Was strung full high to notes of gladness;

But yet it often told a tale

Of more prevailing sadness.

• Ireland.

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,

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?

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,"

Beneath De Bourgo's battle stern,

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-
The lovely pale O'Connor's child?

7 Kerne, the ancient Irish foot soldiery.

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

Rude hut, or cabin.