Of Cearbal, my first kingly sponsor, who with my angered

sire,

Alas ! in treacherous, hateful battle quenched his youthful fire
At Beatagh Muahu? or again of Niall Glundub, King
Of Uladh's warrior races ? Few the years that oil the wing
Have passed to the great spirit-land beyond the starry space
When I yet owned the majesty descended from my race.
But now, alas ! the isle possesses but their dust alone,
And I, a wanderer, haunt the tombs of those who held its

throne.

So give me food, good Biatach, and yield me rest, lest I,
Enhungered and foot weary with my long day's travel, die,
Before my mission is fulfilled in visiting this place;
For I must see Saint Moula who lives nigh in sacred grace."

The hours of the autumn night past, windy darkness possessed

the wide earth;
And the traveller company drowsed, or stretched sleeping

around the wide hearth,



49

The fool and the jester were snoring, the cattle were dumb in

their stalls,
And wrapped in their leathern cloaks others slept under night

by the walls,
When the pale beggar Queen, all forlorn, slowly paced by the

marge of the lake ;

All was dark; through a cleft in the barren hills sinking remote
The new moon just guided her way past a chapel, and boat
Stranded nigh, when she saw some way out something white

like a flake

Of foam; and had cried to the darkness and echoes, "Oh, where,
Moula, Saint of Fortuatha, art thou ?" when she was aware
Of the monk in his robes lying prone in his cold penitential bed,
For the black waters covered his form so that nothing was

seen but his head.

"Well, know I, oh G-ormflaith, thy voice," said the shadowy

head from the wave,
* 'And, were it another save thou who hast come like a ghost

from the grave

To break thus upon my night vigil and cold penitential prayer,
Thou'd find me more dumb than the water that washes the

rocky beach there;
But I know that thou, daughter, has lost all that mortal can

lose here below,
And that death is the best gift that Heaven could send thee

to quiet thy woe;
But, 'tis sorrow will win thee that heaven, it is suffering only

unlocks
Those glorious portals, oh, Gormflaith, for thee, that for me by

the shocks

Of perpetual prayer and of pains self-inflicted, will yield,
Though a million of devils opposing spat fire on the shield
Of this soul I have tempered to conquer salvation; lo, here
Night by night in those deadly cold waters I make me a bier,
Till no more seems the dust of my body, my own, than the

clay

Of yon hills; till my spirit all purified seems like the ray
Of the moon and the stars that shine 011 me remote from the

life
Of this hateful, accursed gloomy world, rolled in crime and in

strife.

Oft at night when my blood is as cold as the water wherein
T lie for long hours, wrapped in prayer, to cleanse off all sin,
I hear a sweet voice on the wind of the hills whispering
In Christ's blessed accents the glory my penance will bring;
Then the wind and the wave, and the star and the cloud unto

me
Make the vastness of nature my desolate sweet company;



50

And after I've numbered of aves three hundred and more,

I see splendid angels descend from the hill to the shore,
Who smile on me, saying, the rest of the saints shall be

mine,
And who number me with them in Christ's resurrection

divine.
But, daughter, approach, while my soul is exalted with

prayer,
That I hear thy confession, and shrive thee and bless thee,

oh Queen,

And make thy heart pure as the dew en the matinal green,
Sanctified by my power, and freed from all sorrow and care!"

So Gormflaith approached and knelt down on the sands by

the shore
Where the ripple scarce moved, while the wind in the clouds,

hanging o'er,

Opened up a calm space of blue sky, and a cluster was seen
Like a throng of bright spirits. Beyond the lake's level the

roar

Of the cascade was heard faint and far in the hills evermore:
From the moon, set beyond the great hills, passed a dolorous

air
Then the shadows closed round, as she spake in the cold silence.

there.

II Oh! woes, innumerable woes have crossed my life" she said,
" Since, holy saint, upon thy knee I bent my maiden head;
A beggar queen I pilgrim to the Churches here to pray

For Cormac and for Flann, forNiall, even Cearbal, on my way.
Dead are the glories of my people like yon sunless west,
And night must reign within this heart till I have reached my

rest;

A few short days of sorrow, and then all for me is o'er;
The light of life shall never more be Gorimiaith's, never more !
But I, though full of anguish, now have lost all taste of fear,
For I have seen the worst that fate from hell can bring me

here;
Love lost, loves turned to hatred, wars of kindred, deadliest

crime,

Battles, revenges, terrors, unsurpassed in any time
And when the worst of woes are seen, the lesser nothing are,
And, save the Star of Christ, forme there's now no other Star.
Lo ! in the windy darkness of the long nights wander I,
When earth and sea are rolled in the same blackness as the sky,
Over the desolate land alone, by passes drear where prowl
The wolves and now by solitary cities where the owl
Hoots at the moon; by tields of battle cumbered thick with

dead
Where I see the heavy eagle from his feast of famine red



51

Disturbed, a moment rise, and settle heavily again,

With outstretched claw and bloody beak tearing the flesh of

men;

Or wandering in the high wrought tempest hear its distant roar;
See the huge tumult of the vast rage round the thundering

shore;

Or, view, maychance, unshaken, by some sullen mountain mere
In the glare of gloomy winter lightning, glimmering, low and

drear,

Some phantom sitting on the rocks above the deadly deep,
Or gazing on some shipwreck from the stormy ocean steep.
Such is the life of Gormflaith now, whose crown's resplendent

ray
Once shone from Boinn to Crith Cath Bhuide, from Sionain to

Magh Breagh.

Alone, alas ! I wander earth where lie my kindred's graves,
Toward the night amid the years that roll like darkening

waves,

Poor and bereft of all I loved, of ail who held me dear
Since when I saw the head of Cormac dripping from the spear
That Cearbal raised above the fight; and fearful was my fate,
To be the wife of him who slew my young heart's earliest mate,
And daughter unto one who joined with him in deadliest hate:
For, when at Naas, the war being over, Cearbal wounded la}',
And I attendant watched beside him of a summer's day,
Deeming him sleeping while I thought of Cormac, and my

heart
Burst from my eyes; a sudden from the couch I saw him

start,
And staring at me cry : ' What ! weeping, weeping, still

for him,

The traitor, whom in battle I have torn limb from limb -
His death is this the cause that makes thee sorrow by the

side
Of Cearbal, who has honoured thee by making thee his

bride ? '
And I outspoke : * Yes, Cearbal, 'tis for him my eyes o'er-

flow
And shall while ere I live no, murderer, never hope from

me,

Thy throne shall yet support a branch of hateful progeny;
Did I give birth to son or daughter of thy blood, King, know
I'd brain it to thy face! ' No more I spake, felled by a blow.
Then rage possessed me and I fled unto my father's court,
And dwelt there maddened till I heard that he at Cashel's

fort
Had fallen beneath the sword of Half, the Dane : and years

sped on
Till, married unto Niall, heaven sent us a sweet son,



52

Then for the first time in her life was Gormflaith overjoyed;
But ah! what spirits of evil haunt yon universal void!
For when I sent my little blue -eyed Domhail to the west
By Orbsen to be fostered, and my heart a little rest
Had tasted for thus life had gained an antidote to sorrow,
And love made dear the rising light of every happy morrow
Alas! my peace, my heart, my hope was stricken to the earth;
My summer joys all withered and all wintered, my lone

hearth,
For soon, too soon came tidings that my boy had found a

grave
Within the sullen, cruel, grey, accursed Orbsen's wave.

But soon was Erie destined to misfortune : in the gleam

Of evening's sky portentous then, three cloudy shields were

seen,
One red as blood, one fierce with fire, and one as white as

snow
Heaven's prophecies of want and war and pestilence, we

know.
And soon with Zain and Jargus, the fierce Lochlans swept

the south,
And carnage reigned, and famine came, after two seasons'

drought.

Ah God! it thrills me to recall what, wandering one night
Along the Bertha's barren banks all desolate with war,
When winds had risen, nor through the thickened vapours

shone a star,

Losing my way in darkness, hideously met my sight.
There had the Danars slaughtered all, and o'er the gloomy

land

The awful moon had risen, when I felt a sudden hand
Pluck at my robes, and looking, I beheld a monstrous form
A woman wild, whose clotted tresses streamed upon the storm,
Seated upon a corse whose flesh her famished fangs had torn;
The skeleton claw that clutched her food, she raised, and

wiped away
The blood from her gaunt chops, and towards her drawing

me forlorn,

Mumbled mid gory maniac laughters horrible 'Stay, stay;
If you be hungered, here is food in plenty, fresh and raw;
Take some, you'll find it good and rare' then grinning,

with her claw

Thrust a joint of human carrion in my face; and when
I broke away, crouched down upon the bloody corse again.
And through the fearful shadows of the field then could I

mark
The shapes of beast and bird, all famished, gluttoning in the

dark,



53

The flap of wings, the cranch of bones, come on the pestilent

wind,

The ravenous growl of other creatures, groping famine blind,
Till crawling here and there they came upon their human

prey;

Then from that place of death and horror sped I fast away
Towards the neighbouring village, roofless now, a ruined

heap

Filled with the dead; and double desolation on me grew
And sorrow, wandering thus forlorn; for well the place I

knew

In prosperous days of plenty, ere my youth began to wane,
When charioting I visited my father's wide domain,
When came to meet their queen, through April's evening

dripping rain,
The golden- ringleted maidens of the sunny villaged plain."

Thus Gorrnflaith told the saint her sorrows for an hour or more ;
And having prayed, was shrived; and passed along the gloomy

shore;

Then rested in an oaken wood, within a valley nigh.
And morning came, windy and pale, along the seaward sky;
But still she slept unseen until a woodman, passing by,
Cried out, " Woman, awake, 'tis 110011" then flung his load

aside,
And kneeling sought to catch her breath ; but Gormflaith in

the night had died.



EBBA AND HER SISTERS.

Lo ! from the Convent on the mainland shore,
Just as dawn flashes, float a white-robed train,
Ebba and her pale sisters, moving down
The path that leads unto the plashy sands ;
Their mission pure as love, passioned with faith,
To reach the islands norward, dim in spray,
Where on the disk of night a savage race
Still worshipped ignorant gods, pouring fierce prayers
Now to the ghostly hero -dwelling clouds,
Or the chill crescent o'er the whistling heath.
But valiant with the sacred power of Good,
Strong with the light of the immortal hope,
Whose lamp they bear in their white holy hands
To the dark habitants of nature's isles,
No fear can dim the glory of their hearts,
Nor dread they the great sea and stormy stars :
Onward they tread, sweet-voiced troubadours,
Wandering the world, chaunting the music prayers
The angels sing in Heaven.



Beneath, a bark

Swings in its restless moorage by the cliff:
And entering now, one the dark sail expands,
And one the rude helm ministers; until
In the dim dawn wind, past the shadowing coast
And rocky islets foaming round its cape,
Clanged over by the mew, they speed; and with
The wind and low bright sun accompanied,
Cleave out their charmed voyage through the waste,
All the still hours of the sea-lonely day,
-A rid starry night and golden noon again.
At length, when the third sun sunk broadening red
Over the unknown waters toward the west,
And, herald of the night, the strengthening gale
Cold gusting, snowed the ever following wave,
'Mid darkness settling on the sailless sea
Northward afar beneath the cloudy moon,
A line of sounding surge rose angrily;
And then a headland, wild above the haze,
And the dark level of a fireless coast.

Where, landing presently, they beached their bark

On the hard sands; and up the wild sea banks,

'Mid ferns and grasses dolorously stirred,

Through darkness made their way, until they reached

A summit, whence 011 either hand appeared

The dreary Oread inland bare, and grey,

And lifeless, and the solitary sea,

Koofed with its rounding cloud, all blank, save where

Northward, 'mid rolling mist, one steady star

Watched from the pole. Then in its light they knelt

And prayed, nor felt alone, for as they prayed,

In holy trance divine, the desolate night

Became transfigured, and amid the clouds

Moon bright and solemn moved, they seemed to soo

Pure saintly faces smile, and in their folds

Majestic, marshalling along the vast,

The spiritual armies of the heavens

Protecting; and above the mountain tops,

A shining hand, as of an unseen Form

Celestial, beckoning them into the Isle;

Which viewing, all with one accord sang forth

A hymn of Christ, first heard beneath the North.

But ere the holy music died in night

Lo! through the glooms, a wild maid of the land;

Rude-robed, with eyes of bluest wonderment,

And bare white feet, advancing timid, led

The Sisters to a village in the vale,

Where the dark people gave them sanctuary.



And here awhile they dwelt ; then issued forth
Upon their Sacred Mission through the tribes.

Thenceforth for many a season, round the isles
Of the stern North, pure Ebba and her train
Moved pilgriniiiig among the wild Norse race
The rude Sea Knights of stormy Orcades,
Whose castles on the cliffs uncouthly loomed
Over the savage sea; and through the huts
Of heathy hamlets huddled in grey vales,
Each rooted by its pine: And night by night
Now in some stony fortress hall, amid
Fierce figures stretched around the w r indy fire,
Carousing over bowls of flesh and mead,
Now whiling the lone heathen night with talk
Of foray, battle, or maychance with songs
Dream ballads, ghostly legends, champion songs
Or burnishing their Aveapons, brand and axe,
Amid the torches' smoky glare with smile
Pure, earnest, and deep s"oul-breathed utterance,
Told them the story of the Saviour mild
The love-incarnate heart of Deity
Whose natal star soft spleiidouring from the East
To mankind universal heralded
The golden dawn of an ennobled life,
Exemplared by his own of conquering love
Ineffable, whose empire on the earth
Was doomed through endless ages glorified
With lights immortal streaming from the heavens,
Beyond death's shadow and the verge of Time
Enduring to expand.

And while she spake, as o'er some gloomly group
Of giant trees the morning breaks and lights,
And brooding emanates from goldeued branch,
And foliage-hidden blossom, odours sweet,
Until the space they shadowed erst, glows bright
And rich the air so o'er their ruthless brows
New aspects beamed, new natures quickening stirred,
Spring like in hearts barbaric; while their souls
Grew slowly toned to gentler harmonies,
By her soft speech, and by those sacred eyes.

So year by year from isle to isle they went,

Diffusing light, and leaving in their track

The traces of a presence more divine:

Till slowly all around grew changed; wars ceased;

Eude chapels rose within the Druid's grove;



56

And soon, instead of trumps uncouthly blown,

Calling the tribes to battle, or the clash

Of iron shields upon the fire -lit mound,

Dolorously borne through the dim night upon

The vast battalions of the viewless winds,

Gloomily moving o'er the dismal land

Sweet bells at morn and even fill the air,

Sunnily ringing o'er a peaceful realm,

Calling to worship, and harmonic blend

With happy hearts, as altarward they tend

In holy purity serene : while glowed

The golden corn beneath the Sabbath sun,

While evening's star, that penned the plenteous fold,

Beckoned the weary fisher o'er the seas

To the calm hearth ; or o'er the place of tombs

In the dark vale, gleamed to the watcher's eye

Symbolic of a home beyond the world.

At length, when many a sun had set upon

Her Christ-inspired travel sweet, her soul

Resting upon the labour of a life

Celestially secure, to Ebba came

One last fond wish to cross the greyish seas,

And lay her ashes amid kindred dust

Under the soft skies of the old Green Land

Whose convents gleamed by many a sliding stream

And herd-strewn pasture many a castled wood

And lone, calm, wild, recluse; where the day shone

Through rainy lights upon the Holy Isle

Christendom's northern vanguard. Then it was,

As the last night upon the peaceful realm

She brightened, rose around with all its stars,

And in the rugged creek swung the brown bark,

Heady to give her waftage with the dawn,

A bright dream came to Ebba as she slept :

A dream of weary pilgrimage across

A space with dark impenetrably domed,

Until, by slow and painful toil, she reached

A summit, whence the wide world opened round

Endless and dim. Then, sudden, as she gazed,

A splendour seemed to cleave the heavens she saw

The saintly crown drop down through holy air

And rest upon her brows, and in its light

A gloried future vision of the faith

The Church throughout all lands ubiquitous;

Community of souls around the earth,

And spiritual empire fixed eterne

In sovereign central unity divine;

Imperishable faith, perishless love,



57

And power hereditary with the Heavens,
'Mid transitory thrones and shapes of Time.

Then Ebba rose, and voyaged unto her home,

In prayer, while round the morning goldened coasts

A mighty congregation praying, gazed

Upon her barque, until its sail was lost

In the blue sky : and favouring breathed the wind

Till the third eve, when in the sunset's depths

Green hills appeared, and villaged bays beneath;

And the fresh stars came up the eastern foam

And brooded o'er the hush of sainted seas.



THE STORY OF THE LORD OF TARBERT 16SO.

I. THE PROPHECY.

CALM and clear shone the April evening o'er

Tarbert's castle, close by the Shannon's shore,

Over its turrets rising 'mid oaks in bud,

Over the azure level of spacing flood;

Long grey stretching promoiit full in the light,

And sails of fisher vessels, distant and white.

Far away along the remotest main

Superbest palace vapours of fresh spring rain,

Billowing, lessened away to the faint low hills;

The meadows were yellowed with stately daffoclills ;

An air from the blossomed orchards was blowing sweet

O'er the waving expanses of tall rough wheat,

O'er the shower-wet roofs of the village aflame

With sunset; over the river hazed in the heat,

From whose green banks the smell of wild celery came,

Scenting the humid wind; when Tarbert's lord

Rode from the porch, and crossing the foamy ford,

Spurring his black steed's sleek flank, cantered along

By hedge-lined roadways, humming the musing song

Of the sweet verses he had written to wile

The noon, about some imaged mistress's smile;

Clothing his thought with words, as a branch with leaves,

Heaping rich fancies together like sun-lighted sheaves,

Weaving line after line in a harmonised tune,

Joyous or sad as the waves under the morning or moor

Thus rode he along by ivy-draped park walls,
Past drifting gusts of drizzling waterfalls,
And long green caverned forest ways where through
The wood-cutter plodded cottageward mid the dew,



In the faint slant light, while in the lessening heat,

Young birds chirped in the twigs round the beech -trees'

feet;

Past vistas of sloping grey hills drowsed in sleep;
Dim plains to the east of quietness and sheep;
Till round a hill's shoulder seaward saw he there
The last stream of lustre lost on the verge of air;
Then down a zig-zag path of the clayey ridge,
In the spring valley, he stopped by a mouldering bridge
To give his horse a draught of the freshes among
Large-leaved water-plants skirting the arch that sung
To the eddies that bubbled and swirled round the buttress

brown

Viewing the while the smoke from the distant town,
Hearing the vesper hymn from a convent afar,
Viewing 'mid lifting hazes the evening star:
When, as he turned his horse's dripping head
Toward the slatey road that forestward led,
Lo! by an oak in the evening shadows dim
A beauteous gipsy girl stood gazing at him:
Her black eyes lustrous with the voluptuous light
Of smiles within their lashes, ebon as night,
Her oval sweet face dusk as the yellowing rind
Of the olive, ripening in summer sunshine and wind,
Her teeth like almonds whitely peeled of their skin,
Flashing 'mid dimples that rippled her cheek and chin,
Her deluge of blue black hair waved o'er each ear
From the low level forehead and temples clear,
Half hid in the hood of the cloak that parting showed
Her lithesome waist and bosom swelling in bud-
As with a linger she beckoned the lord to stay
And hear from her lips his fate ere he rode away.

Lord Tarbert stopped, enchanted in every vein.

Then, throwing his bridle over his- horse's mane,

Seized the small hand she willingly gave to hold,

And crossing its hardened palm with a coin of gold,

Said: "Not for a crown had I missed your form of

grace,

My darksome beauty in this loneliest place. "
" Nor I," she answered, ** albeit poor as a weed,
That smile of your face, in the which my art can read
Noblest courtsey, courage, and kindness, too,
And beauty enough to make all women woo ;
Nay nay forbear my lips shall be ne'er but of one
Be kissed and ere you kiss them much must be done."
" Then what must I do for that, say, prettiest witch,"
He whispered. " Hear me," said she, " utter your fate."
" I shall marry of course a lady wondrous rich,"



59

He murmured, half with a sneer, and then with a sigh.
"Not so," returned she, ''married you'll be ere you die,
But not to a lady except a lady am /."
Pleased was the young lord's blood, but the doubt in his

brain

Broke in a laugh of humour again and again,
The while the gipsy, grave as a rock had grown;
As dropping his hand she said in a sweet low tone :
' ' Laugh as you will, gay lord, and doubt as you may,
The fate I promise for both shall be as I say;
Adieu, thanks, and sweet dreams " and she hurried away
Into the thick of the wood, and was lost to his sight ;
As he, back looking, castleward rode through the night.

No more thought Tarbert's young lord of the words he had

heard

From the gipsy's rubious lips than the song of the bird
In the ivied window up in the tower when he woke
In the golden light next morn; when, as down the stair
Singing as gaily he strode to a chamber fair
Opening over the river and eastern glow,
A servitor handed a letter, whose seal he broke,
And, standing in rapt peruse a minute or so,
Learned that to foreign lands he must hurriedly go,
Called by his heart away from his pleasant home
To his dearest friend 011 earth, then dying at Rome.
And that same evening as glowed the western ray
O'er the blue rolling waves of Kilbaha's Bay
His vessel, puffing her sail as Loop Head past,
Swept toward the Southern shores with slanting mast,
Swift and more swift in the widening ocean blast;
Nor thought he more of the girl of the twilight wood
Than of the stars that lonelily gleamed on the flood.



O'er Italy's plains and mountains a year had rolled;

And the friend he had sought lay hidden in marble and

mould ;

When once, as Lord Tarbert rode toward the fading day
On by the Apennines north, of an evening fair,
Just as Venus rose through the streams of air,
Lemon-hued under a level roof of cloud,
Against which loomed keen summits and castles proud
Lo ! o'er Sorrento's vineyards, black from the main,
An April tempest gathered flashed, and passed in rain;
And slowly trickled the drops from leaf and spray;
The freshes foamed from the piney heights, and around
The pale vine blossoms scattered about the ground
Filled with sweet the atmosphere cool and grey:



60

As wet and travel-wearied, lit by a moon in the wane,

He stopped for the night at a lonely inn on his way.

Swiftly rolled a torrent through poplar ranks a-near;

Wood-crested hills above stood black in the sky;

The stony road through a rocky chasm wound drear,

And drearily swooned the breath of the night wind by;

As, stooping under an aged vine that wound

Like a snake the narrow doorway, an aged crone