Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Padraic Colum (1881–1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922.

By James Clarence Mangan

106. O’Hussey’s Ode to the Maguire

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 Darry 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 sleetshower 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 lightning-garb he ever wore,

The lightning of his soul, not skies.

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!