Chapter V: Part 5

'There's darkness in thy dwelling-place, and silence reigns above,
And Mary's voice is heard no more, like the soft voice of love.
Yes! thou art gone, my Mary dear! and Morian Shehone
Is left to sing his song of woe, and wail for thee alone.
O! snow-white were thy virtues--the beautiful, the young,
The old with pleasure bent to hear the music of thy tongue:
The young with rapture gazed on thee, and their hearts in
love were bound,
For thou wast brighter than the sun that sheds its light around.
My soul is dark, O Mary dear! thy sun of beauty's set;
The sorrowful are dumb for thee--the grieved their tears forget;
And I am left to pour my woe above thy grave alone;
For dear wert thou to the fond heart of Morian Shehone.
Fast-flowing tears above the grave of the rich man are shed,
But they are dried when the cold stone shuts in his narrow bed;
Not so with my heart's faithful love--the dark grave cannot hide
From Morian's eyes thy form of grace, of loveliness, and pride.
Thou didst not fall like the sere leaf, when autumn's chill
winds blow--
'Twas a tempest and a storm-blast that has laid my Mary low.
Hadst thou not friends that loved thee well? hadst thou not
garments rare?
Wast thou not happy, Mary? wast thou not young and fair?
Then why should the dread spoiler come, my heart's peace to destroy,
Or the grim tyrant tear from me my all of earthly joy?
O! am I left to pour my woes above thy grave alone?
Thou idol of the faithful heart of Morian Shehone!
Sweet were thy looks and sweet thy smiles, and kind wast thou
to all;
The withering scowl of envy on thy fortunes dared not fall;
For thee thy friends lament and mourn, and never cease to weep--
O! that their lamentations could awake thee from thy sleep!
O! that thy peerless form again could meet my loving clasp!
O! that the cold damp hand of Death could loose his iron grasp!
Yet, when the valley's daughters meet beneath the tall elm tree,
And talk of Mary as a dream that never more shall be,
Then may thy spirit float around, like music in the air,
And pour upon their virgin souls a blessing and a prayer.
O! am I left to pour my wail above thy grave alone?'
Then sinks in silence the lament of Morian Shehone!

THE GERALDINE'S DAUGHTER

Speak low!--speak low--the banshee is crying;
Hark! hark to the echo!--she's dying! 'she's dying.'
What shadow flits dark'ning the face of the water?
'Tis the swan of the lake--'tis _the Geraldine's Daughter_.

Hush, hush! have you heard what the banshee said?
O! list to the echo! she's dead! 'she's dead!'
No shadow now dims the face of the water;
Gone, gone is the wraith of _the Geraldine's Daughter_.

The step of yon train is heavy and slow,
There's wringing of hands, there's breathing of woe;
What melody rolls over mountain and water?
'Tis the funeral chant of _the Geraldine's Daughter_.

The requiem sounds like the plaintive moan
Which the wind makes over the sepulchre's stone;
'O, why did she die? our hearts' blood had bought her!
O, why did she die, _the Geraldine's Daughter_?'
The thistle-beard floats--the wild roses wave
With the blast that sweeps over the newly-made grave;
The stars dimly twinkle, and hoarse falls the water,
While night-birds are wailing _the Geraldine's Daughter_.

BY MEMORY INSPIRED

_Street Ballad_

By Memory inspired,
And love of country fired,
The deeds of Men I love to dwell upon;
And the patriotic glow
Of my spirit must bestow
A tribute to O'Connell that is gone, boys, gone!
Here's a memory to the friends that are gone.

In October 'Ninety-seven--
May his soul find rest in Heaven--
William Orr to execution was led on:
The jury, drunk, agreed
That Irish was his creed;
For perjury and threats drove them on, boys, on:
Here's the memory of John Mitchell that is gone.

In 'Ninety-Eight--the month July--
The informer's pay was high;
When Reynolds gave the gallows brave MacCann;
But MacCann was Reynolds' first--
One could not allay his thirst;
So he brought up Bond and Byrne, that are gone, boys, gone.
Here's the memory of the friends that are gone!

We saw a nation's tears
Shed for John and Henry Shears;
Betrayed by Judas, Captain Armstrong;
We may forgive, but yet
We never can forget
The poisoning of Maguire that is gone, boys, gone--
Our high Star and true Apostle that is gone!

How did Lord Edward die?
Like a man, without a sigh;
But he left his handiwork on Major Swan!
But Sirr, with steel-clad breast,
And coward heart at best,
Left us cause to mourn Lord Edward that is gone, boys, gone:
Here's the memory of our friends that are gone!

September, Eighteen-three,
Closed this cruel history,
When Emmett's blood the scaffold flowed upon
O, had their spirits been wise,
They might then realize
Their freedom--but we drink to Mitchell that is gone, boys, gone:
Here's the memory of the friends that are gone!

A FOLK VERSE

When you were an acorn on the tree top,
Then was I an eagle cock;
Now that you are a withered old block,
Still am I an eagle cock.

NOTES

Page xxi, lines 21 to 25. A well-known poet of the Fenian times has made the curious boast--'Talking of work--since Sunday, two cols. notes, two cols. London gossip, and a leader one col., and one col. of verse for the _Nation_. For _Catholic Opinion_, two pages of notes and a leader. For _Illustrated Magazine_, three poems and a five col. story.'

Page 1. 'The deserted village' is Lissoy, near Ballymahon, and Sir Walter Scott tells of a hawthorn there which has been cut up into toothpicks by Goldsmith enthusiasts; but the feeling and atmosphere of the poem are unmistakably English.

Page 8. Some verses in 'The Epicurean' were put into French by Theophile Gautier for the French translation, and back again into English by Mr. Robert Bridges. If any Irish reader who thinks Moore a great poet, will compare his verses with the results of this double distillation, and notice the gradual disappearance of their vague rhythms and loose phrases, he will be the less angry with the introduction to this book. Moore wrote as follows--

You, who would try
Yon terrible track,
To live or to die,
But ne'er to turn back.

You, who aspire
To be purified there,
By the terror of fire,
Of water, and air,--

If danger, and pain,
And death you despise,
On--for again
Into light you shall rise:

Rise into light
With the secret divine,
Now shrouded from sight
By a veil of the shrine.

These lines are certainly less amazing than the scrannel piping of his usual anapaests; but few will hold them to be 'of their own arduous fullness reverent'! Theophile Gautier sets them to his instrument in this fashion,

Vous qui voulez courir
La terrible carriere,
Il faut vivre ou mourir,
Sans regard en arriere:

Vous qui voulez tenter
L'onde, l'air, et la flamme,
Terreurs a surmonter
Pour epurer votre ame,

Si, meprisant la mort,
Votre foi reste entiere,
En avant!--le coeur fort
Reverra la lumiere.

Et lira sur l'autel
Le mot du grand mystere,
Qu'au profane mortel
Derobe un voile austere.

Then comes Mr. Robert Bridges, and lifts them into the rapture and precision of poetry--

O youth whose hope is high,
Who dost to truth aspire,
Whether thou live or die,
O look not back nor tire.

Thou that art bold to fly
Through tempest, flood, and fire,
Nor dost not shrink to try
Thy heart in torments dire:

If thou canst Death defy,
If thy faith is entire,
Press onward, for thine eye
Shall see thy heart's desire.

Beauty and love are nigh,
And with their deathless quire--
Soon shall thine eager cry
Be numbered and expire.

Page 27. 'Dark Rosaleen' is one of the old names of Ireland. Mangan's translation is very free; as a rule when he tried to translate literally, as in 'The Munster Bards,' all glimmer of inspiration left him.

Page 32, line 20. 'This passage is not exactly a blunder, though at first it may seem one: the poet supposes the grave itself transferred to Ireland, and he naturally includes in the transference the whole of the immediate locality about the grave' (Mangan note).

Page 47, line 6. The two Meaths once formed a distinct province.

Page 55, line 7. This poem is an account of Mangan's own life, and is, I think, redeemed out of rhetoric by its intensity. The following poem, 'Siberia,' describes, perhaps, his own life under a symbol.

Page 59. Hy Brasail, or Teer-Nan-Oge, is the island of the blessed, the paradise of ancient Ireland. It is still thought to be seen from time to time glimmering far off.

Page 61. _Mo Craoibhin Cno_ means my cluster of nuts, and is pronounced _Mo Chreevin Kno_.

Page 64. Mr. O'Keefe has sent the writer a Gaelic version of this poem, possibly by Walsh himself. A correspondent of his got it from an old peasant who had not a word of English. A well-known Gaelic scholar pronounces it a translation, and not the original of the present poem. _Mairgread ni Chealleadh_ is pronounced _Mairgred nei Kealley_. The _Ceanabhan_, pronounced _Kanovan_, is the bog cotton, and the _Monadan_ is a plant with a red berry found on marshy mountains.

Page 69. _A cuisle geal mo chroidhe_, pronounced _A cushla gal mo chre_, means 'bright pulse of my heart.'

Page 74. Sir Samuel Ferguson introduces the poem as follows:--

Several Welsh families, associates in the invasion of Strongbow, settled in the West of Ireland. Of these, the principal, whose names have been preserved by the Irish antiquarians, were the Walshes, Joyces, Heils (_a quibus_ MacHale), Lawlesses, Tolmyns, Lynotts, and Barretts, which last draw their pedigree from Walynes, son of Guyndally, the _Ard Maor_, or High Steward of the Lordship of Camelot, and had their chief seats in the territory of the two Bacs, in the barony of Tirawley, and county of Mayo. _Clochan-na-n'all_, i. e. 'The Blind Men's Stepping-stones,' are still pointed out on the Duvowen river, about four miles north of Crossmolina, in the townland of Garranard; and _Tubber-na-Scorney_, or 'Scrags Well,' in the opposite townland of Carns, in the same barony. For a curious _terrier_ or applotment of the Mac William's revenue, as acquired under the circumstances stated in the legend preserved by Mac Firbis, see Dr. O'Donovan's highly-learned and interesting 'Genealogies, &c. of Hy. Fiachrach,' in the publications of the _Irish Archaeological Society_--a great monument of antiquarian and topographical erudition.

Page 90, line 6. 'William Conquer' was William Fitzadelm De Burgh, the Conqueror of Connaught.

Page 91, line 4. Sir Samuel Ferguson introduces the poem as follows:--

Aideen, daughter of Angus of Ben-Edar (now the Hill of Howth), died of grief for the loss of her husband, Oscar, son of Ossian, who was slain at the battle of Gavra (_Gowra_, near Tara in Meath), A.D. 284. Oscar was entombed in the rath or earthen fortress that occupied part of the field of battle, the rest of the slain being cast in a pit outside. Aideen is said to have been buried on Howth, near the mansion of her father, and poetical tradition represents the Fenian heroes as present at her obsequies. The Cromlech in Howth Park has been supposed to be her sepulchre. It stands under the summits from which the poet Atharne is said to have launched his invectives against the people of Leinster, until, by the blighting effect of his satires, they were compelled to make him atonement for the death of his son.

Page 99. 'There was then no man in the host of Ulster that could be found who would put the sons of Usnach to death, so loved were they of the people and nobles. But in the house of Conor was one called Maine Rough Hand, son of the king of Lochlen, and Naesi had slain his father and two brothers, and he undertook to be their executioners. So the sons of Usnach were then slain, and the men of Ulster, when they beheld their death, sent forth their heavy shouts of sorrow and lamentation. Then Deirdre fell down beside their bodies wailing and weeping, and she tore her hair and garments and bestowed kisses on their lifeless lips and bitterly bemoaned them. And a grave was opened for them, and Deirdre, standing by it, with her hair dishevelled and shedding tears abundantly, chanted their funeral song.' (_Hibernian Nights' Entertainment_.)

Page 102. _Uileacan Dubh O_', pronounced _Uileacaun Doov O_, is a phrase of lamentation.

Page 108, line 16. 'Anna Grace' is the heroine of another ballad by Ferguson. She also was stolen by the Fairies.

Page 112, line 6. Thomas Davis had an Irish father and a Welsh mother, and Emily Bronte an Irish father and a Cornish mother, and there seems no reason for including the first and excluding the second. I find, perhaps fancifully, an Irish vehemence in 'Remembrance.' Several of the Irish poets have been of mixed Irish-Celtic and British-Celtic blood. William Blake has been recently claimed as of Irish descent, upon the evidence of Dr. Carter Blake; and if, in the course of years, that claim becomes generally accepted, he should be included also in Irish anthologies.

Page 119, line 13. 'The little Black Rose' is but another form of 'Dark Rosaleen,' and has a like significance. 'The Silk of the Kine' is also an old name for Ireland.

Page 138. _Maire Bhan Astor_ is pronounced _Mauria vaun a-stor_, and means 'Fair Mary, my treasure.'

Page 140. _Mo bhuachaill_, pronounced _mo Vohil_, means 'my boy.'

Page 174. The Goban Saor, the mason Goban, is a familiar personage in Irish folk-lore, and the reputed builder of the round towers.

Page 191. _Slainte_, ['your] health.'

Page 207. 'And their step-mother, being jealous of their father's great love for them, cast upon the king's children, by sorcery, the shape of swans, and bade them go roaming, even till Patrick's mass-bell should sound in Erin; but no farther in time than that did her power extend.'--_The Fate of the Children of Lir_.

Page 222. The wind was one of the deities of the Pagan Irish. 'The murmuring of the Red Wind from the East,' says an old poem, 'is heard in its course by the strong as well as the weak; it is the wind that wastes the bottom of the trees, and injurious to man is that red wind.'

Page 226. _Can Doov Deelish_ means 'dear black head.'

Page 231. The chorus is pronounced _Shoo-il, shoo-il, shoo-il, a rooin, Shoo-il go socair, ogus shoo-il go kiune, Shoo-il go den durrus ogus euli liom, Iss go de too, mo vourneen, slaun_, and means--

'Move, move, move, O treasure,
Move quietly and move gently,
Move to the door, and fly with me,
And mayest thou go, my darling, safe!'

Page 232. _Shan van vocht_, meaning 'little old woman', is a name for Ireland.

Page 235. This is not the most ancient form of the ballad, but it is the form into which it was recast by Boucicault, and which has long taken the place of all others.

Page 237, line 2. 'Sinking,' violent swearing.

THE END

=IRISH BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.=

_VERSE._

THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN.
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE.
THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN.

_PROSE._

THE CELTIC TWILIGHT.
JOHN SHERMAN AND DHOYA.

_ANTHOLOGIES._

IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES.
IRISH FAIRY STORIES.
STORIES FROM CARLETON.
IRISH TALES.

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Book of Irish Verse, by William Butler Yeats