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And blest, tho' fatal, be the star

That led me to its wilds afar :

For here these pathless mountains free

'Gave shelter to my love and me;

' And every rock and every stone
'Bare witness that he was my own.

VI.

O'Connor's child, I was the bud

Of Erin's royal tree of glory;

But woe to them that wrapt in blood

The tissue of my story!

Still as I clasp my burning brain,

A death-scene rushes on my sight;

It rises o'er and o'er again,

The bloody feud, -the fatal night,

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When chafing Connocht Moran's scorn,
They call'd my hero basely born;

And bade him choose a meaner bride

Than from O'Connor's house of pride.
Their tribe, they said, their high degree,
Was sung in Tara's psaltery;
Witness their Eath's victorious brand,
And Cathal of the bloody hand,-
Glory (they said) and power and honour
Were in the mansion of O'Connor:

But he, my lov'd one, bore in field

A meaner crest upon his shield.

• The psalter of Tara was the great national register of the ancient Irish.

Vide the note upon the victories of the house of O'Connor.

VII.

Ah, brothers! what did it avail,

That fiercely and triumphantly
Ye fought the English of the pale,
And stemm'd De Bourgo's chivalry?

And what was it to love and me,
That barons by your standard rode;
Or beal-fires11 for your jubilee,
Upon an hundred mountains glow'd.
What tho' the lords of tower and dome
From Shannon to the North-sea foam,-
Thought ye your iron hands of pride
Could break the knot that love had tied?

No:-let the eagle change his plume,

The leaf its hue, the flow'r its bloom;

Fires lighted on May-day on the hill tops by the Irish.

Vide the note on stanza VII.

But ties around this heart were spun,
That could not, would not, be undone!

VIII.

At bleating of the wild watch-fold

Thus sang my love-" Oh come with me:

"Our bark is on the lake behold:

"Our steeds are fasten'd to the tree.

"Come far from Castle-Connor's clans

"Come with thy belted forestere,

"And I, beside the lake of swans, " Shall hunt for thee the fallow deer; " And build thy hut and bring thee home "The wild fowl, and the honey-comb; " And berries from the wood provide, " And play my clarshech 12 by thy side.

12 The harp.

" Then come, my love!"-How could I stay?

Our nimble stag-hounds track'd the way,

And I pursued by moonless skies,

The light of Connocht Moran's eyes.

IX.

And fast and far, before the star

Of day-spring rush'd we thro' the glade,

And saw at dawn the lofty bawn 13

Of Castle-Connor fade.

Sweet was to us the hermitage

Of this unplough'd, untrodden shore:
Like birds all joyous from the cage,
For man's neglect we lov'd it more.
And well he knew, my huntsman dear,
To search the game with hawk and spear;

13 Ancient fortification.

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