they go,
Oh never carolled bird like them!
But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze
That drinks away their voices in echoless re-
pose,
And dreamily the evening has stilled the haunted
braes,
And dreamier the gloaming grows.
And sinking one by one, like lark notes from
the sky
When the falcon's shadow saileth across the
open shaw,
Are hushed the maiden's voices, as cowering
down they lie
In the flutter of their sudden awe.
For, from the air above, and the grassy ground
beneath,
And from the mountain-ashes and the old
Whitethorn between,
A power of faint enchantment doth through
their beings breathe,
And they sink down together on the
green.
They sink together silent, and stealing side by
side,
They fling their lovely arms o'er their drooping
necks so fair,
Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,
For their shrinking necks again are bare.
Thus clasped and prostrate all, with their heads
together bowed,
Soft o'er their bosoms' beating--the only
human sound--
They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy
crowd,
Like a river in the air, gliding round.
No scream can any raise, no prayer can any say,
But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless
three--
For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently
away,
By whom they dare not look to see.
They feel their tresses twine with her parting
locks of gold,
And the curls elastic falling, as her head with-
draws;
They feel her sliding arms from their tranced
arms unfold,
But they may not look to see the cause:
For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment
lies
Through all that night of anguish and perilous
amaze;
And neither fear nor wonder can ope their
quivering eyes,
Or their limbs from the cold ground raise,
Till out of night the earth has rolled her dewy
side,
With every haunted mountain and streamy
vale below;
When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow
morning tide,
The maidens' trance dissolveth so.
Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,
And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious
friends in vain--
They pined away and died within the year and
day,
And ne'er was Anna Grace seen again.
---Sir S. Ferguson.
THE BATTLE OF ARDNOCHER
[Illustration: 9231]
|On the eve of St Laurence, at the cross of
Glenfad,
Both of chieftains and bonaghts what a muster
we had,
Thick as bees, round the heather, on the side
of Slieve Bloom,
To the try sting they gather by the light of the
moon.
For the Butler from Ormond with a hosting he
came,
And harried Moycashel with havoc and flame,
Not a hoof or a hayrick, nor corn blade to feed
on,
Had he left in the wide land, right up to
Dunbreedon.
Then gathered MacGeoghegan, the high prince
of Donore,
With O'Connor from Croghan, and O'Dempsys
_galore_;
And, my soul, how we shouted, as dash'd in
with their men,
Bold MacCoghlan from Clara, O'Mulloy from
the glen.
And not long did we loiter where the four
_toghers_ * met,
But his saddle each tightened, and his spurs
closer set,
By the skylight that flashes all their red burn-
ings back,
And by black gore and ashes fast the rievers
we track.
'Till we came to Ardnocher, and its steep slope
we gain,
And stretch'd there, beneath us, saw their host
in the plain;
And high shouted our leader ('twas the brave
William Roe)--
"By the red hand of Nial,'tis the Sassenach
foe!
"Now, low level your spears, grasp each battle-
axe firm,
And for God and our Ladye strike ye downright
and stern;
* Roads.
For our homes and our altars charge ye stead-
fast and true,
And our watchword be vengeance, and Lamb
_Dearg Aboo!_" *
Oh, then down like a torrent with a _farrah_ we
swept,
And full stout was the Saxon who his saddle-
tree kept;
For we dash'd thro' their horsemen till they
reel'd from the stroke,
And their spears, like dry twigs, with our axes
we broke.
With our plunder we found them, our fleet
garrons and kine,
And each chalice and cruet they had snatch'd
from God's shrine.
But a red debt we paid them, the Sassenach
raiders,
As we scatter'd their spearmen, slew chieftains
and leaders.
In the Pale there is weeping and watchings in
vain.
De Lacy and D'Alton, can ye reckon your slain?
Where's your chieftain, fierce Nangle? Has
De Netterville fled?
Ask the Molingar eagles, whom their carcasses
fed.
* The red hand for ever.
Ho! ye riders from Ormond, will ye brag in
your hall,
How your lord was struck down with his mail'd
knights and all?
Swim at midnight the Shannon, beard the wolf
in his den,
Ere you ride to Moycashel on a foray again!
----A. G. Geoghegan.
FONTENOY
|Thrice at the huts of Fontenoy the English
column failed,
And twice the lines of St Antoine the Dutch in
vain assailed;
For town and slope were filled with fort and
flanking battery,
And well they swept the English ranks and
Dutch auxiliary.
As vainly, through De Baari's wood, the British
soldiers burst,
The French artillery drove them back, diminished
and dispersed.
The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with
anxious eye,
And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance
to try.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals
ride!
And mustering come his chosen troops, like
clouds at eventide.
Six thousand English veterans in stately column
tread,
Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay
is at their head;
Steady they step a-down the slope--steady they
climb the hill--
Steady they load--steady they fire, moving right
onward still,
Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as though a
furnace blast,
Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and
bullets showering fast;
And on the open plain above they rose, and
kept their course,
With ready fire and grim resolve, that mocked
at hostile force.
Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner
grow their ranks,
They break, as broke the Zuyder Zee through
Holland's ocean banks.
More idly than the summer flies French tirailleurs
rush round;
As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons
strew the ground;
Bomb-shell, and grape, and round shot tore, still
on they marched and fired--
Fast, from each volley, grenadier and voltigeur
retired.
"Push on, my household cavalry," King Louis
madly cried:
To death they rush, but rude their shock--not
unavenged they died.
On through the camp the column trod--King
Louis turns his rein *,
"Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed, "the
Irish troops remain;"
And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a
Waterloo,
Were not these exiles ready then, fresh,
vehement, and true.
"Lord Clare," he says, "you have your wish,
there are your Saxon foes;"
The marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously
he goes!
How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're
wont to be so gay!
The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their
hearts to-day--
The treaty broken, ere the ink wherewith 'twas
writ could dry,
Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines,
their women's parting cry,
Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their
country overthrown--
Each looks as if revenge for all rested on him
alone.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet else-
where,
Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these
proud exiles were.
O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he
commands,
"Fix bayonets--charge." Like mountain storm,
rush on these fiery bands!
Thin is the English column now, and faint their
volleys grow,
Yet, mustering all the strength they have, they
make a gallant show.
They dress their ranks upon the hill to face that
battle-wind--
Their bayonets the breakers' foam; like rocks,
the men behind!
One volley crashes from their line, when, through
the surging smoke,
With empty guns clutched in their hands, the
headlong Irish broke.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce
huzza!
"Revenge! remember Limerick! dash down
the Sassenach."
Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with
hunger's pang,
Right up against the English line the Irish exiles
sprang:
Bright was their steel,'tis bloody now, their
guns are filled with gore;
Through shattered ranks, and severed files, and
trampled flags they tore;
The English strove with desperate strength,
paused, rallied, staggered, fled--
The green hill-side is matted close with dying
and with dead.
Across the plain and far away passed on that
hideous wrack,
While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their
track.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the
sun,
With bloody plumes the Irish stand--the field
is fought and won!
---T. Davis.
[Illustration: 0239]
THE SACK OF BALTIMORE
|The summer sun is falling soft an Carbery's
hundred isles--
The summer's sun is gleaming still through
Gabriel's rough defiles--
Old Innisherkin's crumbled fane looks like a
moulting bird;
And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean tide is
heard:
The hookers lie upon the beach; the children
cease their play;
The gossips leave the little inn; the households
kneel to pray--
And full of love, and peace, and rest--its daily
labour o'er--
Upon that cosy creek there lay the town of
Baltimore.
A deeper rest, a starry trance, has come with
midnight there;
No sound, except that throbbing wave, in earth,
or sea, or air,
The massive capes, and ruined towers, seem
conscious of the calm;
The fibrous sod and stunted trees are breathing
heavy balm.
So still the night, these two long barques, round
Dunashad that glide
Must trust their oars--methinks not few--
against the ebbing tide--
Oh! some sweet mission of true love must urge
them to the shore--
They bring some lover to his bride, who sighs
in Baltimore!
All, all asleep within each roof along that rocky
street,
And these must be the lover's friends, with
gently gliding feet--
A stifled gasp! a dreamy noise! "The roof is in
a flame!"
From out their beds, and to their doors, rush
maid, and sire, and dame--
And meet, upon the threshold stone, the gleam-
ing sabre's fall,
And o'er each black and bearded face the white
or crimson shawl--
The yell of "Allah!" breaks above the prayer,
and shriek, and roar--
Oh, blessed God! the Algerine is lord of
Baltimore!
Then flung the youth his naked hand against the
shearing sword;
Then sprung the mother on the brand with which
her son was gor'd;
Then sunk the grandsire on the floor, his grand-
babes clutching wild;
Then fled the maiden moaning faint, and nestled
with the child:
But see, yon pirate strangled lies, and crushed
with splashing heel,
While o'er him in an Irish hand there sweeps his
Syrian steel--
Though virtue sink, and courage fail, and misers
yield their store,
There's _one_ hearth well avengèd in the sack of
Baltimore!
Midsummer morn, in woodland nigh, the birds
began to sing--
They see not now the milking maids--deserted
is the spring!
Midsummer day--this gallant rides from distant
Bandon's town--
These hookers crossed from stormy Skull, that
skiff from Affadown;
They only found the smoking walls, with
neighbours' blood besprent,
And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile
they wildly went--
Then dash'd to sea, and passed Cape Clear, and
saw five leagues before
The pirate-galleys vanishing that ravaged Balti-
more!-
Oh! some must tug the galley's oar, and some
must tend the steed--
This boy will bear a Scheik's chibouk, and that
a Bey's jerreed.
Oh! some are for the arsenals, by beauteous
Dardanelles;
And some are in the caravan to Mecca's sandy
dells.
The maid that Bandon gallant sought is chosen
for the Dey--
She's safe--she's dead--she stabb'd him in the
midst of his Serai;
And when, to die a death of fire, that noble maid
they bore,
She only smiled--O'Driscoll's child--she
thought of Baltimore.
Tis two long years since sunk the town be-
neath that bloody band,
And all around its trampled hearths a larger
concourse stand,
Where, high upon a gallows-tree, a yelling
wretch is seen--
'Tis Hackett of Dungarvan--he who steered the
Algerine!
He fell amid a sullen shout, with scarce a pass-
ing prayer,
For he had slain the kith and kin of many a
hundred there--
Some muttered of MacMurchadh, who brought
the Norman o'er--
Some cursed him with Iscariot, that day in
Baltimore.
-T. Davis.
THE BALLAD OF THE BIER THAT CONQUERED
|Land which the Norman would make his own!
(Thus sang the Bard'mid a host o'erthrown,
While their white cheeks some on the clench'd
hand propp'd,
And from some the life-blood unheeded dropp'd)
There are men in thee that refuse to die,
Though they scorn to live, while a foe stands
nigh!
I.
O'Donnell lay sick with a grievous wound:
The leech had left him; the priest had come;
The clan sat weeping upon the ground,
Their banner furl'd, and their minstrels dumb.
II.
Then spake O'Donnell, the King: "Although
My hour draws nigh, and my dolours grow;
And although my sins I have now confess'd,
And desire in the Land, my charge, to rest,
Yet leave this realm, nor will I nor can,
While a stranger treads on her, child or man.
III.
"I will languish no longer a sick King here:
My bed is grievous; build up my Bier.
The white robe a King wears over me throw;
Bear me forth to the field where he camps--
your foe,
With the yellow torches and dirges low.
The heralds have brought his challenge and fled;
The answer they bore not I bear instead.
My people shall fight, my pain in sight,
And I shall sleep well when their wrong stands
right."
IV.
Then the clan rose up from the ground, and gave
ear,
And they fell'd great oak-trees and built a Bier;
Its plumes from the eagle's wing were shed,
And the wine-black samite above it spread
Inwov'n with sad emblems and texts divine,
And the braided bud of Tirconnell's pine,
And all that is meet for the great and brave
When past are the measured years God gave,
And a voice cries "Come" from the waiting
grave.
V.
When the Bier was ready they laid him thereon;
And the army forth bare him with wail and
moan:
With wail by the sea-lakes and rock-abysses;
With moan through the vapour-trail'd wilder-
nesses;
And men sore wounded themselves drew nigh
And said, "We will go with our King and
die;"
And women wept as the pomp pass'd by.
The yellow torches far off were seen;
No war-note peal'd through the gorges green;
But the black pines echo'd the mourners' keen.
VI.
What said the Invader, that pomp in sight?
"They sue for the pity they shall not win."
But the sick King sat on his Bier upright,
And said, "So well! I shall sleep to-night:--
Rest here my couch, and my peace begin."
VII.
Then the war-cry sounded--"Lamb-dearg
Aboo!"
And the whole clan rush'd to the battle plain:
They were thrice driven back, but they closed
anew
That an end might come to their King's
great pain.
'Twas a nation, not army, that onward rush'd,
'Twas a nation's blood from their wounds that
gush'd:
Bare-bosom'd they fought, and with joy were
slain;
Till evening their blood fell fast like rain;
But a shout swelled up o'er the setting sun,
And O'Donnell died, for the field was won.
So they buried their King upon Aileach's shore;
And in peace he slept;--O'Donnell More.
----Aubrey de Vere.
THE BALLAD OF "BONNY PORTMORE"
or, the Wicked Revenge.
I.
|Shall I breathe it? Hush!'twas dark:--
Silence!--few could understand:--
Needful deeds are done--not told.
In your ear a whisper! Hark!
'Twas a sworn, unwavering band
Marching through the midnight cold;
Rang the frost plain, stiff and stark:
By us, blind, the river rolled.
II.
Silence! we were silent then:
Shall we boast and brag to-day?
Just deeds, blabbed, have found their price!
Snow made dumb the trusty glen;
Now and then a starry ray
Showed the floating rafts of ice:
Worked our oath in heart and brain:
Twice we halted:--only twice.
III.
When we reached the city wall
On their posts the warders slept:
By the moat the rushes plained:
Hush! I tell you part, not all!
Through the water-weeds we crept;
Soon the sleepers' tower was gained.
My sister's son a tear let fall--
Righteous deeds by tears are stained.
IV.
Round us lay a sleeping city:--
Had they wakened, we had died:
Innocence sleeps well, they say.
Pirates, traitors, base banditti,
Blood upon their hands undried,
'Mid their spoils asleep they lay!
Murderers! Justice murders pity!
Night had brought their Judgment Day!
V.
In the castle, here and there,
'Twixt us and the dawning East
Flashed a light, or sank by fits:
"Patience, brothers! sin it were
Lords to startle at their feast,
Sin to scare the dancers' wits!"
Patient long in forest lair
The listening, fire-eyed tiger sits!
VI.
O the loud flames upward springing!
O that first fierce yell within,
And, without, that stormy laughter!
Like rooks across a sunset winging,
Dark they dashed through glare and din,
Under rain of beam and rafter!
O that death-shriek heavenward ringing!
O that wondrous silence after!
[Illustration: 0250]
The fire-glare showed,'mid glaze and blister,
A boy's cheek wet with tears.'Twas base!
That boy was first-born of my sister;
Yet I smote him on the face!
Ah! but when the poplars quiver
In the hot noon, cold o'erhead,
Sometimes with a spasm I shiver;
Sometimes round me gaze with dread.
Ah! and when the silver willow
Whitens in the moonlight gale,
From my hectic, grassy pillow,
I hear, sometimes, that infant's wail!
--Aubrey de Vere.
[Illustration: 0251]
A BALLAD OF SARSFIELD;
or, The Bursting of the Guns.
|Sarsfield rode out the Dutch to rout,
And to take and break their cannon;
To mass went he at half-past three,
And at four he cross'd the Shannon.
Tirconnel slept. In dream his thoughts
Old fields of victory ran on;
And the chieftains of Thomond in Limerick's
towers
Slept well by the banks of Shannon.
He rode ten miles and he cross'd the ford,
And couch'd in the wood and waited;
Till, left and right, on march'd in sight
That host which the true men hated.
"Charge!" Sarsfield cried; and the green hill-
side,
As they charged, replied in thunder;
They rode o'er the plain and they rode o'er the
slain,
And the rebel, rout lay under!
He burn'd the gear the knaves held dear,--
For his King he fought, not plunder;
With powder he cramm'd the guns, and ramm'd
Their mouths the red soil under.
The spark flash'd out--like a nation's shout
The sound into heaven ascended;
The hosts of the sky made to earth reply,
And the thunders twain were blended!
Sarsfield rode out the Dutch to rout,
And to take and break their cannon;--
A century after, Sarsfield's laughter
Was echoed from Dungannon.
----Aubrey de Vere.
A BALLAD OF ATHLONE;
or, How they broke down the Bridge
|Does any man dream that a Gael can fear?--
Of a thousand deeds let him learn but one!
The Shannon swept onward, broad and clear,
Between the leaguers and worn Athlone.
"Break down the bridge!"--Six warriors rushed
Through the storm of shot and the storm of
shell:
With late, but certain, victory flushed
The grim Dutch gunners eyed them well.
They wrenched at the planks 'mid a hail of fire:
They fell in death, their work half done:
The bridge stood fast; and nigh and nigher
The foe swarmed darkly, densely on.
"O who for Erin will strike a stroke?
Who hurl yon planks where the waters roar?"
Six warriors forth from their comrades broke,
And flung them upon that bridge once more.
Again at the rocking planks they dashed;
And four dropped dead; and two remained:
The huge beams groaned, and the arch down
crashed;--
Two stalwart swimmers the margin gained.
St Ruth in his stirrups stood up, and cried,
"I have seen no deed like that in France!"
With a toss of his head Sarsfield replied,
"They had luck, the dogs!'Twas a merry
chance!"
O many a year upon Shannon's side,
They sang upon moor and they sang upon
Of the twain that breasted that raging tide,
And the ten that shook bloody hands with
Death!
heath
----Aubrey de Vere,
LOVE'S WARNING
[Illustration: 0255]
|A fair lady once, with her young lover walked,
Gillyflower, gentle rosemary;
Through a garden, and sweetly they laughed
and they talked,
While the dews fell over the mulberry tree.
She gave him a rose--while he sighed for a kiss,
Gillyflower, gentle rosemary;
Quoth he, as he took it, "I kiss thee in this,"
While the dews fall over the mulberry tree.
She gave him a lily less white than her breast,
Gillyflower, gentle rosemary;
Quoth he, "'Twill remind me of one I love best,"
While the dews fall over the mulberry tree.
[Illustration: 9256]
She gave him a two faces under a hood,
Gillyflower, gentle rosemary;
"How blest you could make me," quoth he,
"if you would,"
While the dews fall over the mulberry tree.
She saw a forget-me-not flower in the grass,
Gillyflower, gentle rosemary;
Ah! why did the lady that little flower pass?
While the dews fell over the mulberry tree.
The young lover saw that she passed it, and
sigh'd,
Gillyflower, gentle rosemary;
They say his heart broke, and he certainly died,
While the dews fell over the mulberry tree.
Now all you fair ladies, take warning by this,
Gillyflower, gentle rosemary;
And never refuse your young lovers a kiss,
While the dews fall over the mulberry tree.
----Ed. Kenealy.
[Illustration: 0257]
THE OLD STORY
... Old as the universe, yet not outworn."--_The Island_.
|He came across the meadow-pass,
That summer-eve of eves,
The sunlight streamed along the grass,
And glanced amid the leaves;
And from the shrubbery below,
And from the garden trees,
He heard the thrushes' music flow,
And humming of the bees;
The garden-gate was swung apart--
The space was brief between;
But there, for throbbing of his heart,
He paused perforce to lean.
He leaned upon the garden-gate;
He looked, and scarce he breathed
Within the little porch she sate,
With woodbine overwreathed;
Her eyes upon her work were bent,
Unconscious who was nigh;
But oft the needle slowly went,
And oft did idle lie;
And ever to her lips arose
Sweet fragments faintly sung,
But ever, ere the notes could close,
She hushed them on her tongue.
Her fancies as they come and go,
Her pure face speaks the while,
For now it is a flitting glow,
And now a breaking smile;
And now it is a graver shade
When holier thoughts are there--
An Angel's pinion might be stayed
To see a sight so fair;
But still they hid her looks of light,
Those downcast eyelids pale--
Two lovely clouds so silken white,
Two lovelier stars that veil.
The sun at length his burning edge
Had rested on the hill,
And save one thrush from out the hedge,
Both bower and grove were still.
The sun had almost bade farewell;
But one reluctant ray
Still loved within that porch to dwell,
As charmed there to stay--
It stole aslant the pear-tree bough,
And through the woodbine fringe,
And kissed the maiden's neck and brow,
And bathed her in its tinge.
"Oh! beauty of my heart," he said,
"Oh! darling, darling mine,
Was ever light of evening shed
On loveliness like thine?
Why should I ever leave this spot,
But gaze until I die?"
A moment from that bursting thought
She felt his footstep nigh.
One sudden, lifted glance--but one,
A tremor and a start,
So gently was their greeting done
That who would guess their heart?
Long, long the sun had sunken down,
And all his golden trail
Had died away to lines of brown,
In duskier hues that fail.
[Illustration: 0260]
Googlt
The grasshopper was chirping shrill--
No other living sound
Accompanied the tiny rill
That gurgled under ground--
No other living sound, unless
Some spirit bent to hear
Low words of human tenderness,
And mingling whispers near.
The stars, like pallid gems at first,
Deep in the liquid sky,
Now forth upon the darkness burst,
Sole kings and lights on high;
In splendour myriad-fold, supreme--
No rival moonlight strove,
Nor lovelier e'er was Hesper's beam,
Nor more majestic Jove.
But what if hearts there beat that night
That recked not of the skies,
Or only felt their imaged light
In one another's eyes.
And if two worlds of hidden thought
And fostered passion met,
Which, passing human language, sought
And found an utterance yet;
And if they trembled like to flowers
That droop across a stream,
The while the silent starry hours
Glide o'er them like a dream;
And if, when came the parting time,
They faltered still and clung;
What is it all?--in ancient rhyme
Ten thousand times besung--
That part of Paradise which man
Without the portal knows--
Which hath been since the world began,
And shall be till its close.
----J. O'Hagan.
THE BROTHERS: HENRY AND JOHN SHEARS
|Tis midnight; falls the lamp-light dull and sickly
On a pale and anxious crowd,
Through the court, and round the judges,
thronging thickly,
With prayers none dare to speak aloud.
Two youths, two noble youths, stand prisoners
at the bar--
You can see them through the gloom--
In pride of life and manhood's beauty, there
they are
Awaiting their death doom.