NO sound of life was coming | |
| From glen or tree or brake, | |
| Save the bittern’s hollow booming | |
| Up from the reedy lake; | |
| The golden light of sunset | 5 |
| Was swallowed in the deep, | |
| And the night came down with a sullen frown, | |
| On Houra’s craggy steep. | |
| |
| And Houra’s hills are soundless: | |
| But hark, that trumpet blast! | 10 |
| It fills the forest boundless, | |
| Rings round the summits vast; | |
| ’T is answered by another | |
| From the crest of Corrin Mór, | |
| And hark again the pipe’s wild strain | 15 |
| By Bregoge’s caverned shore! | |
| |
| O, sweet at hush of even | |
| The trumpet’s golden thrill, | |
| Grand ’neath the starry heaven | |
| The pibroch wild and shrill! | 20 |
| Yet all were pale with terror, | |
| The fearful and the bold, | |
| Who heard its tone that twilight lone | |
| In the Poet’s frowning hold! | |
| |
| Well might their hearts be beating; | 25 |
| For up the mountain pass, | |
| By lake and river meeting, | |
| Came kern and galloglass, | |
| Breathing vengeance deadly, | |
| Under the forest tree, | 30 |
| To the wizard man who cast the ban | |
| On the minstrels bold and free! | |
| |
| They gave no word of warning, | |
| Round still they came, and on, | |
| Door, wall, and rampart scorning,— | 35 |
| They knew not he was gone! | |
| Gone fast and far that even, | |
| All secret as the wind, | |
| His treasures all in that castle tall, | |
| And his infant son behind! | 40 |
| |
| All still that castle hoarest,— | |
| Their pipes and horns were still, | |
| While gazed they through the forest, | |
| Up glen and northern hill; | |
| Till from the Brehon circle, | 45 |
| On Corrin’s crest of stone, | |
| A sheet of fire like an Indian pyre | |
| Up to the clouds was thrown. | |
| |
| Then, with a mighty blazing, | |
| They answered—to the sky; | 50 |
| It dazzled their own gazing, | |
| So bright it rolled and high; | |
| The castle of the Poet— | |
| The man of endless fame— | |
| Soon hid its head in a mantle red | 55 |
| Of fierce and rushing flame. | |
| |
| Out burst the vassals, praying | |
| For mercy as they sped,— | |
| “Where was their master staying, | |
| Where was the Poet fled?” | 60 |
| But hark! that thrilling screaming, | |
| Over the crackling din,— | |
| ’T is the Poet’s child in its terror wild, | |
| The blazing tower within! | |
| |
| There was a warlike giant | 65 |
| Amid the listening throng, | |
| He looked with face defiant | |
| On the flames so wild and strong, | |
| Then rushed into the castle, | |
| And up the rocky stair, | 70 |
| But alas! alas! he could not pass | |
| To the burning infant there! | |
| |
| The wall was tottering under, | |
| And the flame was whirring round, | |
| The wall went down in thunder, | 75 |
| And dashed him to the ground; | |
| Up in the burning chamber | |
| Forever died that scream, | |
| And the fire sprang out with a wilder shout | |
| And a fiercer, ghastlier gleam! | 80 |
| |
| It glared o’er hill and hollow, | |
| Up many a rocky bar, | |
| From ancient Kilnamulla | |
| To Darra’s Peak afar; | |
| Then it heaved into the darkness | 85 |
| With a final roar amain, | |
| And sank in gloom with a whirring boom, | |
| And all was dark again! | |
| |
| Away sped the galloglasses | |
| And kerns, all still again, | 90 |
| Through Houra’s lonely passes, | |
| Wild, fierce, and reckless men. | |
| But such the Saxon made them, | |
| Poor sons of war and woe; | |
| So they venged their strife with flame and knife | 95 |
| On his head long, long ago! | |
| |
