Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis

115
Sweetly the rising moonbeams play
Along the shores of Inver Bay,[77]
As smooth and white Lough Eask[78] expands
As Rosapenna's[79] silvery sands,
And quiet reigns all o'er thy fields,
Clan Dalaigh[80] of the golden shields.
The fairy gun[81] is heard no more
To boom within the cavern'd shore,
With smoother roll the torrents flow
Adown the rocks of Assaroe;[82]
Securely, till the coming day,
The red deer couch in far Glenvay,
And all is peace and calm around
O'Donnell's castled moat and mound.
But in the hall there feast to-night
Full many a kern and many a knight,
And gentle dames, and clansmen strong,
And wandering bards, with store of song:
The board is piled with smoking kine,
And smooth bright cups of Spanish wine,
And fish and fowl from stream and shaw,
And fragrant mead and usquebaugh.
The chief is at the table's head--
'Tis Con, the son of Hugh the Red--
The heir of Conal Golban's line;[83]
With pleasure flushed, with pride and wine,
He cries, "Our dames adjudge it wrong,
To end our feast without the song;
Have we no bard the strain to raise?
No foe to taunt, no maid to praise?
"Where beauty dwells the bard should dwell,
What sweet lips speak the bard should tell;
'Tis he should look for starry eyes,
And tell love's watchers where they rise:
To-night, if lips and eyes could do,
Bards were not wanting in Tirhugh;
For where have lips a rosier light,