—Old Irish)
I’ve heard the lark’s cry thrill the sky o’er the meadows of Lusk,
And the first joyous gush of the thrush from Adare’s April Wood;
At thy lone music’s spell, Philomel, magic-stricken I’ve stood,
When, in Espan afar, star on star trembled out of the dusk.
While Dunkerron’s blue dove murmured love, ’neath her nest I have sighed,
And by mazy Culdaff with a laugh mocked the cuckoo’s refrain;
Derrycarn’s dusky bird I have heard piping joy hard by pain,
And the swan’s last lament sobbing sent over Moyle’s mystic tide.
Yet as bright shadows pass from the glass of the darkening lake,
As the rose’s rapt sigh will soon die, when the zephyr is stilled;
In oblivion grey sleeps each lay that those birds ever trilled,
But the songs Erin sings from her strings shall immortally wake.
Alfred Perceval Graves.
CASEY
CLXXXVI
THE RISING OF THE MOON
(1798)
‘O, then, tell me, Shawn O’Ferrall, tell me why you hurry so?’
‘Hush, ma bouchal, hush and listen;’ and his cheeks were all aglow:
‘I bear orders from the Captain—get you ready quick and soon;
For the pikes must be together at the risin’ o’ the moon.’