O'CONNOR'S CHILD,

OR THE

FLOWER OF LOVE LIES BLEEDING.

Он

I.

Honce the harp of Innisfail 6

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-Gall,

When, for O'Connor's child to mourn,

Ireland.

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,

O'Connor's pale and lovely child?

II.

Sweet lady! she no more inspires
Green Erin's hearts with beauty's pow'r,

As in the palace of her sires

She bloom'd a peerless flow'r.

Gone from her hand and bosom, gone,

The royal broche, the jewell'd ring,

That o'er her dazzling whiteness shone
Like dews on lilies of the spring.

Yet why, though fall'n her brother's kerne, 7
Beneath De Bourgo's battle stern,

7 Kerne, the ancient Irish foot soldiery.

While yet in Leinster unexplor'd,
Her friends survive the English sword;
Why lingers she from Erin's host,
So far on Galway's shipwreck'd coast;
Why wanders she a huntress wild-
O'Connor's pale and lovely child ?

III.

And fix'd on empty space, why burn
Her eyes with momentary wildness;
And wherefore do they then return
To more than woman's mildness ?
Dishevell❜d are her raven locks,

On Connocht Moran's name she calls;

And oft amidst the lonely rocks

She sings sweet madrigals.

Plac'd in the foxglove and the moss,

Behold a parted warrior's cross !
That is the spot where, evermore,
The lady, at her shieling 8 door,

8 Rude hut, or cabin.

Enjoys that in communion sweet,
The living and the dead can meet :

For lo! to love-lorn fantasy,

The hero of her heart is nigh.

IV.

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 tassell'd 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 possess❜d,

More richly than in Aghrim's bow'r,

When bards high prais'd her beauty's pow'r, And kneeling pages offer'd up

The morat in a golden cup.

6

V.

A hero's bride! this desert bow'r,

It ill befits thy gentle breeding:

And wherefore dost thou love this flow'r

• To call my love lies bleeding?'

• This purple flow'r my tears have nurs'd;

• A hero's blood supplied its bloom :

I love it, for it was the first

That grew on Connocht Moran's tomb.

Oh! hearken, stranger, to my voice!

This desert mansion is my choice:

And blest, tho' fatal, be the star

• That led me to its wilds afar :

For here these pathless mountains free

• Gave shelter to my love and me;

And ev'ry rock and ev'ry stone

Bare witness that he was my own.

VI.

'O'Connor's child, I was the bud

'Of Erin's royal tree of glory;

'But woe to them that wrapt in blood The tissue of my story!