he? Wandering, houseless, desolate,
Alone, without or guide or chart!
Medreams I see just now his face, the strawberry-bright,
Uplifted to the blackened heavens, while the tempestuous winds
Blow fiercely over and around him, and the smiting sleet-shower blinds
The hero of Galang tonight!
Large, large affliction unto me and mine it is,
That one of his majestic bearing, his fair, stately form,
Should thus be tortured and o’erborne – that this unsparing storm
Should wreak its wrath on head like his!
That his great hand, so oft the avenger of the oppressed,
Should this chill, churlish night, perchance, be paralysed by frost –
While through some icicle-hung thicket – as one lorn and lost –
He wails and wanders without rest.
The tempest-driven torrent deluges the mead,
It overflows the low banks of the rivulets and ponds –
The lawns and pasture-grounds lie locked in icy bonds
So that the cattle cannot feed.
The pale bright margins of the streams are seen by none.
Rushes and sweeps along the untameable flood on every side –
It penetrates and fills the cottagers’ dwellings far and wide –
Water and land are blent in one.
Through some dark woods, ’mid bones of monsters, Hugh now strays,
As he confronts the storm with anguished heart, but manly brow –
O! what a sword-wound to that tender heart of his were now
A backward glance at peaceful days.
But other thoughts are his – thoughts that can still inspire
With joy and an onward-bounding hope the bosom of Mac Nee –
Thoughts of his warriors charging like bright billows of the sea,
Borne on the wind’s wings, flashing fire!
And though frost glaze to-night the clear dew of his eyes,
And white ice-gauntlets glove his noble fine fair fingers o’er,
A warm dress is to him that lightning-garb he ever wore,
The lightning of the soul, not skies.
Hugh marched forth to the fight – I grieved to see him so depart;
And lo! to-night he wanders frozen rain-drenched, sad, betrayed –
But the memory of the lime-white mansions his right hand hath laid
In ashes warms the hero’s heart!
Once upon a time, thirty years ago, I found myself writing a serial radio-script on the ‘Songs of Young Ireland’ – for which the music was performed by the Radio Éireann Singers. The previous series, featuring ‘Moore’s Melodies’ and scripted by Brinsley MacNamara, lasted for a very long time, and he was often teased by the novelist Philip Rooney about writing the songs himself and attributing them to Thomas Moore, so as to keep the programme going.
I was more or less challenged to make the songs of Young Ireland last longer than the songs of the Sweet Melodist. As it happened, I failed. But I consulted the then Greatest Living Authority on the matter, Colm Ó Lochlainn at The Sign of the Three Candles, and he told me that I could bring the songs of Young Ireland as close to myself as Francis A. Fahey, who sang of Kinvara and the Ould Plaid Shawl, and could go back as far as William Drennan writing about ‘The Wake of William Orr’:
There our murdered brother lies;
Wake him not with woman’s cries;
Mourn the way that manhood ought –
Sit in silent trance of thought.
Write his merits on your mind;
Morals pure and manners kind;
In his head, as on a hill,
Virtue placed her citadel.
Why cut off in palmy youth?
Truth he spoke, and acted truth.
‘Countrymen, unite,’ he cried,
And died for what our Saviour died.
God of peace and God of love!
Let it not Thy vengeance move –
Let it not Thy lightnings draw –
A nation guillotined by law.
Hapless Nation, rent and torn,
Thou wert early taught to mourn;
Warfare for six hundred years!
Epoch marked with blood and tears!
Hunted thro’ thy native grounds,
Or flung reward to human hounds,
Each one pulled and tore his share,
Heedless of thy deep despair.
Hapless Nation! hapless Land!
Heap of uncementing sand!
Crumbled by a foreign weight:
And, by worse, domestic hate.
God of
Alone, without or guide or chart!
Medreams I see just now his face, the strawberry-bright,
Uplifted to the blackened heavens, while the tempestuous winds
Blow fiercely over and around him, and the smiting sleet-shower blinds
The hero of Galang tonight!
Large, large affliction unto me and mine it is,
That one of his majestic bearing, his fair, stately form,
Should thus be tortured and o’erborne – that this unsparing storm
Should wreak its wrath on head like his!
That his great hand, so oft the avenger of the oppressed,
Should this chill, churlish night, perchance, be paralysed by frost –
While through some icicle-hung thicket – as one lorn and lost –
He wails and wanders without rest.
The tempest-driven torrent deluges the mead,
It overflows the low banks of the rivulets and ponds –
The lawns and pasture-grounds lie locked in icy bonds
So that the cattle cannot feed.
The pale bright margins of the streams are seen by none.
Rushes and sweeps along the untameable flood on every side –
It penetrates and fills the cottagers’ dwellings far and wide –
Water and land are blent in one.
Through some dark woods, ’mid bones of monsters, Hugh now strays,
As he confronts the storm with anguished heart, but manly brow –
O! what a sword-wound to that tender heart of his were now
A backward glance at peaceful days.
But other thoughts are his – thoughts that can still inspire
With joy and an onward-bounding hope the bosom of Mac Nee –
Thoughts of his warriors charging like bright billows of the sea,
Borne on the wind’s wings, flashing fire!
And though frost glaze to-night the clear dew of his eyes,
And white ice-gauntlets glove his noble fine fair fingers o’er,
A warm dress is to him that lightning-garb he ever wore,
The lightning of the soul, not skies.
Hugh marched forth to the fight – I grieved to see him so depart;
And lo! to-night he wanders frozen rain-drenched, sad, betrayed –
But the memory of the lime-white mansions his right hand hath laid
In ashes warms the hero’s heart!
Once upon a time, thirty years ago, I found myself writing a serial radio-script on the ‘Songs of Young Ireland’ – for which the music was performed by the Radio Éireann Singers. The previous series, featuring ‘Moore’s Melodies’ and scripted by Brinsley MacNamara, lasted for a very long time, and he was often teased by the novelist Philip Rooney about writing the songs himself and attributing them to Thomas Moore, so as to keep the programme going.
I was more or less challenged to make the songs of Young Ireland last longer than the songs of the Sweet Melodist. As it happened, I failed. But I consulted the then Greatest Living Authority on the matter, Colm Ó Lochlainn at The Sign of the Three Candles, and he told me that I could bring the songs of Young Ireland as close to myself as Francis A. Fahey, who sang of Kinvara and the Ould Plaid Shawl, and could go back as far as William Drennan writing about ‘The Wake of William Orr’:
There our murdered brother lies;
Wake him not with woman’s cries;
Mourn the way that manhood ought –
Sit in silent trance of thought.
Write his merits on your mind;
Morals pure and manners kind;
In his head, as on a hill,
Virtue placed her citadel.
Why cut off in palmy youth?
Truth he spoke, and acted truth.
‘Countrymen, unite,’ he cried,
And died for what our Saviour died.
God of peace and God of love!
Let it not Thy vengeance move –
Let it not Thy lightnings draw –
A nation guillotined by law.
Hapless Nation, rent and torn,
Thou wert early taught to mourn;
Warfare for six hundred years!
Epoch marked with blood and tears!
Hunted thro’ thy native grounds,
Or flung reward to human hounds,
Each one pulled and tore his share,
Heedless of thy deep despair.
Hapless Nation! hapless Land!
Heap of uncementing sand!
Crumbled by a foreign weight:
And, by worse, domestic hate.
God of
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