O, ONCE the harp of Innisfail Was strung full high to notes of gladness; But yet it often told a tale Of more prevailing sadness. Sad was the note, and wild its fall, As winds that moan at night forlorn Along the isles of Fion-Gael, When for O'Connor's child to mourn, The harper told, how lone, how far From any mansion's twinkling star, From any path of social men, Or voice, but from the fox's den, The lady in the desert dwelt, And yet no wrongs, no fear she felt: Say, why should dwell in place so wild The lovely pale O'Connor's child? Sweet lady! she no more inspires Green Erin's heart with beauty's power, As in the palace of her sires She bloomed a peerless flower. Gone from her hand and bosom, gone, The regal broche, the jewelled ring, That o'er her dazzling whiteness shone Like dews on lilies of the spring. Yet why, though fallen her brother's kerne, Beneath De Bourgo's battle stern, While yet in Leinster unexplored, Her friends survive the English sword, Why lingers she from Erin's host, So far on Galway's shipwrecked coast; Why wanders she a huntress wild, -- The lovely pale O'Connor's child? And fixed on empty space, why burn Her eyes with momentary wildness; And wherefore do they then return To more than woman's mildness? Dishevelled are her raven locks, On Connocht Moran's name she calls, And oft amidst the lonely rocks She sings sweet madrigals. Placed in the foxglove and the moss, Behold a parted warrior's cross! That is the spot where, evermore, The lady, at her shieling door, Enjoys that in communion sweet The living and the dead can meet: For lo! to lovelorn fantasy The hero of her heart is nigh. Bright as the bow that spans the storm, In Erin's yellow vesture clad, A son of light, a lovely form, He comes and makes her glad: Now on the grass-green turf he sits, His tasselled horn beside him laid; Now o'er the hills in chase he flits, The hunter and the deer a shade! Sweet mourner! those are shadows vain, That cross the twilight of her brain; Yet she will tell you she is blest, Of Connocht Moran's tomb possessed, More richly than in Aghrim's bower, When bards high praised her beauty's power, And kneeling pages offered up The morat in a golden cup. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LILY, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN: THE FIRST DAY: ROBERT OF SICILY by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS; FLOREAT ETONA by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED WHEN HE EMERGED by MARGARET AHO ANACREON by ANTIPATER OF SIDON THE CHILD'S GRAVE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN AMORINO by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR THE LADY TO HER INCONSTANT SERVANT by THOMAS CAREW TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. THE VOICE OF ONE BLIND by EDWARD CARPENTER |