killarney, hiding among old trees the ruins of an Abbey, founded in the seventh century. The island is named from Fathlenn, a man whose identity is lost in the abyss of time. This legend is one of those which are found in various countries, and to which no locality has an exclusive claim. Indeed, such an occurrence may as easily have happened many times as once.

(A KILLARNEY LEGEND.)

I.

The Abbot of Inisfālen awoke ere dawn of day;
Under the dewy green leaves went he forth to pray.
The lake around his island lay smooth and dark and deep,
And wrapt in a misty stillness the mountains were all asleep.
Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac when the dawn was dim and gray;
The prayers of his holy office he faithfully 'gan say.
Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac while the dawn was waxing red;
And for his sins' forgiveness a solemn prayer he said:
Low kneel'd that holy Abbot while the dawn was waxing clear;
And he pray'd with loving-kindness for his convent-brethren dear.
Low kneel'd that blessed Abbot while the dawn was waxing bright;
He pray'd a great prayer for Ireland, he pray'd with all his might.
Low kneel'd that good old Father while the sun began to dart;

105

He pray'd a prayer for all men, he pray'd it from his heart.
His blissful soul was in Heaven, tho' a breathing man was he;
He was out of time's dominion, so far as the living may be.

II.

The Abbot of Inisfālen arose upon his feet;
He heard a small bird singing, and O but it sung sweet!
It sung upon a holly-bush, this little snow-white bird;
A song so full of gladness he never before had heard.
It sung upon a hazel, it sung upon a thorn;
He had never heard such music since the hour that he was born.
It sung upon a sycamore, it sung upon a briar;
To follow the song and hearken this Abbot could never tire.
Till at last he well bethought him; he might no longer stay;
So he bless'd the little white singing-bird, and gladly went his way.

III.

But, when he came to his Abbey, he found a wondrous wondrous change;
He saw no friendly faces there, for every face was strange.
The strange men spoke unto him; and he heard from all and each
The foreign tongue of the Sassenach, not wholesome Irish speech.
Then the oldest monk came forward, in Irish tongue spake he:

106

‘Thou wearest the holy Augustine's dress, and who hath given it to thee?’
‘I wear the holy Augustine's dress, and Cormac is my name,
The Abbot of this good Abbey by grace of God I am.
I went forth to pray, at the dawn of day; and when my prayers were said,
I hearken'd awhile to a little bird, that sung above my head.’
The monks to him made answer, ‘Two hundred years have gone o'er,
Since our Abbot Cormac went through the gate, and never was heard of more.
Matthias now is our Abbot, and twenty have pass'd away.
The stranger is lord of Ireland; we live in an evil day.’
‘Days will come and go,’ he said, ‘and the world will pass away,
In Heaven a day is a thousand years, a thousand years are a day.’

IV.

‘Now give me absolution; for my time is come,’ said he.
And they gave him absolution, as speedily as might be.
Then, close outside the window, the sweetest song they heard
That ever yet since the world began was utter'd by any bird.
The monks look'd out and saw the bird, its feathers all white and clean;
And there in a moment, beside it, another white bird was seen.
Those two they sang together, waved their white wings, and fled;

107

Flew aloft, and vanish'd; but the good old man was dead.
They buried his blessed body where lake and green-sward meet;
A carven cross above his head, a holly-bush at his feet;
Where spreads the beautiful water to gay or cloudy skies,
And the purple peaks of Killarney from ancient woods arise.

108

THE MILKMAID

This tune I learnt in the county Donegal along with some words beginning, ‘It was an old Beggarman.’ I gave both to Dr. Petrie, who published them in his Ancient Music of Ireland.

109

O where are you going so early? he said;
Good luck go with you, my pretty maid;
To tell you my mind I'm half afraid,
But I wish I were your sweetheart.
When the morning sun is shining low,
And the cocks in every farmyard crow,
I'll carry your pail,
O'er hill and dale,
And I'll go with you a-milking.

I'm going a-milking, sir, says she,
Through the dew, and across the lea;
You ne'er would even yourself to me,
Or take me for your sweetheart.
When the morning sun, etc.

Now give me your milking-stool awhile,
To carry it down to yonder stile;
I'm wishing every step a mile,
And myself your only sweetheart,
When the morning sun, etc.

Oh, here's the stile in-under the tree,
And there's the path in the grass for me,
And I thank you kindly, sir, says she,
And wish you a better sweetheart.
When the morning sun, etc.

110

Now give me your milking-pail, says he,
And while we're going across the lea,
Pray reckon your master's cows to me,
Although I'm not your sweetheart.
When the morning sun, etc.

Two of them red, and two of them white,
Two of them yellow and silky bright,
She told him her master's cows aright,
Though he was not her sweetheart.
When the morning sun, etc.

She sat and milk'd in the morning sun,
And when her milking was over and done,
She found him waiting, all as one
As if he were her sweetheart.
When the morning sun, etc.

He freely offer'd his heart and hand;
Now she has a farm at her command,
And cows of her own to graze the land;
Success to all true sweethearts!
When the morning sun is shining low,
And the cocks in every farmyard crow,
I'll carry your pail
O'er hill and dale,
And I'll go with you a-milking.

111

A DREAM.

I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;
I went to the window to see the sight;
All the Dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.

On they pass'd, and on they pass'd;
Townsfellows all, from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
Quench'd in the heavy shadow again.

Schoolmates, marching as when we play'd
At soldiers once—but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown'd, I knew, in the awful sea.

Straight and handsome folk; bent and weak, too;
Some that I loved, and gasp'd to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
Some that I had not known were dead.

A long, long crowd—where each seem'd lonely,
Yet of them all there was one, one only,
Raised a head or look'd my way:
She linger'd a moment,—she might not stay.

112

How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah! Mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!

On, on, a moving bridge they made
Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;
Many long-forgot, but remember'd then.

And first there came a bitter laughter;
A sound of tears the moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That every morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.

113

THE GIRL'S LAMENTATION.

The tune of this, with some part of the first three verses, I picked up from the singing of a peasant boy at Belashanny, the only time I ever heard them.

114

With grief and mourning I sit to spin;
My Love passed by, and he didn't come in;
He passes by me, both day and night,
And carries off my poor heart's delight.

There is a tavern in yonder town,
My Love goes there and he spends a crown,
He takes a strange girl upon his knee,
And never more gives a thought to me.

Says he, ‘We'll wed without loss of time,
And sure our love's but a little crime;’—
My apron-string now it's wearing short,
And my Love he seeks other girls to court.

O with him I'd go if I had my will,
I'd follow him barefoot o'er rock and hill;
I'd never once speak of all my grief
If he'd give me a smile for my heart's relief.

In our wee garden the rose unfolds,
With bachelor's-buttons and marigolds;
I'll tie no posies for dance or fair,
A willow twig is for me to wear.

115

For a maid again I can never be,
Till the red rose blooms on the willow tree.
Of such a trouble I've heard them tell,
And now I know what it means full well.

As through the long lonesome night I lie,
I'd give the world if I might but cry;
But I mus'n't moan there or raise my voice,
And the tears run down without any noise.

And what, O what will my mother say?
She'll wish her daughter was in the clay.
My father will curse me to my face;
The neighbours will know of my black disgrace.

My sister's buried three years, come Lent;
But sure we made far too much lament.
Beside her grave they still say a prayer—
I wish to God 'twas myself was there!

The Candlemas crosses hang near my bed;
To look at them puts me much in dread,
They mark the good time that's gone and past:
It's like this year's one will prove the last.

The oldest cross it's a dusty brown,
But the winter winds didn't shake it down;
The newest cross keeps the colour bright;
When the straw was reaping my heart was light.

The reapers rose with the blink of morn,
And gaily stook'd up the yellow corn,
To call them home to the field I'd run,
Through the blowing breeze and the summer sun.

116

When the straw was weaving my heart was glad,
For neither sin nor shame I had,
In the barn where oat-chaff was flying round,
And the thumping flails made a pleasant sound.

Now summer or winter to me it's one;
But oh! for a day like the time that's gone.
I'd little care was it storm or shine,
If I had but peace in this heart of mine.

Oh! light and false is a young man's kiss,
And a foolish girl gives her soul for this.
Oh! light and short is the young man's blame,
And a helpless girl has the grief and shame.

To the river-bank once I thought to go,
And cast myself in the stream below;
I thought 'twould carry us far out to sea,
Where they'd never find my poor babe and me.

Sweet Lord, forgive me that wicked mind!
You know I used to be well-inclined.
Oh, take compassion upon my state,
Because my trouble is so very great.

My head turns round with the spinning-wheel,
And a heavy cloud on my eyes I feel.
But the worst of all is at my heart's core;
For my innocent days will come back no more.

Little crosses woven of straw. A new cross is added each year, and the old ones are left till they fall to pieces.

117

THE RUINED CHAPEL.

Suggested by a small and very ancient-looking Ruin on the western shore of Killybegs Harbour.

By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruin'd chapel round,
Buttress'd with a grassy mound;
Where Day and Night and Day go by,
And bring no touch of human sound.

Washing of the lonely seas,
Shaking of the guardian trees,
Piping of the salted breeze;
Day and Night and Day go by
To the endless tune of these.

Or when, as winds and watérs keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
And Day and Night and Day go by;
Here the silence is most deep.

The empty ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature's wide domain,
Sow themselves with seed and grain
As Day and Night and Day go by;
And hoard June's sun and April's rain.

Here fresh funeral tears were shed;
Now the graves are also dead;
And suckers from the ash-tree spread,
While Day and Night and Day go by;
And stars move calmly overhead.

118

FAIRY HILL,

Scenery of boyhood, idealized, as in dreams. The same scenery, differently treated, appears in the next piece.

OR, THE POET'S WEDDING.

I.

The Moon was bright, the Sea was still,
The Fairies danced on Fairy Hill;
The Town lay sleeping far below;
Ghosts went round it, sad and slow,
Loth to leave their earthly place
For the Wilderness of Space.
The watch-dogs saw the Ghosts and howl'd,
The Fairies saw the Ghosts, and cowl'd
Their little heads and whirl'd away;
No friendship between Ghost and Fay.
Fairies lightly love Mankind,
To mischief or to mirth inclined,
They fear the Dead, by night or day.

II.

A Boy within that Town did dwell
Loved by the Fairy People well,
For he was more delightful far
Than rosebuds or the evening star,
And by his cradle soft they crept
To kiss the Baby while he slept,
Curtain'd him round with shades and gleams,
And gave him music in his dreams
Excelling mortal. When the Child
Grew older, then in flowers they smiled,
Or shining clouds, or sparkling streams,
Or forest shadows, whispering low
Magic secrets few men know.

119

‘This lovely Boy,’ said they, ‘is one
Whose day on earth will soon be done,
We read it in his lustrous eyes;
Make him happy ere he dies,
Show him things, by moon and sun.’

III.

Another year, another night,
(But Time, they never mark its flight)
Round about the Waterfall
The Fairies sit on rocks, and all
Sing to the pouring water's tune
And watch the setting yellow Moon.
But all together shout for joy,
See, O see! their lovely Boy
Floating swiftly down the stream;
His eyes are shut, his Boat's a Dream.
It shoots the rapids, doth not swerve
Gliding on the glassy curve
Over the thundering Fall,—away!
It rises on the rising spray,
It spreads two waving wings, it mounts
Into the morning's golden founts.
‘This Dream is ours,’ the Fairies said,
‘The Boy lies sleeping in his bed.
‘Fine Boat afloat on stream!’ they sung,
‘Fine Dream!’ they sung, till skylark rung
A matin-bell from tower of cloud,
And, silent, through his gates of gold
The Day-King's flashing chariot roll'd,—
Then vanish'd all the Fairy crowd.
Many a Dream they made for him,
Of Caves and Waves, and Moonshine dim,
Subtle thoughts and wondrous stories,
Glancing joys and coming glories,
Wild poetic Dreams of youth,
Truer far than daylight truth.

120

IV.

Another night, another year,
(We reckon Time in mortal sphere)
The Fairies danced on Fairy Hill,
Careless lovers, merry still,
Never half a day forlorn,
Tho' at times they wail and mourn.
And he, the Boy, for all their bode,
Lived, not died; the sea-wind flow'd
Into his veins; a Poet Boy,
Who loved his world and sung for joy,
In glens and woodlands wandering lone,
Where at times from twig and stone
The Fairies peep'd at him, and oft
Elfin music trembled soft,
Airy whispers, whereunto
Danced his fancies, verses flew
Rhyming to the music's chime,
Whilst a human heart kept time
With its own pathetic measure
In the midst of all the pleasure.
How his songs came, none could tell;
Simple people loved them well.

But on a blue midsummer day,
Suddenly, a peeping Fay
Saw within the Poet's eyes
Something new! What wondrous prize,
What rich marvel hath he found
In the heavens or underground?
Yea, Fay! in his breast
A secret lies worth all the rest;
Nor have your people taught him this,
One day he learnt it in a kiss.
Greet her, Fairies, for your part!
The Girl is worth a Poet's heart,
She is gracious, she is true,
She hath eyes of deeper blue

121

Than hyacinths in woodland shade,
She's a mild, a mirthful maid.
The Wedding-Day is coming soon,
And O, that night, the festival
For Fairy People one and all
On Fairy Hill below the Moon,
Between the Sea and Waterfall!

V.

Fled from Britain's, Alba's, coast,
Erin holds the Fairy Host.
Unless what some report be truth
That further, flock by flock they flee
To Tir-na-n'Oge, the Land of Youth,
Amid its undiscover'd sea,
The Blissful Island, out of ken
Of sad or angry eyes of men.
Yet awhile, O Gentle Race,
Linger in your ancient place,
Take not from us (poor are we)
Like autumn leaves or sunset clouds
Our elfin gold of phantasie!

As yet they are not gone. In crowds
They troop to Fairy Hill to-night,
The Wedding Night,—Elf and Sprite,
Merrows from their swaying Deep,
Dwarfs that out of crannies creep,
Cunning Lepracauns a few,
Countless Fays, the tricksy crew,
White Witches, none of bale,
Nor the bodeful Banshee's wail,
Nor the Pooka, from his cave
Galloping over land and wave
Like a storm at black midnight,
His flaming eyes the only light.
No, no, these away!
Hither, every friendly Fay!

122

From meadow-rings, from lakes and springs,
Craggy mountains, river fountains,
From the air, and from the fire,
Thronging in with one desire,
Those that haunt the kindly hearth,
And all that bring good luck and mirth.

Lo now, the Moon!—and who are seen
Flying hither? King and Queen!
They come, with growing music. Elves,
To your places, range yourselves!
The Full Moon shines, the Sea is still,
The Fairies dance on Fairy Hill,
Singing, weaving happy charms.
The Bride is in the Bridegroom's arms.

123

UNDER THE GRASS.

Where those green mounds o'erlook the mingling Erne
And salt Atlantic, clay that walk'd as Man
A thousand years ago, some Vik-ing stern,
May rest, or nameless Chieftain of a Clan;
And when my dusty remnant shall return
To the great passive World, and nothing can
With eye, or lip, or finger, any more,
O lay it there too, by the river shore.

The silver salmon shooting up the fall,
Itself at once the arrow and the bow;
The shadow of the old quay's weedy wall
Cast on the shining turbulence below;
The water-voice which ever seems to call
Far off out of my childhood's long-ago;
The gentle washing of the harbour wave;
Be these the sights and sounds around my grave.

Soothed also with thy friendly beck, my town,
And near the square gray tower within whose shade
Was many of my kin's last lying-down;
Whilst, by the broad heavens changefully array'd,
Empurpling mountains its horizon crown;
And westward 'tween low hummocks is display'd,
In lightsome hours, the level pale blue sea,
With sails upon it creeping silently:

124

Or, other time, beyond that tawny sand,
An ocean glooming underneath the shroud
Drawn thick athwart it by tempestuous hand;
When like a mighty fire the bar roars loud,
As though the whole sea came to whelm the land—
The gull flies white against the stormy cloud,
And in the weather-gleam the breakers mark
A ghastly line upon the waters dark.

A green unfading quilt above be spread,
And freely round let all the breezes blow;
May children play beside the breathless bed,
Holiday lasses by the cliff-edge go;
And manly games upon the sward be sped,
And cheerful boats beneath the headland row;
And be the thought, if any rise, of me,
What happy soul might wish that thought to be.

125

THE GOBLIN CHILD OF BELASHANNY.

In the large old house by the Bridge, once a Barrack, the room is still shown in which Robert Stewart, afterwards Lord Castlereagh, is said to have seen a Ghost, one which made a lasting impression on his mind. From early childhood I heard as one of the local traditions (not a very old one), that ‘Castlereagh saw a Ghost in the Barrack,’ and the circumstance of his marching in with his men at night-fall, etc., were also related. There is no reason to doubt that this is the Ghost described in Lockhart's ‘Life of Scott,’ chap. 1vi. Moore sets down in his ‘Diary’ (Abbotsford, Oct. 30th, 1825): ‘Scott said the only two men who had ever told him that they had actually seen a ghost, afterwards put an end to themselves. One was Lord Castlereagh, who had himself mentioned to Scott his seeing the “radiant-boy.” It was one night when he was in barracks, and the face brightened gradually out of the fireplace and approached him. Lord Castlereagh stepped forwards to it, and it receded again, and faded into the same place. . . . It was the Duke of Wellington made Lord Castlereagh tell the story to Sir Walter, and Lord C. told it without hesitation, and as if believing in it implicitly.’ [Memoirs, etc., of Thomas Moore, London, 1853, vol. iv., pp. 337, 338.] People on the spot sometimes tell you it was ‘The Green Lady’ that appeared to Castlereagh, but this is mixing two separate Ghosts; ‘The Green Lady’ being the apparition of an Officer's Wife, said to have been done to death in the Barracks by her Husband's hand—when or how I have never learned.

A regiment, filing row by row,
Well nigh a hundred years ago,
As wintry dusk was drawing late,
Through Belashanny's old bridge gate,
Changed pass-words with the pacing guard,
Left-wheel'd into the barrack-yard,
And halted willingly,—for tired
The men were, drooping, soaked, and mired;
And ev'n the highest in command,
With trembling knee and fevered hand,
Felt on his horse almost as jaded
And glad to end the march as they did.

No wonder then that he withdrew
Betimes to bed; and though, 'twas true,
His quarters here proved strange enough;
Snatched as they seemed, with trimming rough,
From long disuse; yet in a pile
Heaped on the hearth in good old style,
Bogwood and turf with jovial roar
Threw ruddy blaze on wall and floor,
And the new-comer thought he might,
On such a fagg'd November night,
Ev'n in a rougher place have found
A door to sleep's Enchanted Ground.

126

Yet, when he sought, he sought in vain.
A dim, fantastic, endless train
Of striving fancies vex'd his brain;
Till as the weary hours went by
He ever grew, he knew not why,
More anxious, and his heart was sick,
And the pulse in his pillow'd ear beat thick.

The wide half-furnished barrack-room
Was full of heavy midnight gloom,
Save when the sinking coals gave birth
To smouldering flashes on the hearth,
And from the single darkness made
A thousand ghostly forms of shade,
On which the waker gazed and gazed
Until his thoughts grew mazed and mazed,
And down at length his aching lids were weigh'd.

When suddenly—O Heaven!—the fire
Leaped up into a dazzling pyre,
And boldly from the brighten'd hearth
A Naked Child stepp'd forth.

With a total, frozen start,
A bound,—a pausing of the heart,
He saw. It came across the floor,
Its size increasing more and more
At every stride, until a dread
Gigantic form stood by his bed.

Glaring for some seconds' space
Down into his rigid face—
Back it drew, with steadfast look,
Dwindling every step it took,
Till the Naked Child return'd
To the fire, which brightly burn'd
To greet it: then black sudden gloom
Sunk upon the silent room;

127

Silent, save the monotone
Of the river flowing down
Through the arches of the bridge,
And underneath the casement-ledge.—

This happen'd when our island still
Had nests of goblins left, to fill
Each mouldy nook and corner close,
Like spiders in an ancient house.
And this one read within the face
Intruding on its dwelling-place,
Lines of woe, despair, and blood,
By spirits only understood;
As mortals now can read the same
In the letters of his name
Who in that haunted chamber lay,
When we call him Castlereagh.

128

THE FAIRIES.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.

129

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!

130

THE FAIRY KING.

The Fairy King was old.
He met the Witch of the wold.
‘Ah ha, King!’ quoth she,
‘Now thou art old like me.’
‘Nay, Witch!’ quoth he,
‘I am not old like thee.’

The King took off his crown,
It almost bent him down;
His age was too great
To carry such a weight.
‘Give it me!’ she said,
And clapt it on her head.

Crown sank to ground;
The Witch no more was found.
The sweet spring-songs were sung,
The Fairy King grew young,
His crown was made of flowers,
He lived in woods and bowers.

131

THE NOBLEMAN'S WEDDING.

In the year 1854, or the beginning of 1855, when Dr. Petrie was preparing a portion of his Ancient Music of Ireland for the press, he sent me, in the form given below, the imperfect and corrupt words of a ballad of which he had the music, asking me to try my hand upon them. I tried accordingly—the requisite being simplicity of style, not imitation of old fashions of language—and was so fortunate as to please him. He wrote to me on the subject (March 11th, 1855): ‘I determined to break through my rule to exclude all verses of recent manufacture, and behold now I send you a proof of it in type.’ The version sent me, in Miss Petrie's handwriting, and the only one I saw (it was probably the nursery-maid's version) runs as follows:

‘Once I was at a nobleman's wedding,
'Twas of a girl that proved unkind,
But now she begins to think of her losses,
Her former true lover still runs in her mind.

Here is the token of gold that was broken,
Seven long years, love, I have kept it for your sake,
You gave it to me as a true lover's token,
No longer with me now it shall remain.

The bride she sat at the head of the table,
The words that he said she marked right well,
To sit any longer she was not able,
And down at the bridegroom's feet she fell.

One request I do make of you,
And I hope you will grant it to me,
To lie this night in the arms of my mother,
And ever, ever after, to lie with thee.

No sooner asked than it was granted,
With tears in her eyes she went to bed,
And early, early, the very next morning
He rose and found the young bride was dead.

He took her up in his arms so softly,
And carried her to the meadow so green,
He covered her over with green leaves and laurels,
Thinking that she might come to life again.’

Dr. Petrie prefixed these remarks to the ballad in his Ancient Music of Ireland:

‘The following simple ballad air, independently of any intrinsic merit it may be thought to possess, has interested me, as I have no doubt it will, also, the majority of my readers, from having been a favourite with the late J. Philpot Curran, partly, no doubt, from his admiration of the ballad words connected with it. The setting of the melody, as sung by Mr. Curran, was kindly communicated to me by his son, Mr. William H. Curran, together with the facts connected with it, as above stated. But, unfortunately, the latter gentleman can only now remember, and that but imperfectly, one stanza of the ballad—the fifth according to the version which I shall presently lay before the reader. Subsequently, however, I became possessed, from other sources, of three copies of the ballad, and three other settings of the melody, all—as usual in such cases of tunes and words preserved only traditionally—differing widely from each other. Of these, both tune and words, the first were obtained from Mr. Joyce, by whom they were taken down from the singing of his brother, Mr. Michael Joyce, of Glenasheen, in the county of Limerick; the second from my own daughters, who had learnt them in their childhood, from a nursery-maid, who at that period belonged to my family; and the third from Mary Madden, the poor blind Limerick woman of whom I have so often had occasion to make mention. Of the settings of the melody—being indisposed to express any opinion as to which should be considered the most authentic form of versions so different from each other—I have considered it proper to give the three settings which follow, namely, Mr. Curran's, my daughters', and Mr. Joyce's, With respect, however, to the equally different copies of the ballad, they are all so rude and imperfect as to be unworthy of publication. But, instead of them, I give insertion to a version of the ballad composed by my friend, William Allingham, from these various imperfect versions, [this is a slip] with as much fidelity to their general meaning and simplicity of language as was consistent with a due attention to more correct rhythm and metre. . . .’ (Pp. 178, 179). The version of the air which I give is the one noted by Miss Petrie.

[_]

[AN OLD BALLAD REVIVED.]

132

I once was a guest at a Nobleman's wedding;
Fair was the Bride, but she scarce had been kind,
And now in our mirth, she had tears nigh the shedding;
Her former true lover still runs in her mind.

Attired like a minstrel, her former true lover
Takes up his harp, and runs over the strings;
And there among strangers, his grief to discover,
A fair maiden's falsehood he bitterly sings.

‘Now here is the token of gold that was broken;
Seven long years it was kept for your sake;
You gave it to me as a true lover's token;
No longer I'll wear it, asleep or awake.’

She sat in her place by the head of the table,
The words of his ditty she mark'd them right well;
To sit any longer this bride was not able,
So down at the bridegroom's feet she fell.

‘O one, one request, my lord, one and no other,
O this one request will you grant it to me?
To lie for this night in the arms of my mother,
And ever, and ever thereafter with thee.’

Her one one request it was granted her fairly;
Pale were her cheeks as she went up to bed;
And the very next morning, early, early,
They rose and they found this young bride was dead.

The bridegroom ran quickly, he held her, he kiss'd her,
He spoke loud and low, and listen'd full fain;
He call'd on her waiting-maids round to assist her,
But nothing could bring the lost breath back again.

O carry her softly! the grave is made ready;
At head and at foot plant a laurel-bush green;
For she was a young and a sweet noble lady,
The fairest young bride that I ever have seen.

133

AMONG THE HEATHER.

134

One evening walking out, I o'ertook a modest colleen,
When the wind was blowing cool, and the harvest leaves were falling.
‘Is our road, by chance, the same? Might we travel on together?’
‘O, I keep the mountain side’ (she replied), ‘among the heather.’

‘Your mountain air is sweet when the days are long and sunny,
When the grass grows round the rocks, and the whinbloom smells like honey;
But the winter's coming fast, with its foggy, snowy weather,
And you'll find it bleak and chill on your hill, among the heather.’

She praised her mountain home: and I'll praise it too, with reason,
For where Molly is, there's sunshine and flow'rs at every season.
Be the moorland black or white, does it signify a feather,
Now I know the way by heart, every part, among the heather?

135

The sun goes down in haste, and the night falls thick and stormy;
Yet I'd travel twenty miles to the welcome that's before me;
Singing hi for Eskydun, in the teeth of wind and weather!
Love'll warm me as I go through the snow, among the heather.

‘Whin,’ furze.

136

A STORMY NIGHT.

A STORY OF THE DONEGAL COAST.

I.

A wild west Coast, a little Town,
Where little Folk go up and down,
Tides flow and winds blow:
Night and Tempest and the Sea,
Human Will and Human Fate:
What is little, what is great?
Howsoe'er the answer be,
Let me sing of what I know.

II.

Bright-curving Moon! stealing timidly forth
On the footsteps of sunset, the west and the north
Are conspiring; a rumour of turmoil hath spread
From dusky Ben Gulban to dim Teelin Head,
Over which thou hast floated an hour; but descending
To find the Atlantic, thou leavest night lonely,
And vapours grown frantic are blackly upwending,
Like thoughts never spoken but shudder'd at only:
Harsh blast hurries past, heavy gloom hath dropt down
Like a night within night, over fields, over town,
And the empty sands and rocks of the bay
Stretching many a mile away.

137

III.

Ever the wind more fiercely blew.
Far and low the cormorant flew
Across the black and swelling surge
To roost on ledges of the crag
Where gray Kilbarron's wall, a rag
Of ancient pride, o'ertops the verge,
And, sprinkled with their frequent spray,
Watches the billows night and day.
'Twas spring-time now, but the mad weather
Mix'd all seasons up together.

IV.

Among those rocks, within a den
Of driftwood and old sails, Three Men
Kept watch by turn, their smouldering log,
Scarlet heart of a pungent fog,
Hour by hour with sleepy light
Glimmering. All without this lair
Was darkness and the noise of night,
Where the wide waste of ocean roll'd
Thund'ring with savage crash, and air
In one tremendous torrent stream'd
Across the rocks, across the wold,
Across the murky world. It seem'd
There never could be daylight more
From earth to sky, on sea or shore.

V.

And who are these Three Watchers? Two,
Brown of face and big of thew,
Half fishermen, half sailors, know
The tides and currents of the Bay,
With all the winds that round it blow;
One wakes, one sleeps; rough men are they.

138

The third is Redmond: there he lies,
With slumber on his dark-fringed eyes,
And yet an anxious frowning face,
Youthful, but haggard. Sad his case
Who into Sleepland too must bear
The weary burden of his care.
Thy Father, Redmond, with his woes
And years, can better find repose.

VI.

His Father? let the humble strain
That tells of him be brief and plain.
Land-surveyor by his trade,
A modest living thus he made,
Being honest, frugal, diligent
(Such men not often fail), content
With what he had, averse from strife,
A good Man, with as good a Wife,
And two fine Boys. Their schooling done,
He strove to train the Elder Son
To take his place; but, partly wrought
By Nature in him, partly caught
From books and men, the Boy's desire
Of roaming kept his blood on fire,
Till Denis ran away to sea.
Alas, poor Mother! woe for thee,
Whose Son is not alive or dead.
Daily, long time, she smooth'd his bed;
Watch'd till the Postman shook his head
In passing; when the nights were wild,
Lay thinking of her firstborn Child,
The small white head that used to rest
So safely on her loving breast:
Where is it now? Boys little know
Of mothers' tears, how sad they flow.

139

VII.

Redmond, the old folk's Younger Son,
And now a ten times precious one,
Tall, active, gypsy-dark, well-featured,
Ready of wit and kindly-natured,
Vain, tho', and by his self-conceit
Easier than any fool to cheat,
Took to his Father's trade at first
Alertly; but the Lad was cursed
In his Companions; learnt to play
At cards, and out at night to stay,
And taste that fountain, unappall'd,
‘Water of Life’ most wrongly call'd;
Far truer will he speak who saith
‘Water of Evil,’ ‘Water of Death.’
The careful Father, growing old,
Saw business slipping from his hold,
Nor caught, as hope was, by the Son.
Leak of misfortune, once begun
Soon pour'd a flood; and they were poor,
When want is hardest to endure,
That aged Toiler and his Wife.

VIII.

Young Redmond broke his idle life
With fitful enterprise; of stills
Among the dark and lonely hills
He knew, and whereabouts to set
The salmon-poacher's cunning net.
By chance he saw and join'd for gain
To-night the sturdy Fishers twain,
Who from the crags of that rough coast,
With angry daylight gone almost,

140

Had glimpsed a large deep-laden Brig,
A British vessel by her rig,
Hopelessly tacking, every tack
Nigher the rocks whereon her back
Must soon be broken, and her masts
Flung down, and 'mid the shrieking blast's
Derision and the mad waves' hate
She and her crew must find their fate.
The coastguardmen were far away,
Busy elsewhere down the bay.

IX.

The Watchers know the wind and tide,
And in their chosen shelter bide;
And Redmond sleeps amid the roar;
Sleeps, but with many a moan and start,
Remorseful, weak, unhappy heart,—
A shake, a voice, ‘The Brig's ashore!’
Then, sighing deep, he wakes, alone;
His Comrades are already gone.
He lights his lantern, straps it tight,
Buttons coat, pulls cap aright,
And out,—but in a moment turns;
His throat from evil custom yearns
For poison: ‘Curse them! have they hid
The bottle?’—eagerly he slid
His hand, found, clutch'd it, deeply quaff'd
With tremulous lips the burning draught,
Then rush'd into the night and storm.

X.

Silent the signal-gun's alarm,
And quench'd the sudden blue-light's glare;
But down among the breakers there
A Black Bulk on their ghostly white
Hung in the meshes of the night,

141

And shouts rose sometimes on the blast.
Redmond crept downwards, reach'd at last
'Mid flying foam a slant of rock
Whose lower slope receives the shock
And rush of billows. See! the surge
Hath left a Waif upon its verge,
And Redmond seizes it,—a Man,
Dead or alive? 'Tis all he can
To lift the drench'd and helpless form
A short way up. Yes, he is warm,
He lives, though doubtless badly hurt.
But what is this, so tightly girt
About his waist, heavy and full?
A leathern belt. In vain to pull!
That stubborn buckle will not slip,
Nor break to an impatient grip.

XI.

Stunn'd as he was, the Stranger felt
Fingers tampering with his belt;
He clutch'd the Robber, strove to rise;
But Redmond, fastening on the prize,
With ever-growing fury burn'd,
As now, his strength in part return'd,
The Man fought hard, and tried to shout.
The words were blown back in his throat,
And, stifled there by savage grasp,
Died off into a groan, a gasp,
When dragg'd across the rocky ledge
He hung upon the perilous edge
Of a black rugged gulf, wherein,
Sweeping up its midnight cave,
Was heard the stroke of heavy wave
Amidst the elemental din.
With one fierce action Redmond tore
The belt away, and flung him o'er.

142

XII.

And in that moment pass'd a change
On Redmond's life; the world grew strange.
He did not move or tremble or groan.
The Night and He were there alone.
Without a thought, without a plan,
He had robb'd and murder'd a man;
Whither to go, or what to do,
Whom seek, or shun, he nothing knew;
Nor whether it was calm or storm,
Nor whether he was cold or warm.
He crawl'd away; he found the Tent;
The place was empty, in he went,
Sat down bewilder'd. Half it seem'd
As though he had but slept and dream'd
This wretchedness, until he felt
His clammy fingers touch the Belt,
Which bit him worse than snake. He knew
That all the dreadful deed was true.

XIII.

A knife-slash! Coins of glitt'ring gold
Across the sullen fire-shine roll'd,
The Dead Man's treasure; also shone
A brass plate on the Belt, whereon
Was writing. Redmond stirr'd the flame,
Stoop'd forward, saw his Brother's name.
Springing to his feet upright
With one hoarse yell that tore the night
He flung the tent-sail open. There,
With bloody face and eyes a-stare,
Look'd in—his murder'd brother's Ghost.
Redmond, he knew not whither, fled,
To human gaze for ever lost.

143

XIV.

And yet his Brother was not dead.
He dropt upon a jutting shelf
Over the raging ocean-gulf,
Crept upwards, found the glimm'ring light.
Thence his Murderer took flight
Into the darkness. The cold wave
Swallow'd him. No man made his grave.

Uisge beatha, usquebaugh, whisky; literally, water of life (eau de vie, aqua vitæ).

XV.

Redmond went forth at fall of night,
Denis came back with morning light.
Whitebeard Father, trembling Mother,
Losing one Son to find another,
Strange were your thoughts!—tho' age no more
Wonders keenly as of yore.
Denis had written home, to say
That rich he would return some day,
Or never; but the lines were lost.
He sought the far Pacific Coast,
Mined, struggled, starved, lay at death's door,
Was three times rich and three times poor,
Then triumph'd, hurried east, and found
An Irish vessel homeward bound—
Which bore him straighter than was good.
So much the Parents understood.
And often by the snug fireside
Among the hills, far from the tide,
Where Denis kept their old age warm,
Curious strangers would they tell
About ‘the Night of the Big Storm;’
Yet never till the day they died
Knew how in truth it all befell.
But Denis told his Wife; nor she,

144

A pious soul, forgot the plea
For Redmond when she bow'd her knee.
And Denis doth his duties right
In house and field; tho' nothing can
Lift from the silent, serious man
The shadow of that Stormy Night.

XVI.

The rain-clouds and storm-clouds roll up from the sea
The sun and the morning disperse them: they flee.
The winds and the waves fall to silence. The blue
Overarches the world. There is plenty to do.
The Fisher rows forth, and the Seaman sets sail,
The Smith hits his iron, the Joiner his nail,
The red Ploughman plodding, the pale Tailor stitching,
The Clerk at his desk, and the Cook in her kitchen.
The poor little Folk in our poor little Town
On their poor little business go up and go down;
Like people in London and Paris and Rome,
And elsewhere that live under crystalline dome.
And each by himself, whether little or great,
Fulfils his own life and endures his own fate.

145

THE BAN-SHEE.

Bean-Sighe=Woman Fairy, a Spirit attached to an old family, who bewails an approaching death among the members of it.’

A BALLAD OF ANCIENT ERIN.

I.

‘Heard'st thou over the Fortress wild geese flying and crying?
Was it a gray wolf's howl? wind in the forest sighing?
Wail from the sea as of wreck? Hast heard it, Comrade?’—‘Not so.
Here, all still as the grave, above, around, and below.

‘The Warriors lie in battalion, spear and shield beside them,
Tranquil, whatever lot in the coming fray shall betide them.
See, where he rests, the Glory of Erin, our Kingly Youth!
Closed his lion's eyes, and in sleep a smile on his mouth.’

‘The cry, the dreadful cry! I know it—louder and nearer,
Circling our Dūn—the Ban shee!—my heart is frozen to hear her!
Saw you not in the darkness a spectral glimmer of white
Flitting away?—I saw it!—evil her message to-night.

‘Constant, but never welcome, she, to the line of our Chief;
Bodeful, baleful, fateful, voice of terror and grief.
Dimly burneth the lamp—hush! again that horrible cry!—
If a thousand lives could save thee, Tierna, thou shouldest not die.’

146

II.

‘Now! what whisper ye, Clansmen? I wake. Be your words of me?
Wherefore gaze on each other? I too have heard the Ban-shee.
Death is her message: but ye, be silent. Death comes to no man
Sweet as to him who in fighting crushes his country's foeman.

‘Streak of dawn in the sky—morning of battle. The Stranger
Camps on our salt-sea strand below, and recks not his danger.
Victory!—that was my dream: one that shall fill men's ears
In story and song of harp after a thousand years.

‘Give me my helmet and sword. Whale-tusk, gold-wrought, I clutch thee!
Blade, Flesh-Biter, fail me not this time! Yea, when I touch thee,
Shivers of joy run through me. Sing aloud as I swing thee!
Glut of enemies' blood, meseemeth, to-day shall bring thee.

‘Sound the horn! Behold, the Sun is beginning to rise.
Whoso seeth him set, ours is the victor's prize,
When the foam along the sand shall no longer be white but red—
Spoils and a mighty feast for the Living, a carn for the Dead.’

147

THE LEPRACAUN,

is an elf peculiar to Ireland, and known. with some variations of name, in every part of the country—the Fairy Shoemaker who may be forced to give you of his store of gold, if you can keep your eye upon him.

OR. FAIRY SHOEMAKER.

I.

Little Cowboy, what have you heard,
Up on the lonely rath's green mound?
Only the plaintive yellow bird
Sighing in sultry fields around,
Chary, chary, chary, chee-ee!—
Only the grasshopper and the bee?—
‘Tip-tap, rip-rap,
Tick-a-tack-too!
Scarlet leather, sewn together,
This will make a shoe.
Left, right, pull it tight;
Summer days are warm;
Underground in winter,
Laughing at the storm!’
Lay your ear close to the hill.
Do you not catch the tiny clamour,
Busy click of an elfin hammer,
Voice of the Lepracaun singing shrill
As he merrily plies his trade?
He's a span
And a quarter in height.
Get him in sight, hold him tight,
And you're a made Man!

148

II.

You watch your cattle the summer day,
Sup on potatoes, sleep in the hay;
How would you like to roll in your carriage,
Look for a duchess's daughter in marriage?
Seize the Shoemaker—then you may!
‘Big boots a-hunting,
Sandals in the hall,
White for a wedding-feast,
Pink for a ball.
This way, that way,
So we make a shoe;
Getting rich every stitch,
Tick-tack-too!’
Nine-and-ninety treasure-crocks
This keen miser-fairy hath,
Hid in mountains, woods, and rocks,
Ruin and round-tow'r, cave and rath,
And where the cormorants build;
From times of old
Guarded by him;
Each of them fill'd
Full to the brim
With gold!

III.

I caught him at work one day, myself,
In the castle-ditch, where foxglove grows,—
A wrinkled, wizen'd, and bearded Elf,
Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose,
Silver buckles to his hose,
Leather apron—shoe in his lap—
‘Rip-rap, tip-tap,
Tack-tack-too!
(A grasshopper on my cap!
Away the moth flew!)

149

Buskins for a fairy prince,
Brogues for his son,—
Pay me well, pay me well,
When the job is done!’
The rogue was mine, beyond a doubt.
I stared at him; he stared at me;
‘Servant, Sir!’ ‘Humph!’ says he,
And pull'd a snuff-box out.
He took a long pinch, look'd better pleased,
The queer little Lepracaun;
Offer'd the box with a whimsical grace,—
Pouf! he flung the dust in my face,
And, while I sneezed,
Was gone!

ancient earthen fort.

the yellow-bunting, or yorlin.

150

LOVELY MARY DONNELLY.

151

Oh, lovely Mary Donnelly. my jov. my only best!
If fifty girls were round you, I'd hardly see the rest;
Be what it may the time o' day, the place be where it will,
Sweet looks o' Mary Donnelly, they bloom before me still.

Her eyes like mountain water that's flowing on a rock,
How clear they are, how dark they are! they give me many a shock;
Red rowans warm in sunshine and wetted with a show'r,
Could ne'er express the charming lip that has me in its pow'r.

Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up,
Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup,
Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine;
It's rolling down upon her neck, and gather'd in a twine.

The dance o' last Whit-Monday night exceeded all before,
No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor;

152

But Mary kept the belt o' love, and O but she was gay!
She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away.
When she stood up for dancing, her steps were so complete
The music nearly kill'd itself to listen to her feet;
The fiddler moan'd his blindness, he heard her so much praised,
But bless'd his luck to not be deaf when once her voice she raised.

And evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung,
Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue;
But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands,
And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands.
'Tis you're the flower o' womankind in country or in town;
The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down.
If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty bright,
And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right.
O might we live together in a lofty palace hall,
Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall!
O might we live together in a cottage mean and small,
With sods o' grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!
O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty's my distress.
It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less.
The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low;
But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!

153

FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A LITTLE BOY.

I must own, my dear Sonny, 'tis likely but few
Will care for this book; but I count upon you
For one reader, and hope you'll find something to please
And nothing to plague you in verses like these.
You've already a much truer taste in poetics
Than many grown-up folk, and some famous critics;
An ‘ear,’ which you have, is essential; but this
The people most lacking it can't even miss.
O give me the young! And at least you'll be mine;
You'll sometimes remember a song or a line
As the years travel round, as new mornings arise,
New sunsets draw softly away from the skies,
Like the old ones I saw? When your life-wheel shall bring
The freshness, the flutter, the ripple of Spring,
And Summer's broad glow, and grave Autumn bedight
In his tarnish'd gold russet; then bareness and white,
And the clasp of sweet home in the long Winter's night,
With their moods and their fancies;—‘As I feel, he felt,’
Perhaps you will say, ‘and was able to melt
Life's crudeness and strangeness, some part, into song,
For his soothing and mine.’ Dearest Gerald, so long
As a ghost may keep earth round him (not meaning clay)
This will soothe too, to fancy ‘Perhaps he will say.’

154

Nor will that ghost be happy unless he may know
Your footsteps have wander'd where his used to go
In the young time and song-time—among those green hills
And gray mossy rocks, and swift-flowing rills,
On mountain, by river and wave-trampled shore,
Where the wild region nourish'd the poet it bore,
And colour'd his mind with its shadows and gleams.
That lonely west coast was the house of his dreams
And his visions,—O Future and Past that combine
At a point ever shifting and flitting, to shine
In the spark of the Present! Old stories re-sown
Sprang to life once again, became part of my own,
Like ‘mummy-wheat’ sprouting in little home-croft;
The Ladder for Angels—it slanted aloft
From our meadow; the Star in the East hung on high
Where Fermanagh spreads dark to the midwinter sky;
And the Last Trumpet sounded o'er Mullinashee
With its graves old and new. And now tenderly, see,
They glide forward, and gaily, the sweet shapes of Greece,
All natives and neighbours, for wonders don't cease;
Shy Dryads come peeping in woody Corlay,
And surge-lifted Nereids in Donegal Bay.
Olympus lay south, where the mists meet and melt
Upon Truskar. My Helicon, drought never felt;
It was Tubbernaveka, that deep cressy well.
A goddess-nymph kiss'd my boy-lips if I fell
Into slumbers at Pan's hour in fragrant June grass;
Processions of helmeted heroes would pass
In the twilight; I saw the white robes of the bard
With his lyre. But the harp whose clear music I heard
Was Irish, and Erin could also unfold
Her songs and her dreams and her stories of old.
See Ireland, dear Sonny! my nurture was there;
And my song-gift, for which you at least are to care,

155

Took colours and flavours unfitted for vogue
(With a tinge of the shamrock, a touch of the brogue
Unconsciously mingling and threading through all)
On that wild verge of Europe, in dark Donegal.
—‘Dark,’ did I say!—Is there sunshine elsewhere?
Such brightness of grass, such glory of air,
Such a sea rolling in on such sands, a blue joy
Of more mystical mountains?

O eyes of the Boy!
O heart of the Boy! newly waken'd from sleep.
Might I sleep again, Master, long slumber and deep,
To wake rested!

But go there, my Gerald, this book
In your pocket, with fresh heart and eyes take a look,
At the poor lonely region,—ah, where will you see
The heavenly enchantment that wrapt it for me?

In any case, Laddie, I trust you will be as
Good son as was formerly pious Æneas,
Will carry your Daddie the poet right through
This house-afire Present and hullabaloo,
And, going on calmly when forward you've bent your eye,
Set him down safe in the Twentieth Century.
Strange feels that no-when! I shiver at sight
Of a realm like the North Pole, of icefields and night!
Can the world and old England be yet living on?
Our Big-Wigs and Earwigs, O where are they gone?
Nay, courage! methinks one may feel more at home
By degrees there: a sweet chilly breath seems to come,
Like new Spring's, from the Future. It won't be so bad;
In fact, I believe it will suit me, my lad!
We travel to new things in time as in space,
And escape out of habitude's bonds that embrace

156

And enjail us; we win change of air for our thought,
And that same with restorative virtue is fraught.
Though knaves, fools, and humbugs no doubt there will be,
They won't be the same we're accustom'd to see
And be plagued with. 'Tis thinking about them offends;
But the new can't take hold. Nay, respectable friends
Often bore us—the crowd of relations, connections,
Conditions, traditions, and foolish subjections;
(Small wonder if people run sometimes away,
‘Without any reason,’ as dull neighbours say,
Who themselves are the reason, with all the routine
One got sick of!)—Hurrah! change of air! change of scene!

‘Number Twenty will have its own Poets, be sure,
Its own Judges’—I hope so: do fashions endure?
They flow, eddy, try back, as one often has found;
And a thing out of favour—its turn may come round;
Dear Public may long for the simple and plain
For a change,—sounder appetite waking again,
Or perhaps from a hot queasy stomach's sensations
Demanding cool drink after fiery potations.
Why care? Just because there are people, a few,
Scatter'd up and down space (perhaps more, if we knew)
Whom a flying word reaches, a force yet more subtle
And swift than the ether's electrical shuttle,
All-weaving; a shaft thrilling muscle and marrow,
Or lighting as softly as thistle-seed arrow,
To comfort, to kindle, to help, to delight;
And our brave English speech has a far-reaching flight,
(Though what may become of it soon there's no telling
With novel and newspaper, slang and misspelling),—
A mere little Song—Yes, one's hardly content
To think one's fine impulses, efforts, misspent,

157

All the hopes and sweet fancies but blossom and cloud
Of an old merry Maytime, long stretch'd in its shroud.
But enough to this tune. So cushla-ma-chree,
(As my nurse used to say) and dear Reader to be,
Garait ōg, may God bless thee, my own little Son!
—Look me up in the year Nineteen-hundred-and-one.