Sad was the note, and wild its fall;

As winds that moan at night forlorn Along the isles of Fion-Gall,

When, for O'Connors child to mourn, The harper told, how lone, how far From any mansion's twinkling star From any path of social men, Or voice, but from the fox's den, The lady in the desert dwelt; And yet no wrongs, no fear she felt; Say, why should dwell in place so wild O'Connor's pale and lovely child?

Yet she will tell you she is blest,
Of Connocht Moran's tomb possess'd,
More richly than in Aghrim's bower
When bards high praised her beauty's power,
And kneeling pages offer'd up
The morat in a golden cup.

Sweet lady! she no more inspires

Green Erin's hearts with beauty's power, As, in the palace of her sires,

She bloomed a peerless flower.
Gone from her hand and bosom, gone,

The royal broche, the jewelled ring,
That o'er her dazzling whiteness shone

Like dews on lilies of the spring. Yet why, though fall’n her brother's kern Beneath de Bourgo's battle stern, While yet in Leinster unexplored Her friends survive the English sword; Why lingers she from Erin's host So far on Galways shipwrecked coast? Why wanders she a huntress wild, O'Connor's pale and lovely child?

A hero's bride! this desert bower

It ill befits thy gentle breeding: And wherefore dost thou love this flower

To call: — "My love lies bleeding." “This purple flower my tears have nursed;

A hero's blood supplied its bloom: I loved it, for it was the first

That grew on Connocht Moran's tomb.
Oh! hearken, stranger to my voice!
This desert mansion is my choice!
And blest, though fatal, be the star

That led me to its wilds afar:
For here this pathless mountains free
Gave shelter to my love and me;
And every rock and every stone
Bore witness that he was my own.”

And fix'd on empty space, why burn

Her eyes with momentary wildness; And wherefore do they then return

To more than woman's mildness? Dishevell’d are her raven-locks;

On Connocht Moran's name she calls; And oft amidst the lonely rocks

She sings sweet madrigals.
Plac'd in the foxglove and the moss,
Behold a parted warrior's cross!
That is the spot where, evermore,
The lady, at her shielding door
Enjoys that, in communion sweet,
The living and the dead can meet:
For lo! to love-lorn fantasy,
The hero of her heart is nigh.

"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;
And rises o'er and o'er again,

The bloody feud the fatal night, When, chating 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 loved one, bore in field A meaner crest upon his shield.”

Bright as the bow that spans the storm,

In Erin's yellow vesture clad, A son of light a lovely form,

He comes and makes her glad; Now on the grass-green turf he sits,

His tassel'd horn beside him laid; Now o'er the hills in chase he flits,

The hunter and the deer a shade! Sweet mourner! those are shadows vain That cross the twilight of her brain;

"Ah, brothers! what did it avail

That fiercely and triumphantly Ye fought the English of the pale

And stemmed De Bourgo's chivalry? And what was it to love and me

That barons by our standard rode, Or peal-fires for your jubilee

Upon an hundred mountains glowed ? What though 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 flower its bloom; But ties around this heart were spun, That could not, would not, be undone!”

Their iron hands had dug the clay, And o'er his burial-turf they trod,

And I beheld oh God! oh God! His life-blood oozing from the sod!"

"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 by thy side. Then come, my love! - How could I stay? Our nimble stag-hounds tracked the way, And I pursued, by moonless skies, The light of Connocht Moran's eyes."

"Warm in his death-wounds sepulchred,

Alas! my warrior spirit brave, Nor mass, nor ulla-lulla heard

Lamenting soothe his grave. Dragged to their hated mansion back,

How long in thraldom's gasp I lay, I knew not, for my soul was black

And knew no chance of night or day. One night of horror round me grew; Or if I saw, or felt, or knew, 'Twas but when those grim visages, The angry brothers of my race, Glared on each eye-ball's aching throb, And check'd my bosom's power to sob; Or when my heart with pulses drear Beat like a death-watch to my ear.”

"And fast and far, before the star

Of day-spring rushed we through the glade, And saw at dawn the lofty bawn

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 loved it more.
And well he knew, my huntsman dear,
To search the game with hawk and spear;
While I, his evening-food to dress,
Would sing to him in happiness.
But, oh, that midnight of despair!
When I was doom'd to rend my hair:
The night, to me, of shrieking sorrow!
The night, to me, that had no morrow!”.

“But Heaven, at last, my soul's eclipse

Did with a vision bright inspire:
I woke, and felt upon my lips

A prophetess's fire.
Thrice in the east a war-drum beat,

I heard the Saxon's trumpet sound
And ranged, as to the judgment-seat,

My guilty, trembling brothers round. Clad in the helm and shield they came; For now De Bourgo's sword and flame Had ravaged Ulster's boundaries, And lighted up the midnight-skies. That standard of O'Connor's sway Was in the turret where I lay; That standard, with so dire a look, As ghastly shone the moon and pale, I gave, that every bosom shook Beneath its iron mail.

“When all was hushed, at even-tide,

I heard the baying of their beagle, Be hushed, my Connocht Moran cried,

'Tis but the screaming of the eagle. Alas! 't was not the eyrie's sound,

Their bloody bands had track'd us out; Up listening starts our couchant hound

And, hark! again that nearer shout
Brings faster on the murderers.
Spare, spare him · Brazil, Desmond fierce!
In vain no voice the adder charms.
Their weapons crossed my sheltering
Another's sword had laid him low

Another's and another's;
And every hand that dealt the blow

Ah me! it was a brother's.
Yes, when his moanings died away

And go! (I cried) the combat seek,

Ye hearts that unappalled bore The anguish of a sister's shriek;

Go! and return no more! For sooner guilt the ordeal-brand

Shall grasp unhurt, than ye shall hold The banner with victorious hand, Beneath a sister's curse unroll’d. O stranger, by my country's loss! And by my love! and by the cross! I swear I never could have spoke The curse that severed nature's yoke, But that a spirit o'er me stood, And fired me with the wrathful mood; And frenzy to my heart was given To speak the malison of heaven."

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