Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ACHONRY (THE LEGEND OF ERIN'S HOPE), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The mood of the spring time subtly crept
Last Line: "^1^ ""malo mori quam foedari""—""death sooner than dishonour!"" see notes."
Alternate Author Name(s): Gage, Gervais
Subject(s): Bells; Clergy; Legends, Irish; Monasteries; Ships & Shipping; Travel; Priests; Rabbis; Ministers; Bishops; Abbeys; Journeys; Trips


I

THE mood of the Springtime subtly crept,
With a thrill of hope and a sob hard by,
Through aisles where the dust of a People slept
In the ruined abbey of Achonry.

O, where is it gone, the Voice once flung
In a mystic chime to the wild west sky?
O angel-chaunt from the bell that swung
In the silvern turret of Achonry!

For the "curse of Cromwell" mazed the land,
And Erin's rose-red lips grew pale,
Her Hearth-stone cold and her altar banned,
And the heart-song silent in Innisfail.

Her sons from the plague-smit caitiff ship
Were flung to the shark and the hungry wave;
Or high hearts broke 'neath the planter's whip,
Too proud to bend to the yoke of the slave.

And across the Shannon broad and fleet,
And behind the Corrib deep and strong
They were penned, the gallant and fair and sweet,
By the cant of Fraud and the rage of Wrong.

Ah, wild west-mountains bleak and drear,
O sea, ye have thrilled to the moan of the fate
Of a Nation's anguish and shame and fear,
Her fanes and her homesteads desolate!

II

But there passed and sang a secret word,
Like an angel's call to the tingling sky,
Through the last weird prophet-voice that stirred
From the fateful bell of Achonry.

And from Kilconnel, far and fleet,
Like the haunting horns of Faerie,
The great bell answered, trancing sweet,
In a wild and a wondrous melodie.

And it said,—and its tones were deep and clear
In the hearts of the wise, though they knelt and wept,—
(The pass-word of God through the dark and fear
Till clouds from the heavens of hope are swept):—

"Bide ye and wait! 'Tis but for a time:
And again, 'mid the Nations' freedom-cry,
To the Earth and the Heaven shall pulse the chime
Of the lyric bell of Achonry!

"O, bide ye silent: let this word keep
Its vigil mute in the hearts of men:
Let it wake alone in the Vision-sleep
That trances the Seer and the Bard, till then!

"Till then, through the fields and the wood-aisles dim,
Shall sound no song-bird's joyance-cry;
But wait for the throb of the mystic hymn,
And the clang of the bell of Achonry!

"Nor throstle, with blithe twin-cadenced note,
Shall the brake and the wold with rapture fill,
Nor lark's wild joy to glad heavens float,
God's lyric thought made audible.

"But over the boglands dark and lone,
And the moor-sedge rustling harsh and dry,
The weeping wind shall make its moan
Through the pewit's plaint and the curlew's cry.

'And the merle's gold flute no more shall thrill
The thicket at flight of the winter drear,
Nor the linnet pipe,—'Come up: to the hill:
To the gorse: to the heights: for the Spring is near!'"

White hands that night, a veilëd throng,
Fared forth with the hushed bell fleet and far;
'Tis hid where is vigil wise and strong
And the eyes of God's great angels are.

And its tongue is mute till the same white hands
Shall bear it back to the turret high,
And the cheer of the free shall call to the lands
When the bell clangs loud in Achonry.

And from Kilconnel's trancëd tower,
Like the glad doom-horns of Faërie,
The bell shall chime with answering power
In a wild and a witching melodie.

And the lark shall carol the joy of his breast
Again to the Heaven glad and clear;
And the red-heart robin shall twine the nest
To the rose, and chaunt to the opening year.

III

So the legend ran: and our young hearts pressed,
In the prayerless haste of the newer day,
O'er hillocks where older hearts had rest
And man and man's art mouldering lay,—

The shattered pillar and sundered bone—
God's traceried purpose carved in Man:
The vacant west-wind made its moan
Through the window's void and the cloister's span.

And the silent Dead kept watch and ward:
Their dumb protest, more keen than a sword,
Cut at our hearts: it said,—"We guard
This People's rest till the doom of the Lord."

Nigh the great altar, all alone,
In a chapel open to the East,
'Mid bramble and wreck of fluted stone
I stood, sole postulant and priest.

Above me were the lone gray skies,
Around me, loner and sadder far,
Wreck of the beauty which all men prize,
By clash of Creed and fury of War.

Then, from a maze of the tangled brier,
A song-bird sprang from a secret nest,
And her lord fared forth with chittering ire,
The rage in his eye and the red on his breast.

'O dear red rose, art thou come ere June
To the blighted lands and the ruined shrine?'—
Sang my heart: but the echo, "Too soon, too soon!"
Pealed faint in the East,—faint, far, and fine.

In a weft of the bramble's woven strife,
Lo, a white skull lay, and was locked in rest;
In its hollow depth, Death guarding Life,
The red-heart robin had built her nest.

'O, ye five shell-dots, more rare than pearl,
Weird as all Life and strange as Death,
Kin to all Suns' electric swirl
Love's sigh and travail's shuddering breath!—

'The gold gleams bright, and the diamonds shine,
The eyes of a maiden are fairy to see;
But, ye life-gems quaint in a quainter shrine,
Ye have won the wondering heart of me:

'For ye globe the tale of all the years,
Life's new surprise in the grim old skull!'—
My heart brake forth in a rain of tears,
Of hope and sorrow and joy too full.

Then, by the bramble's screen half-hid,
Where the massy trend of the wall made room,
Worn by wild winter-winds unchid,
I scanned the scroll of a sculptured tomb.

And its Latin^1^ quaint, like a sword, was strong
Its ancient challenge of wrath to fling
'Gainst Force and Fraud, down the vexëd throng
Of the years of a People's suffering:

"LORD BARON BARNEWALL, TWELFTH OF THE NAME,
WHOM CROMWELL'S TYRANT CURSE DID BAN
BEYOND THE SHANNON TO SCATH AND SHAME
FOR ERIN'S LOVE AND THE RIGHT OF MAN!
(DEATH HOLDS HIS DUST IN A NARROW SPAN!
HIS SPIRIT HOLD?—DEATH NEVER CAN!)"

But an alien hand had shattered the stone
In a vandal rage: of its massy weight
The great-browed skull had fallen alone,
By the brier upborne in tragic state
That it might not lie too desolate.

O, where the fiery brain had been,
The daring will and the schemes of strife,
The red-heart robin had ventured in,—
New hopes o' the years, new plans for life!

And mine ear, in the secret, seemed to catch
Some faint sweet tone, from a distant sky,
Of the bell which God's great angels watch
And shall fetch some night to Achonry!

So I smoothed the brier, and turned away:
The robin I saw flit back to her nest,
And the brood shall flutter forth some day,
New song in the throat and new red on the breast.

O quivering Life, that shall leap all young
From the maw of the skull and the crypt of death,
'Tis the song by all the Poets sung,
And the hope that every Prophet saith!

And for thee the Peoples wondering wait
Through all the war-scathed blighted lands;
At times, with a yearning passionate,
They smite for thee with their fettered hands.

The sun is hid, but the East has a gleam,
Like Merlin's gleam on a mystic sea;
I hear a three-fold word, in a dream—
LIFE'S LABOUR: and LOVE: and the PEOPLES FREE!

For the cities are sick with the rich man's lust,
And the fever-breath of the sodden poor,
And girlhood sold for the golden dust,
And Truth's voice drowned in the Bourse's roar.

And the broad lands, held in the clutch of the few,
Grow barren of hamlet and human voice
And the hum of homes, and the toiler's thew,
Which bade the populous earth rejoice.

And the priests chant loud to Beëlzebul,
The Hell-god, bending knee and soul.
Ah, outside the gate called "Beautiful,"
Man crippled, and none to make him whole!

And the gambler Mammon is keeping his tryst
With Force at the shrine by altar and rood,
And lifts in laud to the thorn-crowned Christ
Foul hands soaked red in the Nations' blood.

IV

But I thought again of the unfledged life
'Neath the mother-heart in the skull-girt nest,
'Mid the ruin wrought by an ancient strife
Where the dust of a People sleeps in rest:

And my wrath was hushed: for I heard once more,
Though faint as yet, the voice of the Spring,
And linnets pipe,—"Come up from the shore!"
And the wren and the mavis began to sing.

O yes, be sure it shall come again,
O'er the seas, through the heavens pulsing high,
Through the longing lands, through the thoughts of men,
The throb of the bell of Achonry!

And from Kilconnel, far and fleet,
Like the weird doom-horns of Faërie,
The chime shall answer, trancing sweet,
In a wild and a wondrous melodie.

And the throstle's call again shall thrill
The thicket at flight of the winter drear,
And the linnet pipe: "Come up: to the hill:
To the gorse: to the heights: the Spring is near!"

O Love, through the fields and the wood-aisles dim
Shall sound once more the joyance cry:
But wait for the note of the mystic hymn
When the bell shall be pealing in Achonry!

^FOOTNOTE^

^1^ "Malo mori quam foedari"—"Death sooner than Dishonour!" See Notes.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net