Of them that stood encircling his despair, XXXVIII. He heard some friendly words;-but knew not" Or shall we cross yon mountains blue, what they were. XXXIII. For now, to mourn their judge and child, arrives seen To veil their eyes, as passed each much-loved shroud While woman's softer soul in woe dissolved aloud. XXXIV. Then mournfully the parting bugle bid The grief that knew not consolation's name: He watched, beneath its folds, each burst that came Convulsive, ague-like, across his shuddering frame! XXXV. "And I could weep!" th' Oneyda chief His descant wildly thus begun :"But that I may not stain with grief The death-song of my father's son, Or bow this head in woe! For by my wrongs, and by my wrath! (That fires yon heaven with storms of death) Shall light us to the foe: And we shall share, my Christian boy! XXXVI. But thee, my flower, whose breath was given By milder genii o'er the deep, The spirits of the white man's heaven Forbid not thee to weep: Nor will the Christian host, Nor will thy father's spirit grieve, To-morrow let us do or die! Whose streams my kindred nation quaffed? And by my side, in battle true, A thousand warriors drew the shaft? Ah! there in desolation cold, The desert serpent dwells alone, XXXIX. "But hark, the trump!-to-morrow thou LOCHIEL'S WARNING. WIZARD. LOCHIEL, Lochiel! beware of the day array For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden are scatter'd in fight. They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down! Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war, What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? 'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await, Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate. A steed comes at morning: no rider is there; For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave, Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave. height, Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banish'd, forlorn, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah, no! for a darker departure is near; His death-bell is tolling: oh! mercy, dispel Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet, Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale LOCHIEL. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale : Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to For never shall Albin a destiny meet, burn; Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return! For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood. LOCHIEL. False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshall'd my clan, Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud, All plaided and plumed in their tartan array― WIZARD. Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day; For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal, But man cannot cover what God would reveal; 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before. I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ringWith the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king. Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath, Behold, where he flies on his desolate path! Now in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: Rise, rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! 'Tis finish'd. Their thunders are hush'd on the moors: Culloden is lost, and my country deplores, So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat. Though my perishing ranks should be strew'd in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heap'd on the surf-beater shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, foe! And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. O'CONNOR'S CHILD; OR, THE "FLOWER OF LOVE LIES BLEEDING." I. OH! once the harp of Innisfail* Was strung full high to notes of gladness; Of more prevailing sadness. Along the isles of Fion-Gall, And yet no wrongs, nor fear she felt: II. Sweet lady! she no more inspires * Innisfail, the ancient name of Ireland. Gone from her hand and bosom, gone Yet why, though fall'n her brother's kerne," III. And, fix'd on empty space, why burn IV. Bright as the bow that spans the storm When bards high praised her beauty's power, The morat in a golden cup. V. 'A hero's bride! this desert bower, * Kerne, the plural of Kern, an Irish foot-soldier. In this sense the word is used by Shakspeare. Gainsford, in his Glorys of England, says, "They (the Irish) are desperate in revenge, and their kerne think no man dead until his head be off." + Shieling, a rude cabin or hut. Yellow, dyed from saffron, was the favorite colour of the ancient Irish. When the Irish chieftains came to make terms with Queen Elizabeth's lord-lieutenant, we are told by Sir John Davis, that they came to court in saffron-coloured uniforms. Oh! hearken, stranger, to my voice' For here these pathless mountains free "O'Connor's child, I was the bud Still, as I clasp my burning brain, *The pride of the Irish in ancestry was so great, that one of the O'Neals being told that Barrett of Castlemone had been there only 400 years, he replied,that he hated the clown as if he had come there but yesterday. Tara was the place of assemblage and feasting of the petty princes of Ireland. Very splendid and fabulous descriptions are given by the Irish historians of the pomp and luxury of those meetings. The psaltery of Tara was the grand national register of Ireland. The grand epoch of political eminence in the early history of the Irish is the reign of their great and favourite monarch, Ollam Fodlah, who reigned, according to Keating, about 950 years before the Christian era. Under him was instituted the great Fes at Tara, which it is pretended was a triennial convention of the states, or a parliament; the members of which were the Druids, and other learned men, who represented the people in that assembly. Very minute accounts are given by Irish annalists of the magnificence and order of these entertainments; from which, if credible, we might collect the earliest traces of heraldry that occur in history. To preserve order and regularity in the great number and variety of the members who met on such occasions, the Irish historians inform us, that when the banquet was ready to be served up, the shield-bearers of the princes, and other members of the convention, delivered in their shields and targets, which were readily distinguished by the coats of arms emblazoned upon them. These were arranged by the grand marshal and principal herald, and hung upon the walls on the right side of the table: and, upon entering the apartments, each member took his seat under his respective shield or target, without the slightest disturbance. The concluding days of the meeting, it is allowed by the Irish antiquaries, were spent in very free excess of conviviality; but the first six, they say, were devoted to the examination and settlement of the annals of the kingdom. These were publicly rehearsed. When they had passed the approbation of the assembly, they were transcribed into the authentic chronicles of the nation, which was called the Register, or Psalter of Tara. Col. Vallancey gives a translation of an old Irish fragment, found in Trinity-college, Dublin, in which the palace of the above assembly is thus described as it existed in the reign of Cormac : "In the reign of Cormac, the palace of Tara was Morat, a drink made of the juice of mulberry mixed nine hundred feet square; the diameter of the surwith honey. rounding rath, seven dice or casts of a dart; it con Witness their Eath's victorious brand,* "Ah, brothers! what did it avail, What though the lords of tower and dome VIII. "At bleating of the wild watch-fold, Come far from Castle-Connor's clans- IX. "And fast and far, before the star Of day-spring, rush'd we through the glade, Sweet was to us the hermitage X. tained one hundred and fifty apartments; one hundred "When all was hush'd, at even-tide and fifty dormitories, or sleeping-rooms for guards, and sixty men in each: the height was twenty-seven I heard the baying of their beagle: cubits; there were one hundred and fifty common 'Be hush'd!' my Connocht Moran cried, drinking-horns, twelve doors, and one thousand guests'Tis but the screaming of the eagle.' daily, besides princes, orators, men of science, engravers of gold and silver, carvers, modelers, and nobles. The Irish description of the banqueting-hall is thus translated: twelve stalls or divisions in each wing; sixteen attendants on each side, and two to each table; one hundred guests in all.' • Vide infra. Alas! 'twas not the eyrie's sound; Their bloody bands had tracked us out; Up-listening starts our couchant hound— And hark! again, that nearer shout Brings faster on the murderers. Spare-spare him-Brazil-Desmond fierce! The house of O'Connor had a right to boast of In vain-no voice the adder charms; their victories over the English. It was a chief of the Their weapons cross'd my sheltering arms. O'Connor race who gave a check to the English cham- Another's sword has laid him low-pion, De Courcy, so famous for his personal strength, Another's, and another's; and for cleaving a helmet at one blow of his sword, in And every hand that dealt the blowthe presence of the kings of France and England, when Ah me it was a brother's! the French champion declined the combat with him. Though ultimately conquered by the English under Yes, when his moanings died away, De Bourgo, the O'Connors had also humbled the pride Their iron hands had dug the clay, of that name on a memorable occasion: viz., when | And o'er his burial-turf they trod, Walter De Bourgo, an ancestor of that De Bourgo And I beheld-Oh God! Oh God! who won the battle of Athunree, had become so inso- His life-blood oozing from the sod! lent as to make excessive demands upon the territories of Connaught, and to bid defiance to all the rights and properties reserved by the Irish chiefs, Aeth O'Connor, a near descendant of the famous Cathal, surnamed of The bloody hand, rose against the usurper, and defeated the English so severely, that their general died of chagrin after the battle. XI. "Warm in his death-wounds sepulchred, Alas! my warrior's spirit brave Nor mass nor ulla-lulla heard, Lamenting, soothe his grave. The month of May is to this day called Mi Beal Dragg'd to their hated mansion back, tiennie, i. e. the month of Beal's fire, in the original How long in thraldom's grasp I lay language of Ireland, and hence I believe the name of I knew not, for my soul was black, the Beltan festival in the Highlands. These fires were And knew no change of night or day. lighted on the summits of mountains (the Irish anti-One night of horror round me grew; quaries say) in honour of the sun; and are supposed, Or if I saw, or felt, or knew, by those conjecturing gentlemen, to prove the origin was but when those grim visages, of the Irish from some nation who worshipped Baal or Belus. Many hills in Ireland still retain the name of The angry brothers of my race, Cnoc Greine, i. e. the hill of the sun; and on all are to Glared on each eyeball's aching throb, be seen the ruins of Druidical altars. Thrice in the east a war-drum beat— XIII. "And go! (I cried) the combat seek, And fired me with the wrathful mood; XIV. "They would have cross'd themselves all mute, Where, downward when the sun shall fall, And not a vassal shall unlace The vizor from your dying face! XV. "A bolt that overhung our dome Suspended till my curse was given, Soon as it pass'd these lips of foam, Peal'd in the blood-red heaven. |