A Book of Irish Verse Part 19

THE IRISH PEASANT GIRL

She lived beside the Anner, At the foot of Sliev-na-mon, A gentle peasant girl, With mild eyes like the dawn; Her lips were dewy rosebuds; Her teeth of pearls rare; And a snow-drift 'neath a beechen bough Her neck and nut-brown hair.

How pleasant 'twas to meet her On Sunday, when the bell Was filling with its mellow tones Lone wood and gra.s.sy dell!

And when at eve young maidens Strayed the river-bank along, The widow's brown-haired daughter Was loveliest of the throng.

O brave, brave Irish girls-- We well may call you brave!-- Sure the least of all your perils Is the stormy ocean wave, When you leave our quiet valleys, And cross the Atlantic's foam, To h.o.a.rd your hard-won earnings For the helpless ones at home.

'Write word to my own dear mother-- Say, we'll meet with G.o.d above; And tell my little brothers I send them all my love; May the angels ever guard them, Is their dying sister's prayer'-- And folded in the letter Was a braid of nut-brown hair.

Ah, cold, and well-nigh callous, This weary heart has grown For thy helpless fate, dear Ireland, And for sorrows of my own; Yet a tear my eye will moisten When by Anner's side I stray, For the lily of the mountain foot That withered far away.

_Charles J. Kickham_

TO G.o.d AND IRELAND TRUE

I sit beside my darling's grave, Who in the prison died, And tho' my tears fall thick and fast, I think of him with pride:-- Ay, softly fall my tears like dew, For one to G.o.d and Ireland true.

'I love my G.o.d o'er all,' he said, 'And then I love my land, And next I love my Lily sweet, Who pledged me her white hand:-- To each--to all--I'm ever true, To G.o.d--to Ireland and to you.'

No tender nurse his hard bed smoothed Or softly raised his head:-- He fell asleep and woke in heaven Ere I knew he was dead;-- Yet why should I my darling rue?

He was to G.o.d and Ireland true.

O, 'tis a glorious memory; I'm prouder than a queen To sit beside my hero's grave And think on what has been:-- And O, my darling, I am true To G.o.d--to Ireland and to you!

_Ellen O'Leary_

THE BANSHEE

Green, in the wizard arms, Of the foam-bearded Atlantic, An isle of old enchantment, A melancholy isle, Enchanted and dreaming lies; And there, by Shannon's flowing, In the moonlight, spectre thin, The spectre Erin sits.

An aged desolation She sits by old Shannon's flowing, A mother of many children, Of children exiled and dead, In her home, with bent head, homeless, Clasping her knees she sits, Keening, keening!

And at her keene the fairy-gra.s.s Trembles on dun and barrow; Around the foot of her ancient crosses The grave-gra.s.s shakes and the nettle swings; In haunted glens the meadow-sweet Flings to the night-wind Her mystic mournful perfume; The sad spearmint by holy wells Breathes melancholy balm.

Sometimes she lifts her head, With blue eyes tearless, And gazes athwart the reek of night Upon things long past, Upon things to come.

And sometimes, when the moon Brings tempest upon the deep, And roused Atlantic thunders from his caverns in the West, The wolf-hound at her feet Springs up with a mighty bay, And chords of mystery sound from the wild harp at her side, Strung from the heart of poets; And she flies on the verge of the tempest Around her shuddering isle, With grey hair streaming: A meteor of evil omen, The spectre of hope forlorn, Keening, keening!

She keenes, and the strings of her wild harp s.h.i.+ver On the gusts of night: O'er the four waters she keenes--over Moyle she keenes, O'er the Sea of Milith, and the Strait of Strongbow, And the Ocean of Columbus.

And the Fianna hear, and the ghosts of her cloudy hovering heroes; And the swan, Fianoula, wails o'er the waters of Inisfail, Chanting her song of destiny, The rune of the weaving Fates.

And the nations hear in the void and quaking time of night, Sad unto dawning, dirges, Solemn dirges, And s.n.a.t.c.hes of bardic song; Their souls quake in the void and quaking time of night, And they dream of the weird of kings, And tyrannies moulting, sick In the dreadful wind of change.

Wail no more, lonely one, mother of exiles, wail no more, Banshee of the world--no more!

Thy sorrows are the world's, thou art no more alone; Thy wrongs, the world's.

_John Todhunter_

AGHADOE

There's a glade in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe, There's a green and silent glade in Aghadoe, Where we met, my Love and I, Love's fair planet in the sky, O'er that sweet and silent glade in Aghadoe.

There's a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe, There's a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe, Where I hid from the eyes of the red-coats and their spies That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.

O! my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, On Shaun Dhuv, my mother's son in Aghadoe, When your throat fries in h.e.l.l's drouth salt the flame be in your mouth, For the treachery you did in Aghadoe!

For they tracked me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, When the price was on his head in Aghadoe; O'er the mountain through the wood, as I stole to him with food, When in hiding lone he lay in Aghadoe.

But they never took him living in Aghadoe, Aghadoe; With the bullets in his heart in Aghadoe, There he lay, the head--my breast keeps the warmth where once 'twould rest-- Gone, to win the traitor's gold, from Aghadoe!

I walked to Mallow Town from Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Brought his head from the gaol's gate to Aghadoe, Then I covered him with fern, and I piled on him the cairn.

Like an Irish King he sleeps in Aghadoe.

O! to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe!

There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe!

Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I, Your own love, cold on your cairn in Aghadoe.

_John Todhunter_

A MAD SONG

I hear the wind a-blowing, I hear the corn a-growing, I hear the Virgin praying, I hear what she is saying.

_Hester Sigerson_

LADY MARGARET'S SONG