| |
| THE VALLEY lay smiling before me, | |
| Where lately I left her behind; | |
| Yet I trembled, and something hung o’er me, | |
| That saddened the joy of my mind. | |
| I looked for the lamp which she told me | 5 |
| Should shine when her pilgrim returned; | |
| But, though darkness began to infold me, | |
| No lamp from the battlements burned! | |
| |
| I flew to her chamber,—’t was lonely | |
| As if the loved tenant lay dead;— | 10 |
| Ah, would it were death, and death only! | |
| But no—the young false one had fled. | |
| And there hung the lute, that could soften | |
| My very worst pains into bliss, | |
| While the hand that had waked it so often | 15 |
| Now throbbed to a proud rival’s kiss. | |
| |
| There was a time, falsest of women, | |
| When Breffni’s good sword would bave sought | |
| That man, through a million of foemen, | |
| Who dared but to wrong thee in thought! | 20 |
| While now, O degenerate daughter | |
| Of Erin! how fallen is thy fame! | |
| And through ages of bondage and slaughter | |
| Our country shall bleed for thy shame. | |
| |
| Already the curse is upon her, | 25 |
| And strangers her valleys profane; | |
| They come to divide, to dishonor, | |
| And tyrants they long will remain. | |
| But, onward! the green banner rearing, | |
| Go, flesh every sword to the hilt; | 30 |
| On our side is Virtue and Erin, | |
| On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt. | |
| |
