Move, O Monk, thy foot away!
 Lift it from the grave of Nial!
 All too high thou heap'st the pile;
 All too deep thou diggest the clay.
Brown-haired Monk, most gentle friend,
 Press not with thy foot the soil
 Nial to cover, heavy toil,
 Of thy labours make an end.
Mournful priest, thy prayers delay,
 Close not yet the prince's tomb,
 Make an opening, for I come;
 Move, O Monk, thy foot away!
Not my will that brought thee bound,
 Black-kneed Nial, with heart of gold!
 When mine arms his form enfold,
 Raise his stone, and smooth his mound.
Gormliath I, a Queen commands,
 Daughter of King Flann the brave;
 Press not then upon his grave;
 Move, O Monk, thy foot away!

THE MOTHER'S LAMENT AT THE
SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS

Then, as the executioner plucked her son from her breast, one of the women said:

"Why are you tearing
 Away to his doom,
 The child of my caring,
 The fruit of my womb.
 Till nine months were o'er
 His burden I bore,
 Then his pretty lips pressed
 The glad milk from my breast,
 And my whole heart he filled,
 And my whole life he thrilled.
All my strength dies,
 My tongue speechless lies,
 Darkened are my eyes!
 His breath was the breath of me;
 His death is the death of me."

Then another woman said:

"'Tis my own son that from me you wring,
 I deceived not the King.
But slay me, even me,
 And let my boy be.
 A mother most hapless,
 My bosom is sapless,
 Mine eyes one tearful river,
 My frame one fearful, shiver,
 My husband sonless ever,
 And I a sonless wife
 To live a death in life.
O my son! O God of Truth!
 O my unrewarded youth,
 O my birthless sicknesses
 Until doom without redress.
 O my bosom's silent nest,
 O the heart broke in my breast."

Then said another woman:

"Murderers, obeying
 Herod's wicked willing,
 One ye would be slaying,
 Many are ye killing.
 Infants would ye smother?
 Ruffian, ye have rather
 Wounded many a father,
 Slaughtered many a mother.
 Hell's black jaws your horrid deed is glutting,
 Heaven's white gate against your black souls shutting.
 Ye are guilty of the Great Offence!
 Ye have spilled the blood of Innocence."

And yet another woman said:

"O Lord Christ, come to me!
 Nay, no longer tarry!
 With my son home to Thee
 My soul quickly carry.
 O Mary great, O Mary mild,
 Of God's One Son the Mother,
 What shall I do without my child?
 For I have now no other.
 For Thy Son's sake my son they slew,
 Those murderers inhuman;
 My sense and soul they slaughtered too,
 I am but a crazy woman.
 Yea, after that most piteous slaughter,
 When my babe's life ran out like water,
 The heart within my bosom hath become
 A clot of blood from this day till the Doom!"
Alfred Perceval Graves.

CONSECRATION

By Murdoch O'Daly, called Murdoch "the Scotchman" (Muredach Albanach), on account of his affection for that country; born in Connaught towards the close of the twelfth century.

How great the tale, that there should be,
 In God's Son's heart, a place for me!
 That on a sinner's lips like mine,
 The cross of Jesus Christ should shine!
Christ Jesus, bend me to Thy will,
 My feet to urge, my griefs to still;
 That even my flesh and blood may be
 A temple sanctified to Thee.
No rest, no calm, my soul may win,
 Because my body craves to sin,
 Till Thou, dear Lord, Thyself impart
 Peace to my head, light to my heart.
May consecration come from far,
 Soft shining like the evening star!
 My toilsome path make plain to me,
 Until I come to rest in Thee.

TEACH ME, O TRINITY

By the same Poet.

T
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 each me, O Trinity,
 All men sing praise to Thee,
 Let me not backward be,
 Teach me, O Trinity.
Come Thou and dwell with me,
 Lord of the holy race;
 Make here thy resting-place,
 Hear me, O Trinity.
That I Thy love may prove,
 Teach Thou my heart and hand,
 Ever at Thy command
 Swiftly to move.
Like to a rotting tree
 Is this vile heart of me;
 Let me Thy healing see,
 Help me, O Trinity.
Sinful, beholding Thee;
 Yet clean from theft and blood
 My hands; O Son of God,
 For Mary's love, answer me.
In my adversity
 No great man stooped to me,
 No good man pitied me,
 God ope'd His heart to me.
Lied I, as others lie,
 They deceived, so have I,
 On others' lie I built my lie—
 Will my God pass this by?
Truth art Thou, truth I crave,
 If on a lie I rest, I'm lost;
 My vow demands my uttermost;
 Save, Trinity, O save!

THE SHAVING OF MURDOCH

When he and Cathal of the Red Hand, King of Connaught, entered the monastic life together.

Murdoch, whet thy knife, that we may shave our crowns to the Great King,
 Let us sweetly give our vow, and the hair of both our heads to the Trinity.
 I will shave mine to Mary, this is the doing of a true heart,
 To Mary shave thou these locks, well-formed, soft-eyed man.
 Seldom hast thou had, handsome man, a knife on thy hair to shave it,
 Oftener has a sweet, soft queen, comb'd her hair beside thee.
 Whenever it was that we did bathe, with Brian of the well-curled locks,
 And once on a time that I did bathe, at the well of the fair-haired Boroimhe,
 I strove in swimming with Ua Chais, on the cold waters of the Fergus.
When he came ashore from the stream, Ua Chais and I strove in a race.
These two knives, one to each, were given us by Duncan Cairbreach,
 No knives of knives were better; shave gently then, Murdoch.
 Whet your sword, Cathal, which wins the fertile Banva,
 Ne'er was thy wrath heard without fighting, brave, red-handed Cathal,
 Preserve our shaved heads from cold and from heat, gentle daughter of Joachim,
 Preserve us in the land of heat, softest branch, Mary.
Standish Hayes O'Grady.

EILEEN AROON

Carol O'Daly, early thirteenth century.

"Come, love, and dwell with me,
 Eileen aroon;
 I'll roam the world with thee,
 Eileen aroon!
 Down to Terawley free,
 From this sad house we'll flee,
 If thou wilt wed with me,
 Eileen aroon!
"We'll seek a home of peace,
 Eileen aroon;
 All fear and doubt shall cease,
 Eileen aroon.
 If thou wilt seek my side,
 If thou wilt be my bride,
 All matters not beside,
 Eileen aroon.
"Then, wilt thou fly or stay,
 Eileen aroon?
 Ah! do not say me nay,
 Come to me soon."
"I come, I come to thee,
 Life of the world to me,
 Nought holds me, for I flee
 Thus to thy home."
"Welcome thy steps before,
 Eileen aroon.
 Fling wide our cottage door,
 Eileen aroon.
 Oh! welcome evermore,
 My darling and my store,
 Thou shalt go out no more,
 Eileen aroon!"

POEMS OF THE DARK DAYS

"I do not know of anything under the sky
 That is friendly or favourable to the Gael,
 But only the sea that our need brings us to,
 Or the wind that blows to the harbour
 The ship that is bearing us away from Ireland;
 And there is reason that these are reconciled with us,
 For we increase the sea with our tears,
 And the wandering wind with our sighs."
Lady Gregory.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE GAEL

By O'Gnive, bard of Shane O'Neill, circa 1560.

M
My heart is in woe,
 And my soul deep in trouble,—
 For the mighty are low,
 And abased are the noble.
The Sons of the Gael
 Are in exile and mourning,
 Worn, weary, and pale,
 As spent pilgrims returning;
Or men who, in flight
 From the field of disaster,
 Beseech the black night
 On their flight to fall faster;
Or seamen aghast
 When their planks gape asunder,
 And the waves fierce and fast
 Tumble through in hoarse thunder;
Or men whom we see
 That have got their death-omen—
 Such wretches are we
 In the chains of our foemen!
Our courage is fear,
 Our nobility vileness,
 Our hope is despair,
 And our comeliness foulness.
There is mist on our heads,
 And a cloud chill and hoary
 Of black sorrow sheds
 An eclipse on our glory.
From Boyne to the Linn
 Has the mandate been given,
 That the children of Finn
 From their country be driven.
That the sons of the king—
 Oh, the treason and malice!—
 Shall no more ride the ring
 In their own native valleys;
No more shall repair
 Where the hill foxes tarry,
 Nor forth to the air
 Fling the hawk at her quarry;
For the plain shall be broke
 By the share of the stranger,
 And the stone-mason's stroke
 Tell the woods of their danger;
The green hills and shore
 Be with white keeps disfigured,
 And the Moat of Rathmore
 Be the Saxon churl's haggard!
The land of the lakes
 Shall no more know the prospect
 Of valleys and brakes—
 So transform'd is her aspect!
The Gael cannot tell,
 In the uprooted wild-wood
 And red ridgy dell,
 The old nurse of his childhood;
The nurse of his youth
 Is in doubt as she views him,
 If the wan wretch, in truth,
 Be the child of her bosom.
We starve by the board,
 And we thirst amid wassail—
 For the guest is the lord,
 And the host is the vassal!
Through the woods let us roam,
 Through the wastes wild and barren;
 We are strangers at home!
 We are exiles in Erin!
And Erin's a bark
 O'er the wide waters driven!
 And the tempest howls dark,
 And her side planks are riven!
And in billows of might
 Swell the Saxon before her,—
 Unite, oh, unite!
 Or the billows burst o'er her!
Sir Samuel Ferguson.

ADDRESS TO BRIAN O'ROURKE "OF
THE BULWARKS" TO AROUSE
HIM AGAINST THE ENGLISH[107]

By his bard, Teig Dall O'Higgin, about 1566.

"And first for Owryrke: I found hym the proudest man that ever I delt with in Irelande." (Sir Henry Sydney to the Privy Council, from Dublin, 1576.)

"The man of war is he who dwells in safety,"
 A well-worn adage that shall never cease,
 Save only when it girdeth on its armour
 May many-wooded Banba hope for peace.
Why sit ye still? the Clans of valorous Eoghan,
 The Clans of Conn and Conor round you stand;
 Do ye not hear the troops of Saxon England
 March o'er your plains and trample down your land?
Let Brian, son of Brian, out of Brefney,
 Beware the sweetness of their honeyed tongue,
 Their greed and need, their indigence and riches,
 Two-handed spoil from Ireland's sons have wrung.
Let Brian, son of Brian, son of Eoghan,
 Ponder if one man ever came away,—
 Who put his trust in England's perjured honour,—
 Unscathed by guile, unharmed by treachery?
As waters rising 'neath the snows of winter,
 As hamlets flaming from one secret spark,
 So shall the chiefs of Erinn rally round him,
 When Brian's star arises on the dark.
Then shall wild creatures find their surest covert
 Among the broken homesteads of the Pale;
 The wolves' deep snarl be heard beside her mansions,
 On grass-green Tara's slopes the children's wail.
Where once arose their lightsome lime-washed dwellings,
 Where once were precious things of price displayed,
 Be thenceforth whispered, in affrighted accents,
 That such things had been, ere O'Rourke's fierce raid.
By him be felled their rich fruit-bearing orchards,
 Each open highway clothed with ragged weeds;
 Long ere the harvest-hour their crops be scattered
 By his and Connaught's sons' death-dealing deeds.
Leave hungry famine in Boyne's fertile borders,
 Bir of the spreading-boughs bend 'neath his smart,
 So that a mother on Meath's richest pastures
 Shall munch the morsel of her first child's heart.
Right up to Taillte's very walls and towers
 Their villages be levelled with the earth;
 Their mills and kilns and haggarts swept before them;
 Where wealth and plenty reigns, dread want and dearth.
Smooth into desert wastes fair Usna's mountains,
 Pile into hills each widespread pleasant plain;
 So that a wandering man may seek her cities,
 So he may search her high cross-roads in vain.
By such and such an one let this be treasured
 (A tale of wonder for the passing guest)
 That on the plain was heard a heifer lowing,
 A tinkling cow-bell from the headland's crest.
Shrink not, O desperate band, from weapon-wounding,
 Stand as one body, man by brother man;
 Had but the clans of Erinn cleaved together
 Your land and you had not been under ban.
Arouse thee, valiant Brian of the Bulwarks!
 And God be with the champions of the Gael!
 The children of the seed of Conn and Eoghan
 Stand round thee;—canst thou fail?

FOOTNOTES:

[107] O'Rourke, Prince of Brefney, was a man whom Elizabeth and her representatives in Ireland found it hard to tackle. His handsome presence, his dignity and pride, gave rise to stories of his ascendency over Elizabeth herself. When lying prisoner in the Tower of London, he is said to have sent to ask Elizabeth the favour of being hung, if hang he must, with a gad or withe, after his country's fashion, a request which Cox, who relates the story, says was doubtless willingly granted him. He was executed in 1597. (Cox's Hibernia Anglicana, ed. 1689, p. 399; cf. Bacon's reference to the story in his essay "Of Custom and Education.")

O'HUSSEY'S ODE TO THE MAGUIRE

Eochadh O'Hosey or Hussey was bard of the Maguires of Fermanagh. The campaign of Hugh Maguire, celebrated in this poem, was undertaken in 1599-1600 into Munster.

Where is my chief, my master, this bleak night, mavrone?
 O cold, cold, miserably cold is this bleak night for Hugh!
 Its showery, arrowy, speary sleet pierceth one thro' and thro',
 Pierceth one to the very bone.
Rolls real thunder? Or was that red vivid light
 Only a meteor? I scarce know; but through the midnight dim
 The pitiless ice-wind streams. Except the hate that persecutes him,
 Nothing hath crueler venomy might.
An awful, a tremendous night is this, meseems!
 The flood-gates of the rivers of heaven, I think, have been burst wide;
 Down from the overcharged clouds, like to headlong ocean's tide,
 Descends grey rain in roaring streams.
Tho' he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods,
 Tho' he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea,
 Tho' he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he,
 This sharp sore sleet, these howling floods.
O mournful is my soul this night for Hugh Maguire!
 Darkly as in a dream he strays. Before him and behind
 Triumphs the tyrannous anger of the wounding wind,
 The wounding wind that burns as fire.
It is my bitter grief, it cuts me to the heart
 That in the country of Clan Barry this should be his fate!
 O woe is me, where is he? Wandering, houseless, desolate,
 Alone, without or guide or chart!
Medreams I see just now his face, the strawberry-bright,
 Uplifted to the blackened heavens, while the tempestuous winds
 Blow fiercely over and round him, and the smiting sleet-shower blinds
 The hero of Galang to-night!
Large, large affliction unto me and mine it is
 That one of his majestic bearing, his fair stately form,
 Should thus be tortured and o'erborne; that this unsparing storm
 Should wreak its wrath on head like his!
That his great hand, so oft the avenger of the oppressed,
 Should this chill churlish night, perchance, be paralysed by frost;
 While through some icicle-hung thicket, as one lorn and lost,
 He walks and wanders without rest.
The tempest-driven torrent deluges the mead,
 It overflows the low banks of the rivulets and ponds;
 The lawns and pasture-grounds lie locked in icy bonds,
 So that the cattle cannot feed.
The pale-bright margins of the streams are seen by none;
 Rushes and sweeps along the untamable flood on every side;
 It penetrates and fills the cottagers' dwellings far and wide;
 Water and land are blent in one.
Through some dark woods, 'mid bones of monsters, Hugh now strays,
 As he confronts the storm with anguished heart, but manly brow,
 O what a sword-wound to that tender heart of his, were now
 A backward glance at peaceful days!
But other thoughts are his, thoughts that can still inspire
 With joy and onward-bounding hope the bosom of MacNee;
Thoughts of his warriors charging like bright billows of the sea,
 Borne on the wind's wings, flashing fire!
And tho' frost glaze to-night the clear dew of his eyes,
 And white ice-gauntlets glove his noble fine fair fingers o'er,
 A warm dress is to him that lightening-garb he ever wore,
 The lightening of his soul, not skies.

Avran.

Hugh marched forth to fight: I grieved to see him so depart.
 And lo! to-night he wanders frozen, rain-drenched, sad betrayed;
 But the memory of the lime-white mansions his right hand hath laid
 In ashes, warms the hero's heart!
James Clarence Mangan.

A LAMENT FOR THE PRINCES OF
TYRONE AND TYRCONNEL

Buried in San Pietro Montorio at Rome

Addressed to Nuala, the O'Donnell's sister, by Owen Roe mac an Bhaird (or Ward), the family Bard, in 1608-9.

O
woman of the piercing wail,
 Who mournest o'er yon mound of clay
 With sigh and groan,
 Would God thou wert among the Gael!
 Thou would'st not then from day to day
 Weep thus alone.
 'Twere long before around a grave
 In green Tyrconnel, one could find
 This loneliness;
 Near where Beann-Boirche's banners wave,
 Such grief as thine could ne'er have pined
 Companionless.
Beside the wave in Donegal,
 In Antrim's glens, or fair Dromore,
 Or Killilee,
 Or where the sunny waters fall
 At Assaroe, near Erna shore,
 This could not be.
 On Derry's plains, in rich Drumcliff,
 Throughout Armagh the Great, renowned
 In olden years,
 No day could pass but woman's grief
 Would rain upon the burial-ground
 Fresh floods of tears!
O no!—From Shannon, Boyne, and Suir,
 From high Dunluce's castle-walls,
 From Lissadill,
 Would flock alike both rich and poor:
 One wail would rise from Cruachan's halls
 To Tara hill;
 And some would come from Barrow-side,
 And many a maid would leave her home
 On Leitrim's plains,
 And by melodious Banna's tide,
 And by the Mourne and Erne, to come
 And swell thy strains!
Oh, horses' hoofs would trample down
 The mount whereon the martyr-saint
 Was crucified;
 From glen and hill, from plain and town,
 One loud lament, one thrilling plaint,
 Would echo wide.
 There would not soon be found, I ween,
One foot of ground among those bands
 For museful thought,
 So many shriekers of the keen
 Would cry aloud, and clap their hands,
 All woe-distraught!
Two princes of the line of Conn
 Sleep in their cells of clay beside
 O'Donnell Roe:
 Three royal youths, alas! are gone,
 Who lived for Erin's weal, but died
 For Erin's woe.
 Ah, could the men of Ireland read
 The names those noteless burial-stones
 Display to view,
 Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed,
 Their tears gush forth again, their groans
 Resound anew!
The youths whose relics moulder here
 Were sprung from Hugh, high prince and lord
 Of Aileach's lands;
 Thy noble brothers, justly dear,
 Thy nephew, long to be deplored
 By Ulster's bands.
 Theirs were not souls wherein dull time
 Could domicile decay, or house
 Decrepitude!
 They passed from earth ere manhood's prime,
 Ere years had power to dim their brows,
 Or chill their blood.
And who can marvel o'er thy grief,
 Or who can blame thy flowing tears,
 Who knows their source?
 O'Donnell, Dunnasava's chief,
 Cut off amid his vernal years,
 Lies here a corse
 Beside his brother Cathbar, whom
 Tyrconnell of the Helmets mourns
 In deep despair:
 For valour, truth, and comely bloom,
 For all that greatens and adorns,
 A peerless pair.
Oh, had these twain, and he, the third,
 The Lord of Mourne, O'Niall's son
 (Their mate in death,
 A prince in look, in deed, and word),
 Had these three heroes yielded on
 The field their breath,
 Oh, had they fallen on Criffan's plain,
 There would not be a town or clan
 From shore to sea,
 But would with shrieks bewail the slain,
 Or chant aloud the exulting rann
 Of jubilee!
What do I say? Ah, woe is me!
 Already we bewail in vain
 Their fatal fall!
 And Erin, once the great and free,
 Now vainly mourns her breakless chain,
 And iron thrall.
Then, daughter of O'Donnell, dry
 Thine overflowing eyes, and turn
 Thy heart aside,
 For Adam's race is born to die,
 And sternly the sepulchral urn
 Mocks human pride.
Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne,
 Nor place thy trust in arm of clay,
 But on thy knees
 Uplift thy soul to God alone,
 For all things go their destined way
 As He decrees.
 Embrace the faithful crucifix,
 And seek the path of pain and prayer
 Thy Saviour trod;
 Nor let thy spirit intermix
 With earthly hope, with worldly care,
 Its groans to God![108]
And Thou, O mighty Lord! whose ways
 Are far above our feeble minds
 To understand,
 Sustain us in these doleful days,
 And render light the chain that binds
 Our fallen land!
Look down upon our dreary state,
 And thro' the ages that may still
 Roll sadly on,
 Watch Thou o'er hapless Erin's fate,
 And shield at least from darker ill
 The blood of Conn!
James Clarence Mangan.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] The literal translation of this stanza runs as follows:—

"For God's sake, thy weighty sorrow banish away, O daughter of O'Donnell! Short time till thou in self-same guise must tread the way; the same path's weariness awaits thee. In hand of clay put not thy trust.... Think on the cross that stands beside thee, and, in lieu of thy vain sorrowing, from off the sepulchre lift up thine arm and bid thy grief begone." O'Grady's Cat. of MSS. in the Brit. Mus., pp. 372-73.

THE COUNTY OF MAYO

Or the "Lament of Thomas Flavell, or Lavell," c. 1660.

On the deck of Patrick Lynch's boat I sat in woeful plight,
 Through my sighing all the weary day, and weeping all the night,
 Were it not that full of sorrow from my people forth I go,
 By the blessed sun! 'tis royally I'd sing thy praise, Mayo!
When I dwelt at home in plenty, and my gold did much abound,
 In the company of fair young maids the Spanish ale went round—
 'Tis a bitter change from those gay days that now I'm forced to go,
 And must leave my bones in Santa Cruz, far from my own Mayo.
They are altered girls in Irrul now; 'tis proud they're grown and high,
 With their hair-bags and their top-knots—for I pass their buckles by;
 But it's little now I heed their airs, for God will have it so,
 That I must depart for foreign lands, and leave my sweet Mayo.
'Tis my grief that Patrick Loughlin is not Earl of Irrul still,
 And that Brian Duff no longer rules as Lord upon the hill;
 And that Colonel Hugh MacGrady should be lying dead and low,
 And I sailing, sailing swiftly from the county of Mayo.
George Fox.[109]