Now on the grass-green turf he sits,
His tasselled 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 possessed,
More richly than in Aghrim's bow'r,
When bards high praised her beauty's pow'r,
And kneeling pages offered 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 heroe'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 every rock and every 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 wo to them that wrapt in blood
The tissue of my story!

* A drink made of the juice of mulberry mixed with honey.

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 called 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 ;*
Witness their Eat!.'s victorious brand,†
And Cathal of the bloody hand,—
Glory (they said) and power 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 stemmed De Bourgo's chivalry?
And what was it to love and me,
That barons by your standard rode;
Or beal-firest for your jubilee,
Upon a hundred mountains glowed.
What tho' the lords of tower and dome
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 flower its bloom;

*The psalter of Tara was the great national register of the ancien Irish.

† Vide the note upon the victories of the house of O'Connor.

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-' O come with me:
Our bark is on the lake: behold,

Our steeds are fastened 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 honeycomb;
And berries from the wood provide,
And play my clars hech* by thy side.
Then come, my love!'-How could I stay?
Our nimble stag-hounds tracked the way,
And I pursued by moonless skies,
The light of Connocht Moran's eyes,

IX.

"And fast and far, before the star
Of dayspring rushed me thro' the glade,
And saw at dawn the lofty bawnt
Of Castle Connor fade.

Sweet was to us the hermitage

Of this unploughed, untrodden shore:
Like birds all joyous from the cage,
For man's neglect we loved it more.
And well he knew, my huntsman dear,
To search the game with havik and spear;
While I, his evening food to dress,
Would sing to him in happiness.

* The harp.

† Ancient fortification.