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I stood at Cavan o'er thy tomb,

Thou spok'st no word through all thy gloom;
O want! O ruin! O bitter doom!

O great, lost heir of the house of Niall !

I care not now whom Death may borrow,
Despair sits by me, night and morrow,
My life henceforth is one long sorrow;
-And thou 'neath the sod!

O child of heroes, heroic child!
Thou'dst smite our foe in battle wild,
Thou'dst right all wrong, O just and mild!
And who lives now-since dead is Eoghan?

In place of feasts, alas! there's crying,
In place of song, sad woe and sighing,
Alas, I live with my heart a-dying,
-And thou 'neath the sod!

My woe, was ever so cruel woe ?
My heart is torn with rending throe!
I grieve that I am not lying low
In silent death by thy side, Eoghan!

Thou wast skilled all straits to ravel,

And thousands broughtst from death and cavil,
They journey safe who with thee travel,

-And thou with thy God!

George Sigerson.

CLXXXIV

THE OLD COUNTRY

NoT tasselled palm or bended cypress wooing
The languid wind on temple-crowned heights,
Not heaven's myriad stars in lustre strewing
Smooth sapphire bays in hushed Ionian nights,
Not the clear peak of dawn-encrimsoned snow,
Or plumage-lighted wood, or gilded pile
Sparkling amid the imperial city's glow,
Endears our Isle.

Thine the weird splendour of the restless billow
For ever breaking over lonely shores,
The reedy mere that is the wild-swan's pillow,
The crag to whose torn spire the eagle soars,
The moorland where the solitary hern

Spreads his grey wings upon the breezes cold,
The pink sweet heather's bloom, the waving fern,
The gorse's gold.

And we who draw our being from thy being,
Blown by the untimely blast about the earth,
Back in love's visions to thy bosom fleeing,

Droop with thy sorrows, brighten with thy mirth; O, from afar, with sad and straining eyes,

Tired arms across the darkness and the foam
We stretch to thy bluff capes and sombre skies,
Beloved home!

The nurselings of thy moorlands and thy mountains,
Thy children tempered by thy winter gales,
Swayed by the tumult of thy headlong fountains
That clothe with pasture green thy grassy vales,
True to one love in climes' and years' despite,
We yearn, in our last hour, upon thy breast,
When the Great Darkness wraps thee from our sight,
To sink to rest!

George Francis Savage-Armstrong.

CLXXXV

THE SONGS OF ERIN

('Music shall outlive all the songs of the birds.'

-Old Irish)

I'VE heard the lark's cry thrill the sky o'er the

meadows of Lusk,

And the first joyous gush of the thrush from Adare's April Wood;

At thy lone music's spell, Philomel, magic-stricken I've stood,

When, in Espan afar, star on star trembled out of the dusk.

While Dunkerron's blue dove murmured love, 'neath her nest I have sighed,

And by mazy Culdaff with a laugh mocked the cuckoo's refrain;

Derrycarn's dusky bird I have heard piping joy hard by pain,

And the swan's last lament sobbing sent over Moyle's mystic tide.

Yet as bright shadows pass from the glass of the darkening lake,

As the rose's rapt sigh will soon die, when the zephyr is stilled;

In oblivion grey sleeps each lay that those birds ever trilled,

But the songs Erin sings from her strings shall immortally wake.

Alfred Perceval Graves.

CLXXXVI

THE RISING OF THE MOON

(1798)

'O, THEN, tell me, Shawn O'Ferrall, tell me why you hurry so?'

'Hush, ma bouchal, hush and listen ;' and his cheeks were all aglow:

I bear orders from the Captain-get you ready quick and soon;

For the pikes must be together at the risin' o' the

moon.'

'O, then, tell me, Shawn O'Ferrall, where the gath'rin' is to be?"

'At the old spot by the river, right well known to you and me;

One word more for signal token, whistle up the marchin' tune,

With your pike upon your shoulder, by the risin' o' the moon.'

Out from many a mud-wall cabin eyes were watching through that night,

Many a manly heart was throbbing for the blessed warning light.

Murmurs passed along the valleys, 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 was seen

Far above the shining weapons hung their own beloved Green.

'Death to every foe and traitor! Forward! strike the marchin' tune,

And hurrah, my boys, for Freedom! 'tis the risin' o' the moon!'

Well they fought for poor old Ireland, and full bitter was their fate;

(0, what glorious pride and sorrow fills 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!

John Keegan Casey.

CLXXXVII

THE DEAD AT CLONMACNOIS

(From the Irish of Angus O'Gillan)

IN a quiet-water'd land, a land of roses,

Stands Saint Kieran's city fair;

And the warriors of Erinn in their famous generations

Slumber there

There below the dewy hillside sleep the noblest

Of the Clan of Conn,

Each beneath his stone with name in branching

Ogham

And the sacred knot thereon.

There they laid to rest the seven Kings of Tara,
There the sons of Cairbrè sleep-

Battle-banners of the Gael, that in Kieran's plain of

crosses

Now their final hosting keep.

And in Clonmacnois they laid the men of Teffia,
And right many a lord of Breagh;

Deep the sod above Clan Creidè and Clan Conaill,
Kind in hall and fierce in fray.

Many and many a son of Conn the Hundred-Fighter
In the red earth lies at rest;

Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers,
Many a swan-white breast.

Thomas William Rolleston.

CLXXXVIII

SHAMROCK SONG

O THE red rose may be fair,
And the lily statelier;

But my shamrock, one in three,
Takes the very heart of me!

Many a lover hath the rose

When June's musk-wind breathes and blows;

And in many a bower is heard

Her sweet praise from bee and bird.

Through the gold hours dreameth she,
In her warm heart passionately,
Her fair face hung languid-wise:
O her breath of honey and spice!

Like a fair saint virginal
Stands your lily silver and tall;
Over all the flowers that be
Is my shamrock dear to me.

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