Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis
Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis
100 And breathes Eternity's favonian air; Yet fond Tradition lingers o'er her tomb, And paints her glorious features as they were:-- Her smile was Eden's pure and stainless light, Which never cloud nor earthly vapour mars; Her lustrous eyes were like the noon of night-- Black, but yet brightened by a thousand stars; Her tender form, moulded in modest grace, Shrank from the gazer's eye, and moved apart; Heaven shone reflected in her angel face, And God reposed within her virgin heart. She dwelt in green Moyarta's pleasant land, Beneath the graceful hills of Clonderlaw,-- Sweet sunny hills, whose triple summits stand, One vast tiara over stream and shaw. Almost in solitude the maiden grew, And reached her early budding woman's prime; And all so noiselessly the swift time flew, She knew not of the name or flight of Time. And thus, within her modest mountain nest, This gentle maiden nestled like a dove, Offering to God from her pure innocent breast The sweet and silent incense of her love. No selfish feeling nor presumptuous pride In her calm bosom waged unnatural strife; Saint of her home and hearth, she sanctified The thousand trivial common cares of life. Upon the opposite shore there dwelt a youth, Whose nature's woof was woven of good and ill-- Whose stream of life flowed to the sea of truth, But in a devious course, round many a hill-- Now lingering through a valley of delight, Where sweet flowers bloomed, and summer songbirds sung, Now hurled along the dark, tempestuous night, With gloomy, treeless mountains overhung. He sought the soul of Beauty throughout space,
101 Knowledge he tracked through many a vanished age: For one he scanned fair Nature's radiant face, And for the other, Learning's shrivelled page. If Beauty sent some fair apostle down, Or Knowledge some great teacher of her lore, Bearing the wreath of rapture and the crown, He knelt to love, to learn, and to adore. Full many a time he spread his little sail, How rough the river, or how dark the skies, Gave his light corrach to the angry gale, And crossed the stream to gaze on Ethna's eyes. As yet 'twas worship, more than human love, That hopeless adoration that we pay Unto some glorious planet throned above, Through severed from its crystal sphere for aye. But warmer love an easy conquest won, The more he came to green Moyarta's bowers; Even as the earth, by gazing on the sun, In summer-time puts forth her myriad flowers. The yearnings of his heart--vague, undefined-- Wakened and solaced by ideal gleams, Took everlasting shape, and intertwined Around this incarnation of his dreams. Some strange fatality restrained his tongue-- He spoke not of the love that filled his breast; The thread of hope, on which his whole life hung, Was far too weak to bear so strong a test. He trusted to the future--time, or chance-- His constant homage and assiduous care; Preferred to dream, and lengthen out his trance, Rather than wake to knowledge and despair. And thus she knew not, when the youth would look Upon some pictured chronicle of eld, In every blazoned letter of the book One fairest face was all that he beheld: And where the limner, with consummate art, Drew flowing lines and quaint devices rare,
- Page 49 and 50: 49 the agile spring so swift and li
- Page 51 and 52: 51 Though Domnal[42] it should be,
- Page 53 and 54: 53 Who hitherto have come to fight
- Page 55 and 56: 55 CUCHULLIN. If Conor's royal stre
- Page 57 and 58: 57 Unto the chariot, and he rode fu
- Page 59 and 60: 59 Last year it was in a vision of
- Page 61 and 62: 61 "Glad am I, O Cuchullin, thou ha
- Page 63 and 64: 63 Thence impetuous wilt thou grow,
- Page 65 and 66: 65 No, the great prize shall not by
- Page 67 and 68: 67 Like bees upon the wing on a fin
- Page 69 and 70: 69 And then they braced their two b
- Page 71 and 72: 71 And thus betwixt the twain this
- Page 73 and 74: 73 To fight the fight where my frie
- Page 75 and 76: 75 All these on me in turn shall so
- Page 77 and 78: 77 With such an easy effort that it
- Page 79 and 80: 79 As a huge mill-stone, cracking i
- Page 81 and 82: 81 He to have died and thou to have
- Page 83 and 84: 83 Ah! hapless deed, that still my
- Page 85 and 86: 85 First on the shore, as swift our
- Page 87 and 88: 87 The wave that swallows up the sh
- Page 89 and 90: 89 38. "The plains of Aie" (son of
- Page 91 and 92: 91 This, which it is to be presumed
- Page 93 and 94: 93 Like hooded monks before a dazzl
- Page 95 and 96: 95 I sought the rocky eastern isle,
- Page 97 and 98: 97 At length the long-expected morn
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- Page 103 and 104: 103 But holding marble basilics and
- Page 105 and 106: 105 Her cold hands chilled the boso
- Page 107 and 108: 107 Bright, even as bright as those
- Page 109 and 110: 109 Rise up to God like morn and ev
- Page 111 and 112: 111 There never falls the rain-clou
- Page 113 and 114: 113 would be always visited and pro
- Page 115 and 116: 115 Sweetly the rising moonbeams pl
- Page 117 and 118: 117 To Desmond of the flowing strea
- Page 119 and 120: 119 If beauty decks with peerless c
- Page 121 and 122: 121 When all who live on Irish grou
- Page 123 and 124: 123 Thus rushed upon the doomed Mac
- Page 125 and 126: 125 Hangs the long leash that binds
- Page 127 and 128: 127 "If, when I reach my home to-ni
- Page 129 and 130: 129 "Thou'st bravely won an Irish b
- Page 131 and 132: 131 MacDonnells was at Glenarm. 85.
- Page 133 and 134: 133 And such was young Paolo! The m
- Page 135 and 136: 135 prayer. At morning when Paolo d
- Page 137 and 138: 137 And are bless'd in the name of
- Page 139 and 140: 139 But the tower in whose shade th
- Page 141 and 142: 141 Burning and withering, its drop
- Page 143 and 144: 143 his soul. For though sweet are
- Page 145 and 146: 145 Still some scenes are yet encha
- Page 147 and 148: 147 Need we say that Maurice loved
- Page 149 and 150: 149 As he sweepeth through the wild
100<br />
And breathes Eternity's favonian air;<br />
Yet fond Tradition lingers o'er her tomb,<br />
And paints her glorious features as they were:--<br />
Her smile was Eden's pure and stainless light,<br />
Which never cloud nor earthly vapour mars;<br />
Her lustrous eyes were like the noon of night--<br />
Black, but yet brightened by a thousand stars;<br />
Her tender form, moulded in modest grace,<br />
Shrank from the gazer's eye, and moved apart;<br />
Heaven shone reflected in her angel face,<br />
And God reposed within her virgin heart.<br />
She dwelt in green Moyarta's pleasant land,<br />
Beneath the graceful hills of Clonderlaw,--<br />
Sweet sunny hills, whose triple summits stand,<br />
One vast tiara over stream and shaw.<br />
Almost in solitude the maiden grew,<br />
And reached her early budding woman's prime;<br />
And all so noiselessly the swift time flew,<br />
She knew not of the name or flight of Time.<br />
And thus, within her modest mountain nest,<br />
This gentle maiden nestled like a dove,<br />
Offering to God from her pure innocent breast<br />
The sweet and silent incense of her love.<br />
No selfish feeling nor presumptuous pride<br />
In her calm bosom waged unnatural strife;<br />
Saint of her home and hearth, she sanctified<br />
The thousand trivial common cares of life.<br />
Upon the opposite shore there dwelt a youth,<br />
Whose nature's woof was woven of good and ill--<br />
Whose stream of life flowed to the sea of truth,<br />
But in a devious course, round many a hill--<br />
Now lingering through a valley of delight,<br />
Where sweet flowers bloomed, and summer songbirds sung,<br />
Now hurled along the dark, tempestuous night,<br />
With gloomy, treeless mountains overhung.<br />
He sought the soul of Beauty throughout space,