A Treasury of Irish Literature (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions)

By Barnes & Noble

A Treasury of Irish Literature celebrates the rich cultural heritage of the Ireland with a generous selection of poetry and prose that spans two centuries.

Ireland's celebrated poetic legacy is represented by more than 200 poems from twenty-five of the nation's most distinguished poets, including Thomas Moore, James Clarence Mangan, Samuel Ferguson, Thomas Osborne Davis, Aubrey de Vere, Katharine Tynan-Hinkson, William Allingham, Lionel Johnson, John Millington Synge, and William Butler Yeats.

In addition, this volume includes a representative selection of fiction by Maria Edgeworth, George Moore, William Carleton, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde, as well as the full text of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
 
A Treasury of Irish Literature is one of Barnes & Noble's Collectible Editions classics. Each volume features authoritative texts by the world's greatest authors in an exquisitely designed bonded-leather binding, with distinctive gilt edging and a ribbon bookmark. Decorative, durable, and collectible, these books offer hours of pleasure to readers young and old and are an indispensable cornerstone for every home library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Aug 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781435165038

Book preview

Introduction

Writing about the Fountain  of Gaelic legends that he himself had tapped through his pioneering work during the Celtic Revival in the arts in the nineteenth century, William Butler Yeats observed, in his essay The Celtic Element in Literature, ‘The Celtic move- ment,’ as I understand it, is principally the opening of this fountain, and none can measure of how great importance it may be to coming times, for every new fountain of legends is a new intoxication for the imagination of the world. The prescience of Yeats’s appraisal is borne out by the contents of this anthology. The poets and authors of prose fiction whose work is collected in A Treasury of Irish Literature represent many of the most accomplished writers who flourished in Ireland in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Although Ireland’s literary heritage is one of the oldest in Western Europe, extending back to the sixth century, it is these poets and writers who helped to transform Irish prose and poetry from a rich national literature to an influential contribution to world literature.

The book’s poetry section begins with a grouping of traditional poems and ballads, all anonymous in origin and handed down over the centuries. Some, like The Croppy Boy and The Wearin’ o’ the Green, are overtly political and speak to the experience of the Irish under British rule, while others are concerned with a variety of different aspects of the Irish character. At least one, I Know Where I’m Going, is perhaps best known as the lyrics for a popular love song.

The poems of the earliest poets represented here—Thomas  Moore, Thomas Furlong, William Carleton, James Clarence Mangan, Francis Sylvester Mahoney, and Samuel Ferguson—are  full of pride in the Irish national character, love for Irish scenes and settings, and respect for the heroes of Irish myth and history. They set the tone for much of the verse written by the poets who followed them. Not all are on Irish themes—some are simple love lyrics while others explore common life experiences—but  in their sense of romance, their wealth of colorful detail, and their appreciation of the magical and marvelous they define the essence of Ireland’s poetic heritage.

Given the abundance of Irish lore and legends that folklorists began transcribing from oral sources to the printed page in the nineteenth and early twentieth   centuries, it’s not surprising that a number of poets took well- known folk beliefs as their subjects. William Allingham’s The Fairies, John Todhunter’s The Banshee, and Katharine Tynan-Hinkson’s The Children of Lir are just a few of the poems selected for this volume that epitomize the popularization of superstitions regarding the fairy folk and the mystical origins of the Irish race.

And of course many of these poets engaged through their verse with historical events that define the Irish experience of the past two centuries. John Kells Ingram’s The Memory of the Dead is a hymn to the heroes of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which intensified sectarian differences in Ireland for the next two centuries and resulted in Britain’s abolition of the Irish Parliament through the Acts of Union in 180 0. Lady Wilde’s The Exodus and The Famine Year are excoriating diatribes against the rulers and aristocrats whose negligence toward the Irish people resulted in the years of the Great Famine that took more than a million lives and the ensuing mass emigration which reduced Ireland’s population by another million people between 1845 and 1852. The Easter Rising of 1916 and its impact on Irish society and politics is very visible in several of William Butler Yeats’s poems, especially Easter, 1916, Sixteen Dead Men, and The Leaders of the Crowd. Indeed, it should be pointed out that the poets Thomas MacDonagh and Padraic Pearse were executed for their participation in the rebellion; considered in this context it is impossible not to read MacDonagh’s On a Poet Patriot and Pearse’s To Death as both deeply personal and proudly nationalistic poems.

The superior work of Ireland’s poets is complemented by the achievements in prose of its fiction writers. The first of the book’s fiction selections, Maria Edgeworth’s short novel Castle Rackrent, is a landmark work, considered both the first Anglo-Irish novel and one of the earliest historical novels. Set in Ireland in the years before the Acts of Union created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, it profiles four generations of Anglo-Irish heirs to the titular family estate, each improvident in his own way with regard to its management. Edgeworth ’s satirical  approach  lightly  masks political  tensions  between  the English and Irish cultures that would serve as a subject for much poetry and prose written in Ireland after the novel’s publication. Her novel also featured character types who would appear time and again throughout Irish literature. For example, the title character of William Carleton’s Neal Malone, a fun-loving brawler who is eventually domesticated by marriage, is cut from the same cloth as Edgeworth’s antic characters. He stands in sharp contrast to the more somber and reflective attendees of Miss Morkan’s annual dance in The Dead, the final story in James Joyce’s collection of character sketches Dubliners. In his stories Julia Cahill’s Curse and The Exile, George Moore’s characters confront dramatic issues common in many works of Irish literature from the time: the sometimes problematic relationship between the people and their church, and the emigration of Ireland’s young that robbed the nation of much of its cultural and social vitality.

Just as many Irish poets took elements of myth and folklore for their subjects, so did some of Ireland’s most distinguished authors write on supernatural and macabre themes. J. Sheridan Le Fanu, in addition to editing the Dublin University Magazine, wrote stories and novels rich in Gothic atmosphere, represented here by Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess. His tale The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh is one of many stories through which he exerted an enormous influence on the classic ghost story tradition. Bram Stoker earned literary immortality with his vampire classic Dracula. His Dracula’s Guest, reprinted here, has long been presented as a chapter cut from the novel although it’s more likely a fragment from an early draft (albeit one that pays homage to Carmilla, a vampire story written by Le Fanu). Stoker’s comic story Crooken Sands is presented here to show the range of his literary virtuosity. Oscar Wilde, who became one of the most distinguished Irish-born playwrights of the nineteenth century, combined both humor and the supernatural in The Canterville Ghost, a story in which he cocks a bemused eye at both the tradition-bound English and the tradition-less (and disrespectful) Americans. His poignant story The Nightingale and the Rose is one of several fairy tales that he wrote for younger readers.

The fiction section concludes with James Joyce’s bildungsroman A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the novel that helped to establish Joyce’s literary reputation and that earned a special place for Irish fiction in world literature. The novel is semi-autobiographical and its main character, Stephen Dedalus, has long been regarded as Joyce’s alter ego; but though the story is steeped in the character of the Irish national identity, Joyce universalizes Stephen’s experiences in such a way that they transcend the limits of time and place.

Although we have limited the selections in A Treasury of Irish Literature to poetry and fiction, the entirety of Ireland’s literary heritage includes a wide variety of works, including drama, essays, nationalist writings, and personal memoirs. Collectively, they demonstrate, as Thomas MacDonagh wrote in his preface to Literature in Ireland, that the ways of life and the ways of thought of the Irish people—the manners, customs, traditions and outlook, religious, social and moral—have important differences from the ways of life and of thought which have found expression in other English literature. And by these very differences, they have enriched the literature of the west, and invested it with the new intoxication that Yeats foresaw his country’s literature providing.

Traditional Poems and Ballads

Shule Aroon

(A Brigade Ballad)

I wish I were on yonder hill,

’Tis there I’d sit and cry my fill 

Till every tear would turn a mill,

Is go dtéidh tú, a mhuimin, slán!

Siubhail, siubhail, siubhail, a rúin ! 

Siubhail go socair, agus siubhail go ciuin, 

Siubhail go dti an dorus agus eulaigh liom, 

Is go dtéidh tú, a mhuimin, slán!

I’ll sell my rock, I’ll sell my reel,

I’ll sell my only spinning-wheel,

To buy for my love a sword of steel,

Is go dtéidh tú, a mhuimin, slán!

I’ll dye my petticoats, I’ll dye them red,

And round the world I’ll beg my bread,

Until my parents will wish me dead,

Is go dtéidh tú, a mhuimin, slán!

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,

I wish I had my heart again,

And vainly think I’d not complain,

Is go dtéidh tú, a mhuimin, slán!

But now my love has gone to France,

To try his fortune to advance;

If he e’er come back ’tis but a chance,

Is go dtéidh tú, a mhuimin, slán!

The Croppy Boy

It was very early in the spring,

The birds did whistle and sweetly sing,

Changing their notes from tree to tree,

And the song they sang was Old Ireland free.

It was early in the night,

The yeoman cavalry gave me a fright;

The yeoman cavalry was my downfall

And taken was I by Lord Cornwall.

’Twas in the guard-house where I was laid

And in a parlour where I was tried;

My sentence passed and my courage low

When to Dungannon I was forced to go.

As I was passing by my father’s door,

My brother William stood at the door;

My aged father stood at the door,

And my tender mother her hair she tore.

As I was walking up Wexford Street

My own first cousin I chanced to meet:

My own first cousin did me betray,

And for one bare guinea swore my life away.

My sister Mary heard the express,

She ran upstairs in her mourning-dress—

Five hundred guineas I will lay down,

To see my brother through Wexford Town.

As I was walking up Wexford Hill,

Who could blame me to cry my fill?

I looked behind and I looked before,

But my tender mother I shall ne’er see more.

As I was mounted on the platform high,

My aged father was standing by;

My aged father did me deny,

And the name he gave me was the Croppy Boy.

It was in Dungannon this young man died,

And in Dungannon his body lies;

And you good Christians that do pass by

Just drop a tear for the Croppy Boy.

The Streams of Bunclody

Oh, was I at the moss-house where the birds do increase,

At the foot of Mount Leinster or some silent place

Near the streams of Bunclody, where all pleasures do meet,

And all I’d require is one kiss from you, sweet.

If I was in Bunclody I would think myself at home,

’Tis there I would have a sweetheart, but here I have none.

Drinking strong liquor in the height of my cheer—

Here’s a health to Bunclody and the lass I love dear.

The cuckoo is a pretty bird, it sings as it flies,

It brings us good tidings and tells us no lies,

It sucks the young bird’s eggs to make its voice clear,

And it never cries cuckoo till the summer is near.

If I was a clerk and could write a good hand,

I would write to my true love that she might understand,

I am a young fellow that is wounded in love,

That lived by Bunclody, but now must remove.

If I was a lark and had wings, I then could fly,

I would go to yon arbour where my love she doth lie,

I’d proceed to yon arbour where my love does lie,

And on her fond bosom contented I would die.

The reason my love slights me, as you may understand,

Because she has a freehold, and I have no land,

She has a great store of riches and a large sum of gold,

And everything fitting a house to uphold.

So adieu, my dear father, adieu, my dear mother,

Farewell to my sister, farewell to my brother;

I’m going to America, my fortune for to try;

When I think upon Bunclody, I’m ready for to die!

Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye

While going the road to sweet Athy,

Hurroo! hurroo!

While going the road to sweet Athy,

Hurroo! hurroo!

While going the road to sweet Athy,

A stick in my hand and a drop in my eye,

A doleful damsel I heard cry:

Och, Johnny. I hardly knew ye!

With drums and guns, and guns and drums,

The enemy nearly slew ye;

My darling dear, you look so queer,

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!

Where are your eyes that looked so mild?

Hurroo! hurroo!

Where are your eyes that looked so mild?

Hurroo! hurroo! Where are your eyes that looked so mild,

When my poor heart you first beguiled?

Why did you run from me and the child?

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!

With drums, etc.

Where are the legs with which you run?

Hurroo! hurroo!

Where are thy legs with which you run?

Hurroo! hurroo!

Where are the legs with which you run

When first you went to carry a gun?

Indeed, your dancing days are done!

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!

With drums, etc.

It grieved my heart to see you sail,

Hurroo! hurroo!

It grieved my heart to see you sail,

Hurroo! hurroo!

It grieved my heart to see you sail,

Though from my heart you took leg-bail;

Like a cod you’re doubled up head and tail,

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!

With drums, etc.

You haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg,

Hurroo! hurroo!

You haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg,

Hurroo! hurroo!

You haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg,

You’re an eyeless, noseless, chickenless egg;

You’ll have to be put with a bowl to beg:

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!

With drums, etc.

I’m happy for to see you home,

Hurroo! hurroo!

I’m happy for to see you home,

Hurroo! hurroo!

I’m happy for to see you home,

All from the Island of Sulloon;

So low in flesh, so high in bone;

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!

With drums, etc.

But sad it is to see you so,

Hurroo! hurroo! But sad it is to see you so,

Hurroo! hurroo! But sad it is to see you so,

And to think of you now as an object of woe,

Your Peggy’ll still keep you on as her beau;

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!

With drums and guns, and guns and drums,

The enemy nearly slew ye;

My darling dear, you look so queer,

Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

I Know My Love

I know my Love by his way of walking,

And I know my love by his way of talking,

And I know my love dressed in a suit of blue,

And if my Love leaves me, what will I do?

And still she cried, "I love him the best,

And a troubled mind, sure, can know no rest,"

And still she cried, "Bonny boys are few,

And if my Love leaves me, what will I do?"

There is a dance house in Mar’dyke,

And there my true love goes every night;

He takes a strange one upon his knee,

And don’t you think, now, that vexes me?

And still she cried, "I love him the best,

And a troubled mind, sure, can know no rest,"

And still she cried, "Bonny boys are few,

And if my Love leaves me, what will I do?"

If my Love knew I could wash and wring,

If my Love knew I could weave and spin,

I would make a dress all of the finest kind,

But the want of money, sure, leaves me behind.

And still she cried, "I love him the best,

And a troubled mind, sure, can know no rest,"

And still she cried, "Bonny boys are few,

And if my Love leaves me, what will I do?"

I know my Love is an arrant rover,

I know he’ll wander the wide world over.

In dear old Ireland he’ll no longer tarry,

And an English one he is sure to marry.

And still she cried, "I love him the best,

And a troubled mind, sure, can know no rest,"

And still she cried, "Bonny boys are few,

And if my Love leaves me, what will I do?"

I Know Where I’m Going

I know where I’m going,

I know who’s going with me,

I know who I love,

But the dear knows who I’ll marry.

I’ll have stockings of silk,

Shoes of fine green leather,

Combs to buckle my hair

And a ring for every finger.

Feather beds are soft,

Painted rooms are bonny;

But I’d leave them all

To go with my love Johnny.

Some say he’s dark,

I say he’s bonny,

He’s the flower of them all

My handsome, coaxing Johnny.

I know where I’m going,

I know who’s going with me,

I know who I love,

But the dear knows who I’ll marry.

A Complete Account of the 

Parlous Colonizations of Ireland

As Delivered by the Sage Fintan

Should any enquire about Eirinn,

It is I who can tell him the truth,

Concerning the deeds of each daring

Invader, since Time was a youth.

First Cassir, Bith’s venturesome daughter,

Came here o’er the Eastern Sea;

And fifty fair damsels she brought her—

To solace her warriors three.

Bith died at the foot of his mountain,

And Ladra on top of his height;

And Cassir by Boyle’s limpid fountain,

Ere rushed down the Flood in its might.

For a year, while the waters encumber

The Earth, at Tul-Tunna of strength,

I slept, none enjoyed such sweet slumber

As that which I woke from at length.

When Partholan came to the island,

From Greece, in the Eastern land,

I welcomed him gaily to my land,

And feasted the whole of his band.

Again, when Death seized on the strangers,

I roamed the land, merry and free,

Both careless and fearless of dangers,

Till blithe Nemid came o’er the sea.

The Firbolgs and roving Fir-Gallians,

Came next like the waves in their flow;

The Fir-Dennans arrived in battalions,

And landed in Erris—Mayo.

Then came the wise Tuatha-de-Danann,

Concealed in black clouds from their foe;

I feasted with them near the Shannon,

Though that was a long time ago.

After them came the Children of Milé,

From Spain, o’er the Southern waves:

I lived with the tribes as their Filea

And chanted the deeds of their braves.

Time ne’er my existence could wither,

From Death’s grasp I always was freed:

Till Patrick, the Christian, came hither

To spread the Redeemer’s pure creed.

My name it is Fintan, the Fair-man,

Of Bochra, the son, you must know it;

I lived through the Flood in my lair, man,

I am now an illustrious poet.

The Rising of the Moon

"Oh, then tell me, Shawn O’Farrall,

Tell me why you hurry so?"

Hush, ma bouchal, hush and listen;

And his cheeks were all a-glow:

"I bear orders from the Captain—

Get you ready quick and soon;

For the pikes must be together

At the Rising of the Moon."

"Oh, then tell me, Shawn O’Farrall

Where the gathering is to be?"

"In the oul’ spot by the river

Right well known to you and me;

One word more—for signal token

Whistle up the marching tune,

With your pike upon your shoulder,

At the Rising of the Moon."

Out from many a mud-wall cabin

Eyes were watching through the night:

Many a manly chest was throbbing

For the blessed warning light;

Murmurs passed along the valley

Like the Banshee’s lonely croon,

And a thousand blades were flashing

At the Rising of the Moon.

There, beside the singing river,

That dark mass of men were seen—

Far above the shining weapons

Hung their own beloved green.

Death to every foe and traitor!

Forward! strike the marching tune,

And hurrah, my boys, for freedom!

’Tis the Rising of the Moon."

Well they fought for poor Old Ireland,

And full bitter was their fate;

(Oh! what glorious pride and sorrow

Fill the name of Ninety-Eight!)

Yet, thank God, e’en still are beating

Hearts in manhood’s burning noon,

Who would follow in their footsteps

At the Rising of the Moon.

By Memory Inspired

By Memory inspired,

And love of country fired,

The deeds of men I love to dwell upon;

And the patriotic glow

Of my spirits must bestow

A tribute to O’Connell that is gone, boys—gone:

Here’s a memory to the friends that are gone!

In October Ninety-seven—

May his soul find rest in Heaven—

William Orr to execution was led on:

The jury, drunk, agreed

That Irish was his creed;

For perjury and threats drove them on, boys—on:

Here’s the memory of John Mitchell that is gone!

In Ninety-eight—the month July—

The informer’s pay was high;

When Reynolds gave the gallows brave MacCann;

But MacCann was Reynolds’ first—

One could not allay his thirst;

So he brought up Bond and Byrne, that are gone, boys—gone:

Here’s the memory of the friends that are gone!

We saw a nation’s tears

Shed for John and Henry Shears;

Betrayed by Judas, Captain Armstrong;

We may forgive, but yet

We never can forget

The poisoning of Maguire that is gone, boys—gone:

Our high Star and true Apostle that is gone!

How did Lord Edward die?

Like a man, without a sigh;

But he left his handiwork on Major Swan!

But Sirr, with steel-clad breast,

And coward heart at best,

Left us cause to mourn Lord Edward that is gone, boys—gone:

Here’s the memory of our friends that are gone!

September, Eighteen-three,

Closed this cruel history,

When Emmet’s blood the scaffold flowed upon:

Oh, had their spirits been wise,

They might then realise

Their freedom, but we drink to Mitchell that is gone, boys—gone:

Here’s the memory of the friends that are gone!

The Wearin’ o’ the Green

O Paddy dear, an’ did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?

The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground!

No more St. Patrick’s Day we’ll keep, his colour can’t be seen,

For there’s a cruel law agin the wearin’ o’ the Green!

I met wid Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,

And he said, How’s poor ould Ireland, and how does she stand?

She’s the most disthressful country  that iver yet was seen,

For they’re hangin’ men an’ women there for the wearin’ o’ the Green. 

And if the colour we must wear is England’s cruel Red,

Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed;

Then pull the shamrock from your hat, and throw it on the sod,

And never fear, ’twill take root there, tho’ under foot ’tis trod!

When law can stop the blades of grass from growin’ as they grow,

And when the leaves in summer-time their colour dare not show,

Then I will change the colour, too, I wear in my caubeen,

But till that day, plase God, I’ll stick to wearin’ o’ the Green.

The Shan Van Vocht

Oh! the French are on the sea,

Says the Shan Van Vocht¹;

The French are on the sea,

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Oh! the French are in the Bay,

They’ll be here without delay,

And the Orange will decay,

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

Oh! the French are in the Bay,

They’ll be here by break of day,

And the Orange will decay,

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

And where will they have their camp?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Where will they have their camp?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

On the Curragh of Kildare,

The boys they will be there,

With their pikes in good repair,

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

To the Curragh of Kildare

The boys they will repair,

And Lord Edward will be there,

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

Then what will the yeomen do?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

What will the yeomen do?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

What should the yeomen do

But throw off the Red and Blue,

And swear that they’ll be true

To the Shan Van Vocht?

What should the yeomen do

But throw off the red and blue,

And swear that they’ll be true

To the Shan Van Vocht?

And what colour will they wear?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

What colour will they wear?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

What colour should be seen

Where our fathers’ homes have been,

But our own immoral Green?

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

What colour should be seen

Where our fathers’ homes have been,

But our own immortal Green?

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

And will Ireland then be free?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Will Ireland then be free?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

Yes! Ireland shall be free,

From the centre to the sea;

Then hurrah for Liberty!

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

Yes! Ireland shall be free,

From the centre to the sea;

Then hurrah for Liberty!

Says the Shan Van Vocht.

Rory O’Moore

On the green hills of Ulster the white cross waves high,

And the beacon of war throws its flames to the sky;

Now the taunt and the threat let the coward endure,

Our hope is in God and in Rory O’Moore!

Do you ask why the beacon and banner of war

On the mountains of Ulster are seen from afar!

’Tis the signal our rights to regain and secure,

Through God and our Lady and Rory O’Moore!

For the merciless Scots, with their creed and their swords,

With war in their bosoms, and peace in their words,

Have sworn the bright light of our faith to obscure,

But our hope is in God and Rory O’Moore.

Oh! lives there a traitor who’d shrink from the strife, 

Who, to add to the length of a forfeited life,

His country, his kindred, his faith would abjure?

No! we’ll strike for our God and for Rory O’Moore.

The Lamentation of Hugh Reynolds

My name it is Hugh Reynolds, I come of honest parents,

Near Cavan I was born, as plainly you may see;

By loving of a maid, one Catherine MacCabe,

My life has been betrayed; she’s a dear maid to me.¹

The country were bewailing my doleful situation,

But still I’d expectation this maid would set me free;

But, oh! she was ungrateful, her parents proved deceitful,

And though I loved her faithful, she’s a dear maid to me.

Young men and tender maidens, throughout this Irish nation,

Who hear my lamentation, I hope you’ll pray for me;

The truth I will unfold, that my precious blood she sold,

In the grave I must lie cold; she’s a dear maid to me.

For now my glass is run, and the hour it is come,

And I must die for love and the height of loyalty:

I thought it was no harm to embrace her in my arms,

Or take her from her parents; but she’s a dear maid to me.

Adieu, my loving father, and you, my tender mother,

Farewell, my dearest brother, who has suffered sore for me;

With irons I’m surrounded, in grief I lie confounded,

By perjury unbounded! she’s a dear maid to me.

Now, I can say no more; to the Law-board² I must go,

There to take the last farewell of my friends and counterie;

May the angels, shining bright, receive my soul this night,

And convey me into heaven to the blessed Trinity.

My Connor

Oh! weary’s on money—and weary’s on wealth.

And sure we don’t want them while we have our health;

’Twas they tempted Connor over the sea,

And I lost my lover, my cushla machree.

Smiling—beguiling—cheering—endearing—

Oh ! dearly  I lov’d him, and he loved me.

By each other delighted—and fondly united—

My heart’s in the grave with my cushla machree.

My Connor was handsome, good-humoured, and tall,

At hurling and dancing the best of them all;

But when he came courting beneath our old tree,

His voice was like music—my cushla machree.

Smiling, etc.

So true was his heart and so artless his mind,

He could not think ill of the worst of mankind,

He went bail for his cousin who ran beyond sea,

And all his debts fell on my cushla machree.

Smiling, etc.

Yet still I told Connor that I’d be his bride,—

In sorrow or death not to stir from his side.

He said he could ne’er bring misfortune on me,

But sure I’d be rich with my cushla machree.

Smiling, etc.

The morning he left us I ne’er will forget,

Not an eye in our village but with crying was wet.

Don’t cry any more, mavourneen, said he,

For I will return to my cushla machree.

Smiling, etc.

Sad as I felt then, hope mixed with my care,

Alas! I have nothing left now but despair.

His ship—it went down in the midst of the sea,

And its wild waves roll over my cushla machree.

Smiling—beguiling—cheering—endearing—

Oh! dearly I lov’d him and he loved me.

By each other delighted—and fondly united—

My heart’s in the grave with my cushla machree.

The Geraldine’s Daughter

Speak low !—speak low—the banshee is crying;

Hark! hark to the echo !—she’s dying! she’s dying!

What shadow flits dark’ning the face of the water?

’Tis the swan of the lake—’Tis the Geraldine’s Daughter.

Hush, hush! have you heard what the banshee said?

Oh! list to the echo! she’s dead! she’s dead!

No shadow now dims the face of the water;

Gone, gone is the wraith of the Geraldine’s Daughter.

The step of yon train is heavy and slow,

There’s wringing of hands, there’s breathing of woe;

What melody rolls over mountain and water?

’Tis the funeral chant for the Geraldine’s Daughter.

The requiem sounds like the plaintive moan

Which the wind makes over the sepulchre’s stone;

"Oh, why did she die? our heart’s blood had bought her!

Oh, why did she die, the Geraldine’s Daughter?"

The thistle-beard floats—the wild roses wave

With the blast that sweeps over the newly-made grave;

The stars dimly twinkle, and hoarse falls the water,

While night-birds are wailing the Geraldine’s Daughter.

Thomas Moore

Oft, in the Stilly Night

Oft, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood’s years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain hath bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends, so linked together,

I’ve seen around me fall,

Like leaves in wintry weather;

 I feel like one,

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

After the Battle

Night closed around the conqueror’s way,

And lightnings showed the distant hill,

Where those who lost that dreadful day,

Stood few and faint, but fearless still.

The soldier’s hope, the patriot’s zeal,

For ever dimmed, for ever crost—

Oh! who shall say what heroes feel,

When all but life and honour’s lost?

The last sad hour of freedom’s dream,

And valour’s task, moved slowly by,

While mute they watched, till morning’s beam

Should rise and give them light to die.

There’s yet a world, where souls are free,

Where tyrants taint not nature’s bliss;—

If death that world’s bright opening be,

Oh! who would live a slave in this?

When He Who Adores Thee

When he who adores thee has left but the name

Of his faults and his sorrows behind,

Oh! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame

Of a life that for thee was resigned?

Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn,

Thy tears shall efface their decree;

For Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,

I have been but too faithful to thee.

With thee were the dreams of my earliest love;

Every thought of my reason was thine;

In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above

Thy name shall be mingled with mine.

Oh! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live

The days of thy glory to see;

But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give

Is the pride of thus dying for thee.

Echo

How sweet the answer Echo makes

To music at night,

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,

And far away, o’er lawns and lakes,

Goes answering light!

Yet Love hath echoes truer far,

And far more sweet,

Than e’er beneath the moonlight’s star,

Of horn, or lute, or soft guitar,

The songs repeat.

’Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere,

And only then—

The sigh that’s breathed for one to hear,

Is by that one, that only dear,

Breathed back again!

At the Mid Hour of Night

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;

And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air,

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,

And tell me our love is remembered, even in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song ’twas once such pleasure to hear!

When our voices commingling breathed, like one, on the ear;

And, as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,

I think, oh my love! ’tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls,

Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

The Song of Fionnuala

Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,

Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,

While, murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughter

Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.

When shall the swan, her death-note singing,

Sleep, with wings in darkness furled?

When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,

Call my spirit from this stormy world?

Sadly, O Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping,

Fate bids me languish long ages away;

Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,

Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.

When will that day-star, mildly springing,

Warm our isle with peace and love?

When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,

Call my spirit to the fields above?

As Slow Our Ship

As slow our ship her foamy track

Against the wind was cleaving,

Her trembling pennant still looked back

To that dear isle ’twas leaving.

So loath we part from all we love,

From all the links that bind us;

So turn our hearts, as on we rove,

To those we’ve left behind us.

When, round the bowl, of vanished years

We talk, with joyous seeming,—

With smiles that might as well be tears,

So faint, so sad their beaming;

While memory brings us back again

Each early tie that twined us,

Oh, sweet’s the cup that circles then

To those we’ve left behind us!

And when, in other climes, we meet

Some isle, or vale enchanting,

Where all looks flowery, wild and sweet,

And nought but love is wanting;

We think how great had been our bliss,

If Heaven had but assigned us

To live and die in scenes like this,

With some we’ve left behind us!

As travellers oft look back at eve,

When eastward darkly going,

To gaze upon that light they leave

Still faint behind them glowing,—

So, when the close of pleasure’s day

To gloom hath near consigned us,

We turn to catch one fading ray

Of joy that’s left behind us.

My Birth-Day

My birth-day—what a different sound

That word had in my youthful ears

And how, each time the day comes round,

Less and less white its mark appears!

When first our scanty years are told,

It seems like pastime to grow old;

And, as Youth counts the shining links,

That Time around him binds so fast,

Pleased with the task, he little thinks

How hard that chain will press at last.

Vain was the man, and false as vain,

Who said—"were he ordained to run

His long career of life again,

He would do all that he had done."

Ah, ’tis not thus the voice, that dwells

In sober birth-days, speaks to me;

Far otherwise—of time it tells,

Lavished unwisely, carelessly;

Of counsel mocked; of talents, made

Haply for high and pure designs,

But oft, like Israel’s incense, laid

Upon unholy, earthly shrines;

Of nursing many a wrong desire;

Of wandering after Love too far,

And taking every meteor fire,

That crossed my pathway, for his star.

All this it tells, and, could I trace

Th’ imperfect picture o’er again,

With power to add, retouch, efface

The lights and shades, the joy and pain,

How little of the past would stay!

How quickly all should melt away—

All—but that Freedom of the Mind,

Which hath been more than wealth to me;

Those friendships, in my boyhood twined,

And kept till now unchangingly;

And that dear home, that saving-ark,

Where Love’s true light at last I’ve found,

Cheering within, when all grows dark,

And comfortless, and stormy round!

Dear Harp of My Country

Dear harp of my country! in darkness I found thee,

The cold chain of silence had hung o’er thee long,

When, proudly, my own island harp, I unbound thee,

And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song!

The warm lay of love, and the light note of gladness,

Have wakened thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;

But so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness,

That e’en in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.

Dear harp of my country! farewell to thy numbers,

This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine;

Go, sleep, with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers,

Till touched by some hand less unworthy than mine;

If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover,

Have throbbed at our lay, ’tis thy glory alone;

I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over,

And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own.

Oh! Breathe Not His Name

Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade

Where, cold and unhonoured, his relics are laid:

Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,

As the night-dew that falls on the grass o’er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,

Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,

Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

She Is Far from the Land

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,

And lovers are round her sighing;

But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,

For her heart in his grave is lying!

She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,

Every note which he loved awaking;—

Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,

How the heart of the Minstrel is breaking!

He had lived for his love, for his country he died,

They were all that to life had entwined him;

Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,

Nor long will his love stay behind him.

Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,

When they promise a glorious morrow;

They’ll shine o’er her sleep, like a smile from the West,

From her own loved Island of Sorrow!

How Oft Has the Banshee Cried

How oft has the Banshee cried!

How oft has death untied

Bright links that Glory wove,

Sweet bonds entwined by Love!

Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;

Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth;

Long may the fair and brave

Sigh o’er the hero’s grave!

We’re fallen on evil days!

Star after star decays,

Every bright name that shed

Light o’er the land is fled.

Dark falls the tear of him that mourneth

Lost joy, or hope that ne’er returneth:

But brightly flows the tear

Wept o’er a hero’s bier.

Quenched are our beacon lights—

Thou, of the Hundred Fights!

Thou, on whose burning tongue

Truth, peace and freedom hung!

Both mute—but long as valor shineth,

Or mercy’s soul at war repineth,

So long shall Erin’s pride

Tell how they lived and died.

Thro’ Grief and Thro’ Danger

Thro’ grief and thro’ danger thy smile hath cheer’d my way,

Till hope seem’d to bud from each thorn that round me lay;

The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burned,

Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turned,

Oh! slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free,

And bless’d e’en the sorrows that made me more dear to thee.

Thy rival was honoured, while thou wert wronged and scorned;

Thy crown was of briers, while gold her brows adorned;

She woo’d me to temples, while thou lay’st hid in caves;

Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas! were slaves;

Yet, cold in the earth at thy feet I would rather be,

Than wed what I lov’d not, or turn one thought from thee.

Thomas Furlong

Róisín Dubh

(From the Irish)

Oh! my sweet little rose, cease to pine for the past,

For the friends that came eastward shall see thee at last;

They bring blessings and favours the past never knew,

To pour forth in gladness on my Róisín Dubh.

Long, long, with my dearest, through strange scenes I’ve gone,

O’er mountains and broad valleys I still have toiled on;

O’er the Erne I have sailed as the rough gales blew,

While the harp poured its music for my Róisín Dubh¹.

Though wearied, oh! my fair one! do not slight my song,

For my heart dearly loves thee, and hath loved thee long;

In sadness and in sorrow I still shall be true,

And cling with wild fondness round my Róisín Dubh.

There’s no flower that e’er bloomed can my rose excel,

There’s no tongue that e’er moved half my love can tell,

Had I strength, had I skill the wide world to subdue,

Oh! the queen of that wide world should be Róisín Dubh.

Had I power, oh! my loved one, but to plead thy right,

I should speak out in boldness for my heart’s delight;

I would tell to all round me how my fondness grew,

And bid them bless the beauty of my Róisín Dubh.

The mountains, high and misty, through the moors must go,

The rivers shall run backward, and the lakes overflow,

And the wild waves of old ocean wear a crimson hue,

Ere the world sees the ruin of my Róisín Dubh.

John O’Dwyer of the Glen

(From the Irish)

Blithe the bright dawn found me,

Rest with strength had crown’d me,

Sweet the birds sang round me,

Sport was all their toil.

The horn its clang was keeping,

Forth the fox was creeping,

Round each dame stood weeping,

O’er the prowler’s spoil.

Hark! the foe is calling,

Fast the woods are falling,

Scenes and sights appalling

Mark the wasted soil.

War and confiscation

Curse the fallen nation;

Gloom and desolation

Shade the lost land o’er.

Chill the winds are blowing, 

Death aloft is going,

Peace or hope seems growing

For our race no more.

Hark! the foe is calling,

Fast the woods are falling,

Scenes and sights appalling

Throng the blood-stained shore.

Nobles, once high-hearted,

From their homes have parted,

Scattered, scared, and started

By a base-born band.

Spots that once were cheering,

Girls beloved, endearing,

Friends from whom I’m steering,

Take this parting tear.

Hark! the foe is calling,

Fast the woods are falling,

Scenes and sights appalling

Plague and haunt me here.

William Carleton

Sir Turlough; or, the Churchyard Bride

The bride, she bound her golden hair—

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And her step was light as the breezy air

When it bends the morning flowers so fair,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

And oh, but her eyes they danced so bright,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

As she longed for the dawn of to-morrow’s light,

Her bridal vows of love to plight,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

The bridegroom is come with youthful brow,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

To receive from his Eva her virgin vow;

Why tarries the bride of my bosom now?

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

A cry! a cry! ’twas her maidens spoke,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

"Your bride is asleep—she has not awoke,

And the sleep she sleeps will never be broke,"

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

Sir Turlough sank down with a heavy moan,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And his cheek became like the marble stone—

Oh, the pulse of my heart is for ever gone!

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

The keen is loud, it comes again,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And rises sad from the funeral train,

As in sorrow it winds along the plain,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

And oh, but the plumes of white were fair,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

When they flutter’d all mournful in the air

As rose the hymn of the requiem prayer,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

There is a voice that but one can hear,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And it softly pours from behind the bier,

Its note of death on Sir Turlough’s ear,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

The keen is loud, but that voice is low,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And it sings its song of sorrow slow,

And names young Turlough’s name with woe,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

Now the grave is closed, and the mass is said,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And the bride she sleeps in her lonely bed, 

The fairest corpse among the dead,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

The wreaths of virgin-white are laid,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

By virgin hands o’er the spotless maid;

And the flowers are strewn, but they soon will fade,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

"Oh ! go not yet—not yet away,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Let us feel that Life is near our clay,"

The long-departed seem to say,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

But the tramp and voices of Life are gone,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And beneath each cold forgotten stone

The mouldering dead sleep all alone,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

But who is he who lingereth yet?

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

The fresh green sod with his tears is wet,

And his heart in that bridal grave is set,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

Oh, who but Sir Turlough, the young and brave,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Should bend him o’er that bridal grave,

And to his death-bound Eva rave,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

Weep not—weep not, said a lady fair,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

"Should youth and valour thus despair,

And pour their vows to the empty air?"

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

There’s charmed music upon her tongue,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Such beauty—bright and warm and young—

Was never seen the maids among,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

A laughing light, a tender grace,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Sparkled in beauty around her face,

That grief from mortal heart might chase,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

"The maid for whom thy salt tears fall,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Thy grief or love can ne’er recall;

She rests beneath that grassy pall,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

"My heart it strangely cleaves to thee,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And now that thy plighted love is free,

Give its unbroken pledge to me,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy."

The charm is strong upon Turlough’s eye,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

His faithless tears are already dry,

And his yielding heart has ceased to sigh,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

To thee, the charmed chief replied,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

"I pledge that love o’er my buried bride!

Oh! come, and in Turlough’s hall abide,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy."

Again the funeral voice came o’er

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

The passing breeze, as it wailed before,

And streams of mournful music bore,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

"If I to thy youthful heart am dear,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

One month from hence thou wilt meet me here

Where lay thy bridal, Eva’s bier,"

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

He pressed her lips as the words were spoken,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And his banshee’s wail—now far and broken—

Murmur’d Death, as he gave the token,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

Adieu! adieu! said this lady bright,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And she slowly passed like a thing of light,

Or a morning cloud, from Sir Turlough’s sight,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

Now Sir Turlough has death in every vein,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And there’s fear and grief o’er his wide domain,

And gold for those who will calm his brain,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

"Come, haste thee, leech, right swiftly ride,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Sir Turlough the brave, Green Truagha’s pride,

Has pledged his love to the churchyard bride,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy."

The leech groaned loud, "Come, tell me this,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

By all thy hopes of weal and bliss,

Has Sir Turlough given the fatal kiss,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy?"

"The banshee’s cry is loud and long,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

At eve she weeps her funeral song,

And it floats on the twilight breeze along,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

"Then the fatal kiss is given;—the last,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Of Turlough’s race and name is past,

His doom is seal’d, his die is cast,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy."

"Leech, say not that thy skill is vain,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Oh, calm the power of his frenzied brain,

And half his lands thou shalt retain,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy."

The leech has fail’d, and the hoary priest,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

With pious shrift his soul released,

And the smoke is high of his funeral feast

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

The shanachies now are assembled all,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And the songs of praise, in Sir Turlough’s hall,

To the sorrowing harp’s dark music fall,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

And there is trophy, banner, and plume,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And the pomp of death, with its darkest gloom,

O’ershadows the Irish chieftain’s tomb,

By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.

The month is closed, and Green Truagha’s pride,

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

Is married to death—and, side by side,

He slumbers now with his churchyard bride,

By the bonny green woods of Killeevy.

A Sigh for Knockmany

Take, proud ambition, take thy fill

Of pleasures won through toil or crime;

Go, learning, climb thy rugged hill,

And give thy name to future time:

Philosophy, be keen to see

Whate’er is just, or false, or vain,

Take each thy meed, but, oh! give me

To range my mountain glens again.

Pure was the breeze that fann’d my cheek, 

As o’er Knockmany’s brow I went;

When every lonely dell could speak

In airy music, vision sent;

False world, I hate thy cares and thee,

I hate the treacherous haunts of men; 

Give back my early heart to me,

Give back to me my mountain glen.

How light my youthful visions shone,

When spann’d by Fancy’s radiant form;

But now her glittering bow is gone,

And leaves me but the cloud and storm.

With wasted form, and cheek all pale—

With heart long seared by grief and pain;

Dunroe,  I’ll seek thy native gale,

I’ll tread my mountain  glens again.

Thy breeze once more may fan my blood,

Thy valleys all are lovely still;

And I may stand, where oft I stood,

In lonely musings on thy hill.

But, ah! the spell is gone;—no art

In crowded town, or native plain,

Can teach a crush’d and breaking heart

To pipe the song of youth again.

James Clarence Mangan

A Lament for the Tyronian and Tyrconnellian 

Princes Buried at Rome

(From the Irish)

O, woman of the Piercing Wail,

Who mournest o’er yon mound of clay

With sigh and groan,

Would God thou wert among the Gael!

Thou would’st not then from day to day

Weep thus alone.

’Twere long before, around a grave

In green Tirconnell, one could find

This loneliness;

Near where Beann-Boirche’s banners wave

Such grief as thine could ne’er have pined

Compassionless.

Beside the wave, in Donegal,

In Antrim’s glens, or fair Dromore,

Or Killilee,

Or where the sunny waters fall,

At Assaroe, near Erna’s shore, This could not be.

On Derry’s plains—in rich Drumclieff—

Throughout Armagh the Great, renowned

In olden years,

No one could pass but woman’s grief

Would rain upon the burial-ground

Fresh floods of tears!

O, no!—from Shannon, Boyne, and Suir,

From high Dunluce’s castle-walls,

From Lissadill,

Would flock alike both rich and poor,

One wail would rise from Cruachan’s halls

To Tara’s hill;

And some would come from Barrow-side,

And many a maid would leave her home,

On Leitrim’s plains,

And by melodious Banna’s tide,

And by the Mourne and Erne, to come

And swell thy strains!

O, horses’ hoofs would trample down

The Mount whereon the martyr-saint

Was crucified.

From glen and hill, from plain and town,

One loud lament, one thrilling plaint,

Would echo wide.

There would not soon be found, I ween,

One foot of ground among those bands

For museful thought,

So many shriekers of the keen

Would cry aloud and clap their hands,

All woe-distraught?

Two princes of the line of Conn

Sleep in their cells of clay beside

O’Donnell Roe;

Three  royal youths, alas! are gone,

Who lived for Erin’s weal, but died

For Erin’s woe!

Ah! could the men of Ireland read

The names these noteless burial-stones

Display to view,

Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed,

Their tears gush forth again, their groans

Resound anew!

The youths whose relics moulder here

Were sprung from Hugh, high Prince and Lord

Of Aileach’s lands!

Thy noble brothers, justly dear,

Thy nephew, long to be deplored

By Ulster’s bands.

Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time

Could domicile Decay or house

Decrepitude!

They passed from Earth ere Manhood’s prime,

Ere years had power to dim their brows

Or chill their blood.

And who can marvel o’er thy grief,

Or who can blame thy flowing tears,

That knows their source?

O’Donnell, Dunnasava’s chief,

Cut off amid his vernal years,

Lies here a corse.

Beside his brother Cathbar, whom

Tirconnell of the Helmets mourns

In deep despair—

For valour, truth, and comely bloom,

For all that greatens and adorns

A peerless pair.

O, had these twain, and he, the third,

The Lord of Mourne, O’Niall’s son,

Their mate in death—

A prince in look, in deed, and word—

Had these three heroes yielded on

The field their breath,

O, had they fallen on Criffan’s plain,

There would not be a town or clan

From shore to sea,

But would with shrieks bewail the slain,

Or chant aloud the exulting ran

Of Jubilee!

When high the shout of battle rose,

On fields where Freedom’s torch still burned

Through Erin’s gloom,

If one, if barely one of those

Were slain, all Ulster would have mourned

The hero’s doom!

If at Athboy, where hosts of brave

Ulidian horsemen sank beneath

The shock of spears,

Young Hugh O’Neill had found a grave,

Long must the North have wept his death

With heart-wrung tears!

If on the day of Ballach-myre

The Lord of Mourne had met thus young,

A warrior’s fate,

In vain would such as thou desire

To mourn, alone, the champion sprung

From Niall the Great!

No marvel this—for all the dead,

Heaped on the field, pile over pile,

At Mullach-brack,

Were scarce an eric for his head,

If death had stayed his footsteps while

On victory’s track!

If on the Day of Hostages

The fruit had from the parent bough

Been rudely torn

In sight of Munster’s bands—Mac-Nee’s—

Such blow the blood of Conn, I trow,

Could ill have borne.

 If on the day of Ballach-boy

Some arm had laid, by foul surprise,

The chieftain low,

Even our victorious shout of joy

Would soon give place to rueful cries

And groans of woe!

If on the day the Saxon host

Were forced to fly—a day so great

For Ashanee—

The Chief had been untimely lost,

Our conquering troops should moderate

Their mirthful glee.

There would not lack on Lifford’s day,

From Galway, from the glens of Boyle,

From Limerick’s towers,

A marshalled file, a long array

Of mourners to bedew the soil

With tears in showers!

It on the day a sterner fate

Compelled his flight from Athenree,

His blood had flowed,

What numbers all disconsolate,

Would come unasked, and share with thee

Affliction’s load!

If Derry’s crimson field had seen

His life-blood offered up, though ’twere

On Victory’s shrine,

A thousand cries would swell the keen,

A thousand voices of despair

Would echo thine!

O, had the fierce Dalcassian swarm

That bloody night on Fergus’ banks

But slain our Chief,

When rose his camp in wild alarm—

How would the triumph of his ranks

Be dashed with grief!

How would the troops of Murbach mourn

If on the Curlew Mountains’ day,

Which England rued,

Some Saxon hand had left them lorn,

By shedding there, amid the fray,

Their prince’s blood!

Red would have been our warriors’ eyes

Had Roderick found on Sligo’s field

A gory grave,

No Northern Chief would soon arise

So sage to guide, so strong to shield,

So swift to save.

Leng would Leith-Cuinn have wept if Hugh

Had met the death he oft had dealt

Among the foe;

But, had our Roderick fallen too,

All Erin must, alas! have felt

The deadly blow!

What do I say? Ah, woe is me!

Already we bewail in vain

Their fatal fall!

And Erin, once the Great and Free,

Now vainly mourns her breakless chain,

And iron thrall!

Then, daughter of O’Donnell! dry

Thine overflowing eyes, and turn

Thy heart aside;

For Adam’s race is born to die,

And sternly the sepulchral urn

Mocks human pride!

Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne,

Nor place thy trust in arm of clay—

But on thy knees

Uplift thy soul to God alone,

For all things go their destined way

As He decrees. Embrace the faithful Crucifix,

And seek the path of pain and prayer

Thy Saviour trod!

Nor let thy spirit intermix

With earthly hope and worldly care

Its groans to God!

And Thou, O mighty Lord! whose ways

Are far above our feeble minds

To understand,

Sustain us in these doleful days,

And render light the chain that binds

Our fallen land!

Look down upon our dreary state,

And through the ages that may still

Roll sadly on,

Watch Thou o’er hapless Erin’s fate,

And shield at least from darker ill

The blood of Conn!

The Fair Hills of Eiré, O!

(From the Irish)

Take a blessing from my heart to the land of my birth,

And the fair Hills of Eiré, O!

And to all that yet survive of Eibhear’s tribe on earth,

On the fair Hills of Eiré, O!

In that land so delightful the wild thrush’s lay

Seems to pour a lament forth for Eiré’s decay—

Alas! alas! why pine I a thousand miles away

From the fair Hills of Eiré, O!

The soil is rich and soft—the air is mild and bland,

Of the fair Hills of Eiré, O!

Her barest rock is greener to me than this rude land—

O, the fair Hills of Eiré, O!