The Irish Poems of Alfred Perceval Graves :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sweet Isle, O how our hearts upleap
Once more to mark thee mount the deep,
Unfolding still to greet our gaze
Haunt after haunt of blessed by-gone days.

Blue hill-sides oft in boyhood climbed,
Lanes where we courted, roamed and rhymed,
Our hurling green, our dancing ground,
Each dear old cottage ranging round.

And now, sweet Isle, we near thy shore;
Young hands wave welcome, old eyes run o'er;
Till loving arms at long, long last
Have fondly folded their exile fast!

THE CUCKOO MADRIGAL

Cuckoo! cuckoo!
Our joyful rover,
At last you're over
The Ocean blue,

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And once again
All ears shall listen,
All eyes shall glisten
At your glad strain,
O yellow-throated,
Mellow-noted
Minstrel!

Cuckoo! cuckoo!
'Twas only sorrow
Made dark each morrow
The winter through;
And till your voice
Awoke to cheer us,
None, none came near us
To cry “Rejoice!”
O yellow-throated,
Mellow-noted
Minstrel!

Cuckoo! cuckoo!
How lad and maiden
Love ambuscading
In search of you!
But far and near
Ventriloquising,
With art surprising
You mock the ear;
Till, airy elf,
'Tis Echo's self
They call you.

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Cuckoo! cuckoo!
At dawn upspringing,
We hear you ringing
Your joy-bell true.
The livelong day,
Its magic measure
Peals perfect pleasure,
Then dies away,
In far off whispers
Thro' our vespers
Stealing.

O BLESSED HOUR

The frowning winter's past,
O blessed, blessed hour!
And leaves of hope at last
Laugh out from bank and bower.
The thorn that darkly sighed
Is decked in bridal May,
The sullen, sweeping tide
Runs sparkling on its way,
And bonny birds
Their loving words
Pipe forth from spray to spray.

The meadows, long so dumb
Beneath the aching frost,
With bees are all a-hum,
With cowslips all embossed

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And butterflies they glance
From nodding flower to flower
To join the jewel dance;
O blessed, blessed hour!
While pairing birds
Their warbled words
Through all the woodland shower.

THE LIMERICK LASSES

At every pleasant party,
Whoe'er the host, he gave a toast,
When we were young and hearty,
That ever pleased us lads the most.
'Twas—“Friends, fill up your glasses
Until they brim and bubble o'er,
Here's to our Limerick lasses!
Of Womanhood the cream and core.”

Ere long we heard from Mar's field
The mighty battle trumpet blown.
And off with gallant Sarsfield
“Wild Geese” we all to France were flown—
Attacked and then attacking,
The one brigade no foe could break,
And ever bivouacking
On fresh fields won for Ireland's sake,
With “Comrades, charge your glasses
Until they brim and bubble o'er;
Here's our own Limerick lasses!
Of Womankind the cream and core.”

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And now we're back from glory,
Huzzaing into Limerick town—
Each soldier tells his story
And with his sweetheart settles down;
For all the sighs and glances
Of donna or of demoiselle
Ne'er fooled away our fancies
From those we've loved so long and well.
Then, boys, fill up your glasses
Until they're brimming o'er and o'er,
Here's to our Limerick lasses!
With three times three and one cheer more.

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF SLIGO

We may tramp the earth for all that we're worth,
But what odds where you and I go?
We shall never meet a spot so sweet
As the beautiful City of Sligo.

Oh, sure she's a Queen in purple and green,
As she shimmers and glimmers her gardens between;
And away to Lough Lene the like isn't seen
Of her river a-quiver with shadow and sheen,
The beautiful City of Sligo.

Though bustle and noise are some folks' joys,
Your London just gives me ver-ti-go;
You can hear yourself talk when out you walk
Thro' the beautiful City of Sligo.

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As an artist in stones a genius was Jones,
Whom so queerly they christened In-i-go,
But he hadn't the skill to carve a Grass Hill
For the beautiful City of Sligo.

Then for powder and puff and cosmetical stuff,
Dear girls, to Dame Fashion, ah! why go?
When Dame Nature supplies for tresses and eyes
Such superior dyes down in Sligo.

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MY BLACKBIRD AND I

[_]

(Suggested by a touching episode in the late Michael Davitt's life in Portland Gaol in 1881, recorded by him in his Leaves from a Prison Diary.)

When first you came to me,
And so little you knew me
That from me you struggled
With wild beating breast,
Red sun-rays up-jetting
On fire seemed setting
The wavering woodland
Where once was your nest—
Then, my own dawny blackbird,
The tears my eyes blinded,
As my heart was reminded
How, a child, long ago
With strangers I shivered,
While the cruel flames quivered
Through our kindly old roof-tree
In lovely Mayo.

That thought, trembling blackbird,
To my bosom endeared you,
And ever I cheered you
Till so friendly we grew

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That together we'd forage
At the one plate of porridge,
And from out the same pitcher
Be both sipping too.
Then so sweetly you'd chuckle
From off of my knuckle,
That, my tired eyes closing
To drink in the sound,
By its glad spell uplifted
From my sad cell I drifted
To the joyful enchantment
Of green Irish ground.

Now below, blessed hour!
Even my grey prison's bower
Is laughing with flower
In the eye of the sun;
Rude cliffs throw soft shadows
On green ocean meadows,
And the homesteads of free men
Shine out one by one.
O who could keep captives
In solitude pining,
With such a sun shining,
Such bliss in the blue?
I lingered and lingered,
And then trembling-fingered
I opened your cage door,
And from me you flew.

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THE EXILES

O! if for ev'ry tender tear
That from our aching exiled eyes
Has fallen for you, Erin dear,
Our own loved Shamrocks could arise,
They'd weave and weave a garland green,
To stretch the cruel ocean through,
All, all the weary way between
Our yearning Irish hearts and you.

And oh! if ev'ry patriot prayer,
Put forth for your sad sake to God,
Could in one cloud of incense rare
Be lifted o'er your lovely sod,
That cloud would curtain all the skies
That far and near your fairness cope,
Until upon its arch of sighs
There beamed Heav'ns rainbow smile of hope.