Mulhern Donation
IRISH
POEMS AND LEGENDS;
HISTORICAL AND TRADITIONARY,
WITH ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
BY THOMAS C. IRWIX
GLASGOW: CAMEHON & FERGUSON,
88 WEST NILE STREET,
GLASGOW :
DUNN AND WRIGHT,
PRINTERS.
Betucate
THIS BOOK
IRISH BALLADS, SKETCHES, AND SONGS,
TO MY COUNTRYMEN,
NATIVE AND E3IIGBANT.
761904
PREFACE.
THIS volume commences with a few legendary Ballads
illustrative of the successive periods of ancient Irish
History, Pagan and Christian. Ballads on general sub-
jects follow ; and to these succeed Songs, Sketches, and
Poems, which reflect, however imperfectly, the feelings
and scenery of the Race and Land. As political themes
not being very capable of poetic treatment do not
enter into the composition of this book, it may be trusted
that it will be acceptable to all classes who read Irish or
English verses. Of mine, the public will form an estimate,
favourable or the reverse. Of the cost at which the book
is presented, there can be no difference of opinion ; as one
which contains nearly six thousand lines of Original
Poetry for Sixpence or One Shilling, according as it is
sold in paper or bound, may challenge comparison with
even the cheapest American reproductions of British
literature. As the object of the Publishers, Messrs.
CAMERON & FERGUSON, is to adapt a volume of Irish
VI PREFACE.
Poetry to the means of even the poorest of the intel-
lectual classes of those Islands and the Colonies, it is
to be hoped that the richer classes will not before per-
usalestimate its literary merits by its cost. Just now
Manchester outsells the world, and Glasgow bids fair to
compete with Manchester in "prints" of another de-
scription.
T. C. I.
CONTENTS,
Paga
From Asia to Erie
Miletus, 9
The Departure, 12
The Voyage 14
Eodga and Mugha 17
The Legend of Diortha, the Bard, 26
St Patrick and Aengus, 31
St Columba's Spell, A.D. 560, 39
The Battle of Cill Mosanhog, 41
The Wanderings and Lamentations of Queen Gormilaith, ... 47
Ebba and her Sisters, 63
The Story of the Lord of Tarbert 1630, 67
The Prisoner of Limerick, 63
A Legend of King Arthur's Days, 66
Castle and Bower, 70
The Peasant's Pilgrimage, 75
The Sea Serpent 77
Skeleton Stories 79
The Phantom Ship, 79
Old Tor Quid's Yarn, 82
The Pursuit, 85
The Fiend Face, 86
Una, 89
Before the Battle 91
The Evening. 91
The Night, 92
The Death Storm, ... 93
The Potato Digger's Song, 96
The Emigrant's Voyage 93
Evening, 93
Morning, 93
The Old Sword of Ireland 93
The Irish Girl to her Dead Mother, 100
A Vision of Erie, 103
Swift, 106
Vlll CONTEXTS,
Page
Grattan Ill
Squibs from the Crimean War 112
Before Sebastopol, 114
An Irish Mother's Dream, 115
The Hosts of Night, 117
The Old Minstrel's Fireside, 118
The Poor Poet to his Verses, 119
Song of All Hallow's Eve, 121
Song of Spring, ... 123
Song, ... 124
St Patrick's Night in Old Times 125
A Lament for Donnybrook ... 127
Song The Fair, 129
A Health to the Nations, 130
A May- Day Revel, 133
A Student's Summer Ramble 137
Morning, 137
Noon, 133
Student's Song, 139
Evening, 141
Song 142
The Exile's Lament, 143
Hymn of Progress, 114
NOTES, 147
IRISH BALLADS,
SKETCHES, AND SONGS,
BY
THOMAS C. IRWIN.
WITH ILLUSTRATIVE ^NGTES
FROM ASIA TO ERIEi - " l '
OW Colonizing Days (Pafjan Period. )
MILETUS i.
GOLDEN evening fronted the Carian coast many citied and
villaged;
A land of white shores and mountains blue, and broad plains
wooded and tillaged;
From the roofs of the blossomed chesnuts deep, and syca-
mores of the valley,
O'er hollow and slope the numerous nightingales were begin-
ning to rally,
While other birds surceased their song, awakening amid
the glory,
To chant in a stillness, all their own, their emulous evening
story,
From cape to cape, in the radiant calm, exuberant and
unceasing,
Like palpitant waves of a fresh spring tide multitudiiiously
increasing.
Hose hues bathed the Messogian summits and lawns, where,
sheep surrounded,
Lay the herdsmen under the foliage; and as the low sun
rounded,
Flaming across the azure Asian sea and its islands famous-
Green Ikarid, Patmos, Cos to the west, and northward Samoa
Stretching steep headlands into the glow circled by many
an arbour,
Along the leafy hills to the south, Miletus' city and harbour
Was seen, with temples white, and mole by vessels
numerous masted
O'ertopp d all the black sails up-clewed that Boreas often
had blasted
io
Wlien vapours of the thundering pole, from the Etixine
were rolling grey on,
And tempest scudded the foam of the swollen tenebrous
Aegean,
But, lustrous level were now the waters; by curved shores
yellow sanded
The wave worn fisher vessels in lines beyond the sprays were
stranded;
While by the smoky hall of a house above a grassy
meadow
A sea coast group sat under the stoney porch's sheltering
shadow;
Young men and ol<d, .maids, children, wives, to an aged
mariiier listening, .
Who spakVwitfci' gray.3 face, grey as the sea, and eyes under
grey brows glistening.: '
"Yea>, friends, at length the season has come when the
sailing stars invite us
To seek new regions, whither the winds may carry, or thy
will, light us;
To-morrow Milesus, king of men, with a colony of three
hundred,
Will leave the city haven there, and, with omen good for it
thundered
As the priest was offering sacrifice to Neptune the earth
shaker
Upon the prow of our loftest barque, and the captain has
vowed to take her
With the other nine Biremes of the fleet, out into the
western ocean,
Even to Hyperborean skies, beneath which, he -has a
notion,
Earned from some mariners of Phcenice, that an Island,
grassy and spacious,
Projects to the south of the winter heaven of shadow, its
regions gracious,
Wherein wild cattle abundant feed where lake and river
are teaming
With fish, as its. sheltered shores, with flocks of fowl in-
numerate screaming;
And where, 'tis said, are scattered a few dull barbarous Men
of Cattle,
Slaves to a tribe from the north of the sunset land, o'ercoino
in battle;
And these we doubt not to subdue, and awe from barbarous
pillage
By force of arms and minds, and mould them into servants of
tillage;
11
For the law of the gods is this that the boor must yield to
superior races,
Even as the savage hunter clears the earth of the wild beasts'
traces.
Then say, friends, which of your strong sons hero will join
our expedition,
Of whose success the oracle yonder tells the holy tradition."
Then one arose and said "Lo! I, Hereraon, and my
brother,
Eru, will take the voyage;" and hushed were the group, nor
spake another,
Until the young sea hero's sister fair and their aged mother
Brake into sobs : for a while so still was the place, th' stream
that tinkled
Under the cliff was heard. Then the weeping woman, her
forehead wrinkled,
Raising from out her robe, said .sadly: "Sons, whom I've
nursed and tended,
I thought with me you still would abide until my years were
ended;
But now you desire to scatter my hopes of happy home and
daughters
Duteous and fruitful, by adventuring forth upon mighty
waters
Known to gods only; whence I may never see you again
returning,
Never again your voices hear, when the winter hearth is
burning;
Or in the fields of spring and autumn, or through the twilight
rowing
With boats fish-full to the creek beneath, when Hesperus is
glowing;
Yet, ne'eiiess sons of mine, youth's days are those shaped
for adventure,
Go, if ye will, nor from your parents expect reproach or
censure
The gods will guard ye but, 'tis hard to part " 110 more
she uttered,
While eager to course the seas remote, the youths together
muttered,
Yet rose when they saw that mother weeping, and kissed
her forehead, crying,
Clear voiced " Too full of life are you, our mother, to think
of dying,
Many a year's to come for you no less than us; but the
ocean
Draws all the youths away from this coast who take delight
in motion
12
Cpon its bosom why then should we remain at home to
wither
Like unto trees rooted in rock, when the vastness draws us
thither,
To add new lands to those now known, and spread, whatever
befaie us,
Even to the isles where rest the stars, the glory of our
Miletus,
Which long has covered the north sea's coasts with cities
Tomi, Cercesus,
Odessus, Opollonia grand, rich Sinope and Trapezus;
And such, even by the northern foam, we sons of the east
will raise us.
But fear not that, in day no more we'll meet, but in Hades
only,
Or that your lives, dear parents, will descend to winter lonely,
We on the waves unseen: not so; familiar now with the
heaven,
The orbs, the winds, wherever about the seas we may be
driven,
Though all inhabited lands had sunk in the roaring ocean
sunward,
And our ships through the snow-drift's blinding sheet, by
the pole sailed stormily onward,
Our sure return expect, when some few hundred suns have
faded,
Or furthest, when spring greens the hills that winter thrice
has shaded;
M ay chance, with blocks of solid gold our shining poops upon
set,
Great deeds to tell, and wondrous tales of lands beyond the
sunset. "
THE DEPARTURE II.
Next morn, when o'er Miletus' city the bright Opoll was
soaring
In splendour, harbourward an eager multitude came pouring
Down the steep streets to the huge sea wall piled loftily over
the dashing
Billows, and from the Meander's wave past wooded villages
flashing;
In skiffs, too, from the haven's isles, Perne, green shored and
shady
Dronicus fronting the offing's tumbling surge, and clear
springed Lade,
To see the colony under its chief, sail forth for the unknown
regions
Beyond where the Cyiiese dwell, and the Cletoeh marshal
their legions;
1.3
And thronged was every house-top soon with people cheering
and hailing
Their friends upon the waves; and a shout of mingled acclaim
and wailing
Rung through the glare, as the curved vessels rounding
seaward surged
By the lighthouse tower, with beat of oars through the
breezy azure urged.
And when the chaunt of the sacrifice, the priestesses}
gathered together
Round the old altar on the mole, had offered for fair
weather,
And the last prayer to the winds had ceased in the sacred
hush that followed
Those nearest the fleet on the promont's end the waves in
caves had hollowed,
For a while could hear the bleat of the sheep in the holds of
the vessels blending,
With the cries of the women and girls on the decks and over
the high sterns bending;
Seeing the waters widen between the ships, and their dear
homes growing
Dimmer and dimmer on city and shore, as the land wind
freshlier blowing
Bellied the stiff skin sails; while along the bay's marge
auburn sanded,
Running in crowds to look their last, and wave adieus white-
handed
Women, Ionian, Celtic, Carian, gathered, praying and
weeping
For their sea lovers, sons and brothers, close to the blue
wave sweeping
Its chill sprays over their sandalled feet; their robes of various
tincture
Blown backward like their yellow hair and bosoms loosened
cincture;
And some screamed shrill to the dwindling faces, and others
overwhelmed
With sorrow mutely dropp'd their tears in the brine, as the
lofty helmed
Vessels sunk down the windy bay, and along the golden low
line
Of sunset, had become as small as a scarce distinguished
crow line.
And still from the city's towers some watched the black
fleet westward sailing;
But, ere the night o'erhung the deep, and those shores of
loss and wailing,
14
The city returned to its works and pleasures the streets
were full of clamour,
Again rung the armourer's shops with the chink of metal and
and beat of hammer.
In the troughs of colour the dyer steeped the long soft sunny
fleeces,
At the looms the women spun the cloths, and cut them in
purple pieces
For the needle of the embroiderer to fashion in costly ap-
parel,
Elaborate with device of silk, sardonix, silver, and beryl;
With worshippers filled the twilight temples, whither, offer-
ings varied,
Meats and drinks, roses and fruits for the gods, by many
were carried;
And feasted the rich town folk in their chambers opening
airily over
The sea. At the city gates sung the bards, while white-
robed girl and lover,
Under the starry roof of the plane trees skirting the full
volumed river,
Whispering, wandered, or danced, as the moon on the current
began to quiver;
While down the windy sea-skies rounding in circles never
ending,
Of undulant water and azure air, the voyagers westward
tending
Followed the sun that followed them; and new moona over
the mountains
Grew full, or dwindling at midnight set on the groups by the
sacred fountains.
And year followed year, and the Pleiads thrice in the spring
skies rose, but never
Again returned those ten black barques to Miletus city and
river.
THE VOYAGE. III.
Westward they steadily cleft the seas, at morn past sunny
islands
Their steep shores ranged with hamlets white under um-
brageous highlands
By temples top'd, whence waterfalls like threads of silver
quivered,
Down the oak-clothed heights to the verdant valleys, shining
rivered,
Where, in the golden spreading glow, from cottage roof and
from altar,
Straight rose the smoke till its slender azure pillar appeared
to falter
15
In air from leafy steep to steep like hauling hazy bridges ;
By headlands where the lazy billow tumbled along the ridges
Of grey cliff overhung by clambering pale sea vine and
sedges,
And then the land was lost, and then it re-appeared and
faded;
And now the wind dropp'd to a calm o'er the heaving waste
o'ershaded;
And again was seen the sombre wave mounting the steep
cape foamy,
And shadowing gusts swept down from the north, that far
away grew gloomy,
Crossed by dark horizontal clouds, boding a breeze sail
shaking,
When night had fallen, and the hatches were closed, and the
wave-strained timbers aching.
Thus many a day those black ships voyaged, by storms dis-
astrous scattered
On populous coasts refitting in haste their sea gear, billow-
shattered
Between far blustering Thrace and the realms beneath whose
cloudland sad is
The black-jawed mountain barrier leading down to retumless
Hades;
And, south, the night-dark Ethiop nations past the desert
sea line
And the Lotus eaters, dreamily girt from the world by their
giant tree line.
Thus sailed those guests of the void by lengths of living
lands, in sightless
Distance sunk, whence zephyrs breathe from the wat'ry
heavens nightless;
Or, where from earth's Cimmerian north the cold broad winds
Borean
Blow under Bootes hung in gloomy blue, their hybernal
pa3an;
Driven through the wildiierness of foam and darkness, or
with dawning
Making some bay where bubbled the pure spring under its
olive awning;
Till at length the summits of Afric and Iberia, cloud sur-
rounded,
World against world frowned, over the Ocean plumet never
sounded,
Into whose starry vagueness suddenly by a storm they were
carried,
And, for a time, where distance itself had vanished, furiously
hurried.
1C
Then fear on them fell, for that shoreless waste they deemed
a thing supernal
The all-encompassing infinite of waters grey and eternal-
Awful as an unknown God in the day and the dark it seemed
Even when they hugged the winding coast and the cheerful
sunlight beamed
Immensity primeval, home of storms and invisible powers,
Space where the isles divine of sunset open their valleys of
flowers,
Viewed but a moment as in a dream, and faint as through
summer showers
White beeches smiling with purple shells beneath elysian
woodlands,
Rivulets faint as the voices sweet that swoon from those
golden flood sands;
Whence, on the azure calm came floating ambrosial boughs,
but rarely
Seen by the mariner at the helm in the death still morning
early,
Weighed wdth celestial fruitage cold, rounded in sunset'3
blushes,
Dropp'd from immortal arbourage, golden, wet, enchanted,
luscious,
Whose sweetness who can taste, may count on fortunate
days, with ending
Soft as Hesperian twilight into the starry waters blending.
Thus, dauntless purposed, they sailed to the unknown north,
by winds befriended
Through dangers many on sea and shore, until that voyage
ended
On the southern coasts of a spacious Isle with deep blue bays
serrated,
Amid whose grassy plains of cattle and forests green it was
fated
Their lives should pass in a rainbow clime of showery airs
and sunny,
Where the fields abounded with milk, the rivers with fish,
the oaks with honey;
Where they were destined to teach its race the arts of the
Celtic nation,
That long had forgotten their wandering days in an Asian
civilization ;
And, far from the sunrise, lay their bones for ever on stony
pillows,
Under the northern stars, beside the long Atlantic billows.
17
KODGA AXD MUGHA.
(I\ifjan Period, about GS A.D.)
L
A TALE of the times of old: in Erie, the noblest isle of the
north,
Which spreads its ample expanse of turf to the circling
foam of the main,
Where the mountains rise, like kings of the past, and the
rivers flowing forth
From their showery crests, make rich with their waters,
the kiiie- abounding plain,
Where the woods that give our slave-race shelter, in sun-
heat and storm and rain,
Yield up their loftiest oak and beech, for our palace walls
and halls,
For the multitudinous fleets of chieftains, many-oared and
strong,
High-built o'er the wave, with their warrior-rooms, wine-
stores and cattle -stalls,
To breast the surge of the swollen seas, whenever the
mandate calls
The hosts to the plunder of sightless shores, or avenge a
monarch's wrong.
Here are lands of white mantles and thronging spears, where
hospitably gleams,
The fortress fair, and the castle's fire, by the salmon-abound-
ing streams.
Here are headlands high, whence flames at night the beacon,
far on the brine;
Blue bays, where at anchor frequent float the foreign fleets of
wine,
And valleys of music, where Scolaidhe's bards, in times
succeeding wars,
Attune their golden harps in the leaves, 'mid the twinkle of
tranquil stars;
Here are harbours many, and deep and secure, whencever the
tempests blow;
Strong trench' d mansions and plains of cattle, milk and
honey, and mead, galore;
Here yearly, twice the flocks increase, twice with apples the
orchards groan,
Here circles perpetual April fresh, and summer in months not
her own;
And a puissant race, renowned no less for song than the
spear and bow,
Sons of the Sun they worship, hold the land from shore to
shore.
13
*Twas the time when Guyon tlie Wiso had died, and his
people had raised him a mound,
Whose high green slope is seen but a league from the stately
roofs of Tara,
Where, shining through banks of grass, and groves of sweet
beech murmuring round,
Flows to the sea, by village and rath, the clear-waved
Fionuara.
King Guyon, whose reign was calm, as a day at the plente-
ous time of the year
When folk say summer looks over its shoulder, had left
two princely sons,
Eoclga the fair, and Mugha the black; to him they were
equally clear,
Though save in valour, different each as the thin swift
ashen spear,
That sightlessly whistling, pierces to death; and the heavy
mace that stuns;
.And the King had given his lands unto them, with equal
division of all
His ample riches ; valleys of swift-footed horses, tracts of
corn,
Tracts of cattle, rivers of fish, and shadowing woodlands tall,
With herds of fat, slow moving swine, in the glens of oak
and thorn,
Watched by huge serfs, the slow heavy men of the Fear Bolg
conquered of yore ;
Stables of chariots for battle and travel, and hosts of martial
men
la iron armed, from the foot to the breast, and the glittering
helms they wore;
Of spinning handmaidens, each thrice seven; of attendants
ten times ten,
And numberless chests of garments many-coloured, cloaks
of white
And robes of purple, yellow, green, and silver, foreign attire,
Girdles and collars and brooches, and as beh'tted their might
And noble birth, two jewelled swords, and crowns that
gleamed like fire.
Ill,
Though the seed of a calm, wise, chief, both Eodga and
Mugha were practised in war,
For to Leogir both, while beardless yet, had voyaged over
the sea,
When the great Buadice, assembling the mountain nations
of Albin, as yet free,
19
Came clown like a storm on the Romans, and sunk, alas !
with her star :
Had engaged, too, in many a knightly encounter, in Eric
here at home ;
From the cold grey hills of Ulida, clown to Leath Moglia, the
warm and green,
And in raids from the friendly sea of the South to the Isles,
of the Whales in the foam,
Where their long victorious black battle barques were a
many times seen ;
And 'twas there in a war with the fierce strong-boned
painted men of that coast,
Of the deadly whirl -tide, snow-storm, and fog, that contend-
ing on shore and billow,
Eodga cleft down to the breast the great Loarin. at the head
of his roaring host,
And M ugha, with one mighty blow, in his armour, crushed
Sitric Forillo.
Many a wide land echoed the fame of those thunderbolts of war;
The wolves of the fastness followed their track, and the
eagles knew them from far ;
Nor ever came either from foray or battle, without some
trophy of power,
Tributes ot" cattle, of maids and slaves, and ship loads of armour
bright,
Or the tall spear, strung with their enemies' sanguined skulls
a vociferous sight
To the thronged shores, where they landed by day or by red
torch light.
And those skulls grace the flaming temple of Crom, at Magh
Sleacht, to this very hour.
IV,
For a year those heroes lived on their lands, nor adventured
in any strife,
But passed their days in sport with their tribes, in matches
of swimming and bole,
In the race of horses, the play of tables ; and in all they were
kings of life,
Likewise, in the fight of winged resounding speech that
conquers the soul ;
But, though many a maiden thronged their courts, the
loveliest in the land,
For there was Blathnaid, sweet as a rose, andFionola of the
shoulders of snow,
Murgel, with breast like the pure sunn'd spray, and Orflath
wealthy in land,
And pleasant Feith failo, whose words and whose song were
smooth as the river's flow ;
20
Yet never till rare Lassairfhina appeared like the dawn 'a
red cloud on the billow,
When the sea breathes music, and morn's star shines with a
secret and lovesome glow,
Pid Eodga or Muglia e'er sigh for the light of a woman's
smile on the pillow
Albeit this beauty was daughter of Irrah once Guyon's
deadliest foe.
v.
Her form in its sleepy luxurious smoothness and beauty of
mould
Resembled the rainbow -hued snake in the meadows of sun-
heated grass,
That gliding indrawn with co'y graces, half -hidden, appears
as you pass,
Xow tempting and blithe in retreating, now beauteously
bold ;
Her eyes were like jewels of magic, whose meaning no soul
can divine ;
On her mouth was the bloom of the midsummer rose, and the
warm red gold
Of her plenteous autumn of odorous hair, whether floating
like wings
Of the morning, when loosed to the wind of the chase, or
eiishiningly rolled
O'er her forehead, as fair as the spring sea's foam, but as
false as a wave,
Cherished love in each amorous wreathe, and love's cunning
in every twine ;
Her motion was soft as low music, her voice like the music
of strings,
While her converse alluring and sweet, whether joyous, soft,
subtle or grave,
Caught the soul of each listener, and fired every pulse like
the spirit of wine.
Short time had elapsed since the coming of rare Lassairfhim,
to court,
When first great Eodga, and then mighty Mugha, felt stricken
with love to the core.
Their attendants remarked how indifferent both had become
to the pleasures of sport.
Such as chieftains delight in ; how careless of all save the
sumptuous garments they wore;
21
That their exploits of strength were forgotten, and nothing
attracted them now but the song
Of the bard in the sunny soft chamber of women, or bower by
the orchard's clear stream;
That both, grown unwontedly silent, delighting in solitude,
wandered along
By wild ways and silent, by day and by night, like men in
whose bosoms a wrong
Burns smouldering ever, dividing them off from their kind,
as in fear,
Lest any discover the purpose they nursed, till occasion of