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IRISH SONGS AND LYRICS 349 |
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And bends like a nun over clear well and spring. The fairies' tall palm-tree, the heath bird's fresh nest, And the couch the red-deer deems the sweetest and
best; With the free winds to fan it, and dew-drops to gem, Oh, what can ye match with its beautiful stem ?
From the shrine of St. Finbar, by lone Avon-bwee, To the halls of Dunluce, with its towers by the sea, From the hill of Knockthu to, the rath of Moyvore, Like a chaplet that circles our green island o'er, In the bawn of the chief, by the anchorite's cell, On the hilltop or greenwood, by streamlet or well, With a spell on each leaf which no mortal can learn, Oh, there never was plant like the Irish hill fern !
Oh, the fern, the fern, the Irish hill fern, That shelters the weary, or wild roe, or kern ; Through the glens of Kilcoe rose a shout on the gale, As the Saxons rushed forth in their wrath from the
Pale, With bandog and blood-hound, all savage to see, To hunt through Cluncalla the wild rapparee. Hark ! a cry from yon dell on the startled ear rings, And forth from the wood the young fugitive springs, Through the copse, o'er the bog, and oh, saints be his
guide! His fleet step now falters, there's blood on his sides; Yet onward he strains, climbs the cliff, fords the
stream, And sinks on the hilltop, 'mid bracken leaves green ; And thick o'er his brow are the fresh clusters piled, And they cover his form as the mother her child, |
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