Poems by Denis Florence MacCarthy (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

shone the burning glances of those flashing fairy eyes; Three splendours there were shining, three passions intertwining, Despair and hope combining their deep-contrasted dyes, With jealousy's green lustre, as troubled ocean vies
With the blue of summer skies!

She was a fairy creature, of heavenly form and feature, Not Venus' self could teach her a newer, sweeter grace, Not Venus' self could lend her an eye so dark and tender, Half softness and half splendour, as lit her lily face; And as the choral planets move harmonious throughout space,
There was music in her pace.

But when at times she started, and her blushing lips were parted, And a pearly lustre darted from her teeth so ivory white, You'd think you saw the gliding of two rosy clouds dividing, And the crescent they were hiding gleam forth upon your sight Through these lips, as though the portals of a heaven pure and bright,
Came a breathing of delight!

Though many an elf-king loved her, and elf-dames grave reproved her, The hunter's daring moved her more wildly every hour; Unseen she roamed beside him, to guard him and to guide him, But now she must divide him from her human rival's power. Ah! Alice!-gentle Alice! the storm begins to lower
That may crush Glengariff's flower!

The moon, that late was gleaming, as calm as childhood's dreaming, Is hid, and, wildly screaming, the stormy winds arise; And the clouds flee quick and faster before their sullen master, And the shadows of disaster are falling from the skies; Strange sights and sounds are rising-but, Maurice, be thou wise,
Nor heed the tempting cries.

If ever mortal needed that council, surely he did; But the wile has now succeeded-he wanders from his path; The cloud its lightning sendeth, and its bolt the stout oak rendeth, And the arbutus back bendeth in the whirlwind, as a lath! Now and then the moon looks out, but, alas! its pale face hath
A dreadful look of wrath.

In vain his strength he squanders-at each step he wider wanders- Now he pauses-now he ponders where his present path may lead; And, as he round is gazing, he sees-a sight amazing- Beneath him, calmly grazing, a noble jet-black steed. "Now, heaven be praised!" cried Maurice, "for this succour in my need-
From this labyrinth I'm freed!"

Upon its back he leapeth, but a shudder through him creepeth, As the mighty monster sweepeth like a torrent through the dell; His mane, so softly flowing, is now a meteor blowing, And his burning eyes are glowing with the light of an inward hell; And the red breath of his nostrils, like steam where the lightning fell;
And his hoofs have a thunder knell!

What words have we for painting the momentary fainting That the rider's heart is tainting, as decay doth taint a corse? But who will stoop to chiding, in a fancied courage priding, When we know that he is riding the fearful Phooka Horse?[101] Ah! his heart beats quick and faster than the smitings of remorse
As he sweepeth through the wild grass and gorse!

As the avalanche comes crashing, 'mid the scattered streamlets
splashing, Thus backward wildly dashing flew the horse through Ceim-an-eich- Through that glen so wide and narrow back he darted like an arrow- Round, round by Gougane Barra, and the fountains of the Lee; O'er the Giant's Grave he leapeth, and he seems to own in fee
The mountains, and the rivers, and the sea!

From his flashing hoofs who shall lock the eagle homes of Malloc, When he bounds, as bounds the Mialloch[102] in its wild and murmuring
tide? But as winter leadeth Flora, or the night leads on Aurora, Or as shines green Glashenglora[103] along the black hill's side, Thus, beside that demon monster, white and gentle as a bride,
A tender fawn is seen to glide.

It is the fawn that fled him, and that late to Alice led him, But now it does not dread him, as it feigned to do before, When down the mountain gliding, in that sheltered meadow hiding, It left his heart abiding by wild Glengariff's shore: For it was a gentle fairy who the fawn's light form thus wore,
And who watched sweet Alice o'er.

But the steed is backward prancing where late it was advancing, And his flashing eyes are glancing, like the sun upon Lough Foyle; The hardest granite crushing, through the thickest brambles brushing, Now like a shadow rushing up the sides of Slieve-na-goil! And the fawn beside him gliding o'er the rough and broken soil,
Without fear and without toil.

Through woods, the sweet birds' leaf home, he rusheth to the sea foam, Long, long the fairies' chief home, when the summer nights are cool, And the blue sea, like a syren, with its waves the steed environ, Which hiss like furnace iron when plunged within a pool, Then along among the islands where the water nymphs bear rule,
Through the bay to Adragool.

Now he rises o'er Berehaven, where he hangeth like a raven- Ah! Maurice, though no craven, how terrible for thee To see the misty shading of the mighty mountains fading, And thy winged fire-steed wading through the clouds as through a sea! Now he feels the earth beneath him-he is loosen'd-he is free,
And asleep in Ceim-an-eich.

Away the wild steed leapeth, while his rider calmly sleepeth Beneath a rock which keepeth the entrance to the glen, Which standeth like a castle, where are dwelling lord and vassal, Where within are wind and wassail, and without are warrior men; But save the sleeping Maurice, this castle cliff had then
No mortal denizen![104]

Now Maurice is awaking, for the solid earth is shaking, And a sunny light is breaking through the slowly opening stone And a fair page at the portal crieth, "Welcome, welcome! mortal, Leave thy world (at best a short ill), for the pleasant world we own: There are joys by thee untasted, there are glories yet unknown-
Come kneel at Una's throne."

With a sullen sound of thunder, the great rock falls asunder, He looks around in wonder, and with ravishment awhile, For the air his sense is chaining, with as exquisite a paining As when summer clouds are raining o'er a flowery Indian isle; And the faces that surround him, oh! how exquisite their smile,
So free of mortal care and guile.

These forms, oh! they are finer-these faces are diviner Than, Phidias, even thine are, with all thy magic art; For beyond an artist's guessing, and beyond a bard's expressing, Is the face that truth is dressing with the feelings of the heart; Two worlds are there together-earth and heaven have each a part-
And of such, divinest Una, thou art!

And then the dazzling lustre of the hall in which they muster- Where the brightest diamonds cluster on the flashing walls around; And the flying and advancing, and the sighing and the glancing. And the music and the dancing on the flower-inwoven ground, And the laughing and the feasting, and the quaffing and the sound,
In which their voices all are drowned.

But the murmur now is hushing-there's a pushing and a rushing, There's a crowding and a crushing, through that golden, fairy place, Where a snowy veil is lifting, like the slow and silent shifting Of a shining vapour drifting across the moon's pale face- For there sits gentle Una, fairest queen of fairy race,
In her beauty, and her majesty, and grace.

The moon by stars attended, on her pearly throne ascended, Is not more purely splendid than this fairy-girted queen; And when her lips had spoken, 'mid the charmed silence broken, You'd think you had awoken in some bright Elysian scene; For her voice than the lark's was sweeter, that sings in joy between
The heavens and the meadows green.

But her cheeks-ah! what are roses?-what are clouds where eve
reposes?- What are hues that dawn discloses?-to the blushes spreading there; And what the sparkling motion of a star within the ocean, To the crystal soft emotion that her lustrous dark eyes wear? And the tresses of a moonless and a starless night are fair
To the blackness of her raven hair.

Ah! mortal hearts have panted for what to thee is granted- To see the halls enchanted of the spirit world revealed; And yet no glimpse assuages the feverish doubt that rages In the hearts of bards and sages wherewith they may be healed; For this have pilgrims wandered-for this have votaries kneeled-
For this, too, has blood bedewed the field.

"And now that thou beholdest what the wisest and the oldest, What the bravest and the boldest, have never yet descried, Wilt thou come and share our being, be a part of what thou'rt seeing, And flee, as we are fleeing, through the boundless ether wide? Or along the silver ocean, or down deep where pale pearls hide?
And I, who am a queen, will be thy bride.

"As an essence thou wilt enter the world's mysterious centre," And then the fairy bent her, imploring to the youth- "Thou'lt be free of Death's cold ghastness, and, with a comet's
fastness, Thou canst wander through the vastness to the Paradise of Truth, Each day a new joy bringing, which will never leave in sooth
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,