Now on the grass-green turf he sits, His tassell'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; Yet she will tell you, she is blest, Of Connocht Moran's tomb possess'd, More richly than in Aghrim's bow'r, When bards high praised her beauty's pow'r, And kneeling pages offer'd up The morat in a golden cup. V. 'A hero's bride! this desert bow'r, It ill befits thy gentle breeding: 'And wherefore dost thou love this flow'r To call—"My love lies bleeding?" • This purple flow'r my tears have nursed; 'A hero's blood supplied its bloom : 'I love 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 these pathless mountains free • Gave shelter to my love and me; 'And ev'ry rock and ev'ry 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, '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;d 'Witness their Eath's victorious brand,e • And Cathal of the bloody hand; d The psalter of Tara was the great national register of the ancient Irish. e Vide the note upon the victories of the house of O'Connor. Glory (they said) and pow'r and honour 'Were in the mansion of O'Connor : 'But he, my lov'd one, bore in field 'A meaner crest upon his shield. 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; '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; f 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 by thy side. '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. The harp. |