Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis

152
The slightest stain of weariness and ruth."
As he listened to the speaker, his heart grew weak and weaker--
Ah! Memory, go seek her, that maiden by the wave,
Who with terror and amazement is looking from her casement,
Where the billows at the basement of her nestled cottage rave,
At the moon which struggles onward through the tempest, like the brave,
And which sinks within the clouds as in a grave.
All maidens will abhor us, and it's very painful for us
To tell how faithless Maurice forgot his plighted vow:
He thinks not of the breaking of the heart he late was seeking,
He but listens to her speaking, and but gazes on her brow;
And his heart has all consented, and his lips are ready now
With the awful and irrevocable vow.
While the word is there abiding, lo! the crowd is now dividing,
And, with sweet and gentle gliding, in before him came a fawn;
It was the same that fled him, and that seemed so much to dread him,
When it down in triumph led him to Glengariff's grassy lawn,
When, from rock to rock descending, to sweet Alice he was drawn,
As through Ceim-an-eich he hunted from the dawn.
The magic chain is broken--no fairy vow is spoken--
From his trance he hath awoken, and once again is free;
And gone is Una's palace, and vain the wild steed's malice,
And again to gentle Alice down he wends through Ceim-an-eich:
The moon is calmly shining over mountain, stream, and tree,
And the yellow sea-plants glisten through the sea.
The sun his gold is flinging, the happy birds are singing,
And bells are gaily ringing along Glengariff's sea;
And crowds in many a galley to the happy marriage rally
Of the maiden of the valley and the youth of Ceim-an-eich;
Old eyes with joy are weeping, as all ask on bended knee
A blessing, gentle Alice, upon thee!
99. The pass of Keim-an-eigh (the path of the deer) lies to the
south-west of Inchageela, in the direction of Bantry Bay.