Songs and Poems by George Sigerson :: :: University of Virginia Library

O Love it is the Lark of Life, and lives in sunny skies,
And Fortune is the Swallow fleet that with the summer flies,
But Honour is the faithful Thrush that sings at cloudy eve—
And my heart is now a leafless wood, where all the winds do grieve.

How often from my castle wall, a wounded man, I gazed
To see if through yon mountain-pass my comrades' lances blazed—
I saw their wives and maidens kneel and watch, at gleam of morn,
In hope that Joy would top the hill and wind his faery horn!

At last it came: the beat of hoofs!—low-throbbing from afar,
Like pulses through the silent night from the red heart of War!
Then flashed a flame on every hearth,—then leaped the beacon fire
Then babes were waked to welcome home the gallant victor sire!

The throbbing swelled, the throbbing sank; and now it seemed to die,
Now, gathering strength, it rose and rolled, the hoped-for home is nigh—
They gallop—gallop—hark, now mark each horse's eager head!
They've come,—Great God! all riderless!—the Horses of the Dead!

Now who will pine in misery, and who will bondage dree?
Or who will hail the Morning Star, on tossing waves with me?
Those hoofs that beat my heart must bear my sword to fields unknown,
The Lark is dead, the Swallow fled, the true Thrush sings alone!

Note—According to local tradition, after the “Break of Aughrim,” a number of horses, whose riders had fallen in battle, travelled homeward over mountain and moor, for a hundred miles, to the Kerry town from which they had come. S.