He stepped a man, out on the ways of men,
And no one knew his sept, or rank, or name;
Like a strong stream far issuing from a glen,
From some source unexplored the Master came;
Gossips there were who, wondrous keen of ken,
Surmised that he must be a child of shame;
Others declared him of the Druids, then--
Thro' Patrick's labours--fallen from power and fame.
He lived apart, wrapt up in many plans;
He wooed not women, tasted not of wine;
He shunned the sports and councils of the clans;
Nor ever knelt at a frequented shrine.
His orisons were old poetic ranns
Which the new Olamhs deem'd an evil sign;
To most he seemed one of those Pagan Khans
Whose mystic vigour knows no cold decline.
He was the builder of the wondrous Towers,
Which, tall and straight and exquisitely round,
Rise monumental round this isle of ours,
Index-like, marking spots of holy ground.
In glooming silent glens, in lowland bowers,
On river banks, these _Cloichteachs_ old abound,
Where Art, enraptured, meditates long hours
And Science ponders, wondering and spell-bound.
Lo, wheresoe'er these pillar-towers aspire,
Heroes and holy men repose below;
The bones of some, gleaned from a Pagan pyre,
Others in armour lie, as for a foe;
It was the mighty Master's life-desire
To chronicle his great ancestors so;
What holier duty, what achievement higher
Remains to us, than this he thus doth show?
Yet he, the builder, died an unknown death;
His labours done, no man beheld him more;
'Twas thought his body faded like a breath--
Or, like a sea-mist, floated off Life's shore.
Doubt overhangs his fate--and faith--and birth:
His works alone attest his life and love,
They are the only witnesses he hath,
All else Egyptian darkness covers o'er.
Men called him Gobban Saor, and many a tale
Yet lingers in the byways of the land,
Of how he cleft the rock, and down the vale
Led the bright river, child-like, in his hand;
Of how on giant ships he spread great sail
And many marvels else, by him first planned,
And tho' these legends fail, in Innisfail
His name and Towers for centuries still shall stand.
_Thomas D'Arcy McGee_