Calm was the evening and the sky serene,
All Nature smiled upon the golden hour;
The hills of corn were clad in liveliest green,
The meads in all the pomp of vernal flower:
The soft air was so thin, so clear,
Distance was lost in that pure atmosphere;
And brighter from its grove gleam’d the remote church tower.

Majestic Shannon’s smooth transparent wave,
Scarce heard to ripple scarcely seen to glid,
Those lovely scenes in bright reflection gave,
Sketch’d o’er its breathless mirror far and wide:
As if some hand with skill divine,
Some mighty master traced each glowing line,
And tinged with magic hues the bosom of the tide.

On such an evening, ere the golden beam
From the warm landscape had begun to fade,
Musing along the margin of the stream,
In indolence of thought, my footsteps stray’d.
Sooth’d by the calm that reign’d around
(For not a sea breeze woke its lightest sound)
Along a wave-worn rock my languid limbs I laid.

There, as the crimson sunset flush’d the sky,
And, purpling, o’er the east thin shadows spread,
An aged man came slowly pacing by
With dropping form, and low, dejected head.
An infant guide, with duteous hand,
His faltering footsteps led along the strand;
For though his eyes seem’d bright, the visual ray had fled.

The meek, pale face, the flowing locks of snow,
The melancholy grandeur of his mien,
Triumphant o’er neglect, and want, and woe,
Witness’d that once more prosperous days had been.
He seem’d, sole frowning o’er the plain,
As the last column of some ruin’d fane;
The monumental pile that consecrates the scene.

The last sad branch of Erin ’s minstrelsy,
Withering beneath the breath of power, he lay
The rich despis’d his song of low;
The poor had nought but smiles and tears to pay.
Here, on the solitary shore,
Here would he wander - here he loved to pour
A requiem to the dead at the still close of day.

“Lead me,“ he cried,“ where my faint ear may seize
Delightful music as the waters lave;
Where I may feel the cool breath of the breeze,
Or scent the beautiful odour of the wave -
They may not these delights withhold!“
A sudden flush cross’d his pale cheek, and told
The passionate grief that, thus, to the wild winds he gave.

“The harps are mute, th’ inspiring bards no more,
Who woke in festive halls the thirst of fame:
Who, when red battle shook th’ ensanguin’d shore,
And droop’d full many a youth of noble name,
Swept with bold band the sounding wire,
Recall’d to ev’ry breast heroic fire,
And fanned to fiercest blaze th’ expiring blush or shame!

“No minstrel now, through the umbrageous grove,
On tiptoe steals at midnight’s silent hour,
To wake, with trembling hand, the lyre of love
Beneath the casement of his lady’s tower;
And murmur o’er the conscoiius strings
A thousand tender, yet forbidden things,
To charm the yielding maid, and woo her to his bower.

“And why unstrung, unheeded, lies the lute?
Why does the warlike harp in silence weep?
- Cold is the slave’s sad heart – and his lips mute-
Dishonour’d woman bows her bead to weep.
Music has lost its charms of yore:
The martial hymn can kindle hearts no more,
Nor steal from memory scenes that make the flesh to creep.

“It cannot now restore lost liberty
Th’oppressive yoke hath still’d each pulse of flame,
Whose fiery current once, tumultously,
Had flush’d through every vein in tides of shame,
If but the hoary harper sang
The deeds of early days, or wildly rang
His country’s living woes, his country’s dying fame.

“Oh say not. weaker fires glow’d in each breast
Of those subdued yet honourable me:
That patriot love their souls more lightly prest -
A noble strife is never wholly vain.
But we were not united, and they came
With all Ambition’s singleness of aim
How could unmarshalld hosts their firm phalanx sustain!

“No – we might might boast in our long lineage
All that we love and reverence in mankind:
Hero and bard, the patriot and the sage,
With strength of arm and energy of mind:
And in the household bowers of love
Fond wives and bashful maids are seen to move,
In every virtue strong, by every grace refined.

“Alas! dim shadows of immortal mind,
That, cloud-like, sweep o’er memory’s silent waste,
Mark’d by no eye but his, the unconfined,
Bold votary of song! - how swift ye haste,
Upon the subtle winds of Time,
(Fast fading pageants of a fickle clime)
To yon dark bound whence ye may never more be traced!

“Forgotten warriors of a righteous band
Who, vainly combating for freedom, died
Such is your fate! - though worthy to command
A station with the noblest, whom the pride
Of a great people consecrates to fame:
Yielding such homage to the pattriot name,
As kingly power had vainly offered or denied.

“Heroes! still worship’d by the faithful few -
Where lives the memory of each glorious deed
That Poesy’s warm lip should aye renew? -
Cold are the hands that spread abroad the seed,
which, rooted in immortal verse,
On every wind the harvest might disperse
Of ripe renown, the soldier’s hard-earn’d, noblest meed.

“To dull ears, and a palsied intellect
The passionless minstrel falters: be, no more,
May in his clear strain, as a glass, reflect
The flash of arms and war’s ensanguin’d shore:
He dares not name, he cannot feel
Fires such as pulsed thy red right hand, O’Neil!
Or in thy swarth eye blazed, tameless MacCarthy more!

“Oh names! dear sounds! – how my heart bounds again,
As I pronounce ye thus – I see you all -
In chivalrous aray, a glittering train;
As erst ’neath Cashel’s rock, in Tara’s hall,
On sculptur’d throne, or barbed steed
By royal Roderick, far-fam’d Brian, led,
Ye stamp’d the doom of law, or peal’d the battlecall!

“And thus thy towers, Lixnaw, rise to mine eye,
Where proud Fitzmaurice hous’d his princely line
Still on Slieve Logher’s wilds, the pennons fly,
And rings the war-shout of the Geraldine -
(Whose noblest veins in one flood
The Tuscan and remote Milesian blood)
There, with his knights, sweeps by Desmond’s old Palatine !

“And are all fled? - ls great Tyrone forgot?
And the Tyrconnell but a stranger’s name?
Honour’d Gilpatrick! has it been thy lot
That Butler’s brow should bear thy lineal claim?
Oh! must the spoiler’s earthquake trace
O’erthrow thy rampire’s well-proved strength, Dunmase!
Where once 0’ Ruark’s warm heart throbb’d to the pulse of fame!

“Ah! brainsick phantasms! to these sightless balls
Vainly ye crowd - in vain your spectral bands
Troop in baronial pomp from feudal halls;
Crowns on your brows, and falchions in your hands.
Your roof-tree’s crush’d - the very grave
Is rooted up, where slept the outlaw’d brave -
And exil’d bones, unwept, moulder in foreign lands!

“Ruthless Oblivion silently pervades
Your homes, your temples, your forgotten tombs.
Not all thy terraced grandeur, forest shades,
Lixnaw! could save thee from the spoiler: - glooms
Of double night shroud Cashel’s holy fane:
And o’er Kilmallock’s bawn and cloister’d plain
The hermit night owl broods, and the wild bittern booms!

“ ‘tis past! - all’s lost - Oh fatal Athunree!
Thy bloody scene swells on my blasted eyes-
The tumult, the suspense, the agony!
Aughrim! again thy they banded woe arise -
­And all thy damning shames are there,
In the wild freshness of their first despair-
It vain my country bleeds - in vain each victim dies!

“Ay, we were lost! and, foremost in the throng,
Came the cloak’d foes, of all our ills the worst;
Faction, and feudal hate, and household wrong,
And Treason’s parricidal hand accurst!
All the vile Passions were abroad
With their true savage allies, Force, and Fraud;
And the full heart of Shame was trampled ‘till it burst!

‘tis past - the earthquake’s past! We are bereft
Of all; by all deserted. Ample scope
For feeling still remains - and we are left
Memory and Hope! - Oh no - we have no hope!
We have no hope! We, slaves
Look but for quiet deaths, and decent graves,
Freedom from stripes, and chains, the dungeon, and the rope!

“Behold yon forest hills, yon harvest plains,
Proud towers, and frowning portals of the great:
Say, whose the birthright, of those fair domains?
- The serf should govern, where mysterious fate
Hath stamp’d him slave - yet, mark those eyes of gloom,
That cheek that wears the livery of the tomb;
Vengeance is shadow’d there, and long-surviving hate!

“Observe, beneath yon hovel’s brownest shade,
With wasted form, sunk cheek, and faded eye,
Where listless droops the long neglected maid,
Reft e’en of hope to soohe her misery.
Oh, had she breath’d in earliest days,
The voice of bards had hymn’d her matchless praise!
Princes had knelt around, and heroes learn’d to sigh!

“Fled, fled is now, each high-born sentiment;
For ages have elapsed since we were free
Long have our weary limbs reluctant bent
To every shrine, but that of Liberty .
Scarce does tradition paint the past;
No minstrel lives to make its memory last -
To nourish in young breasts hopes of futurity.”

The old man ceased – and, as he ceased, here fell
Upon his wither’d hand a heavy tear.
Oft, round his sightless orbs, I mark’d it swell
As oft repress’d as it collected there.
At length he could no more control
The honourable weakness; and his his soul
To shame and grief pour’d out its passionate arrear.