MORN on the hills of Innisfail! | |
| The anchored mists make sudden sail, | |
| The sun has kissed the mountain gray, | |
| For ancient friends and fond are they! | |
| |
| In the deep vale, where osiers verge | 5 |
| The clear Lough Sheeling’s gentle surge, | |
| Two royal sisters doff their dresses, | |
| And, binding up their night-black tresses, | |
| Fair as the spirits of the streams, | |
| Or Dian’s nymphs in poets’ dreams, | 10 |
| They bathe them in the limpid lake, | |
| And mock the mimic storm they make! | |
| |
| Scarce had their sandals clasped their feet, | |
| Scarce had they left their still retreat, | |
| Scarce had they turned their footsteps, when | 15 |
| Strange psalmody pervades the glen; | |
| And full before them in the way | |
| There stood an ancient man and gray, | |
| Chanting with fervent voice a prayer | |
| That trembled through the morning air. | 20 |
| |
| He was no Druid of the wood, | |
| Armed for the sacrifice of blood; | |
| He was no poet, vague and vain, | |
| Chanting to chiefs a fulsome strain; | |
| His reverent years and thoughtful face | 25 |
| Gave to his form the Patriarch’s grace; | |
| His sacred song declared that he | |
| Shared in no gross idolatry! | |
| |
| “Where dwells your God?” the sisters said; | |
| “Where is his couch at evening spread? | 30 |
| Sinks he with Crom into the sea, | |
| And rises from his bath as we | |
| Have done? Is it his voice we hear | |
| Thundering above the buried year? | |
| Or doth your God in spirit dwell | 35 |
| Deep in the crystal living well? | |
| Or are the winds the steeds which bear | |
| His unseen chariot everywhere?” | |
| |
| The Saint replied, “O nobly born! | |
| Haply encountered here this morn; | 40 |
| You ask the only truth to know | |
| That Adam’s children need below; | |
| Your quest is God, like them of old | |
| Who found the gravestone backward rolled | |
| From where they left the Saviour cold.” | 45 |
| |
| Mildly to tell, the holy man | |
| The story of our faith began,— | |
| Of Eve, of Christ, of Calvary, | |
| The baleful and the healing tree; | |
| Of God’s omnipotence and love, | 50 |
| Of sons of earth now saints above; | |
| Of Peter and the Twelve, of Paul, | |
| And of his own predestined call. | |
| |
| “Not on the sea, not on the shore, | |
| In solemn woods or tempest roar, | 55 |
| Dwelleth the God that we adore. | |
| No! wheresoe’er his cross is raised, | |
| And wheresoe’er his name is praised; | |
| The pure life is his present sign, | |
| The holy heart his favorite shrine; | 60 |
| The old, the poor, the sorrowful, | |
| To them he is most bountiful; | |
| Palace or hovel, land or sea, | |
| God with his servants still will be!” * * * * * | |
| Leogaire, the last of our pagan kings, | 65 |
| In terror from his slumber springs, | |
| For he had dreamt his daughters fair | |
| Pillars of fire on Tara were, | |
| And that the burning light thence streaming | |
| Melted the idols in his dreaming,— | 70 |
| And the dream of Leogaire, our annals say, | |
| Was fulfilled in the land in an after day. | |
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