| |
| THERE beams no light from thy hall to-night, | |
| Oh, House of Fame; | |
| No mead-vat seethes and no smoke upwreathes | |
| O’er the hearth’s red flame; | |
| No high bard sings for the joy of thy kings, | 5 |
| And no harpers play; | |
| No hostage moans as thy dungeon rings | |
| As in Muircherteach’s day. | |
| |
| Fallen! fallen! to ruin all in | |
| The covering mould; | 10 |
| The painted yew, and the curtains blue, | |
| And the cups of gold; | |
| The linen, yellow as the corn when mellow, | |
| That the princes wore; | |
| And the mirrors brazen for your queens to gaze in, | 15 |
| They are here no more. | |
| |
| The sea-bird’s pinion thatched Gormlai’s grinnan; | |
| And through windows clear, | |
| Without crystal pane, in her Ard-righ’s reign | |
| She looked from here | 20 |
| There were quilts of eider on her couch of cedar; | |
| And her silken shoon | |
| Were as green and soft as the leaves aloft | |
| On a bough in June. | |
| |
| Ah, woe unbounded where the harp once sounded | 25 |
| The wind now sings; | |
| The grey grass shivers where the mead in rivers | |
| Was outpoured for kings; | |
| The min and the mether are lost together | |
| With the spoil of the spears; | 30 |
| The strong dun only has stood dark and lonely | |
| Through a thousand years. | |
| |
| But I’m not in woe for the wine-cup’s flow, | |
| For the banquet’s cheer, | |
| For tall princesses with their trailing tresses | 35 |
| And their broidered gear; | |
| My grief and my trouble for this palace noble | |
| With no chief to lead | |
| ’Gainst the Saxon stranger on the day of danger | |
| Out of Aileach Neid. | 40 |
| |
