II.
“It is the maid of the magic lock I sing, the fair swan of the shore—for whose love a multitude expires: Fanny, the beautiful, whose tresses are like the evening sun beam; whose voice is like the blackbird’s morning song: O, may I never leave the world until dancing in the air (this expression in the Irish is beyond the power of translation) at her wedding, I shall send away the hours in drinking to Fanny, the daughter of David.” *
* She was daughter to David Power, Esq., of the county
Galway, and mother to the late Lord Cloncarty. The epithet
bestowed on her of “Swan of the shore,” arose from her
father’s mansion being situated on the edge of Lough Leah,
or the grey lake, of which many curious legends are told.