Prose · 1888 · Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
A Lamentation
For the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight, of Kerry, who was killed in Flanders, 1642.
From the Irish, by Clarence Mangan
There was lifted up one voice of woe,One lament of more than mortal grief,Through the wide South to and fro,For a fallen Chief.In the dead of night that cry thrilled through me,I looked out upon the midnight air?My own soul was all as gloomy,As I knelt in prayer.
O’er Loch Gur, that night, once—twice—yea, thrice—Passed a wail of anguish for the BraveThat half curled into iceIts moon-mirroring wave.Then uprose a many-toned wild hymn inChoral swell from Ogra’s dark ravine,And Mogeely’s Phantom WomenMourned the Geraldine!
Far on Carah Mona’s emerald plainsShrieks and sighs were blended many hours.And Fermoy in fitful strainsAnswered from her towers.Youghal, Keenalmeaky, Eemokilly,Mourned in concert, and their piercing keenWoke to wondering life the stillyGlens of Inchiqueen.
From Loughmoe to yellow DunanoreThere was fear; the traders of TraleeGathered up their golden store,And prepared to flee;For, in ship and hall from night till morning,Showed the first faint beamings of the sun,All the foreigners heard the warningOf the Dreaded One!
“This,” they spake, “portendeth death to us,If we fly not swiftly from our fate!”Self-conceited idiots! thusRavingly to prate!Not for base-born higgling Saxon truckstersRing laments like those by shore and sea!Not for churls with souls like huckstersWaileth our Banshee!
For the high Milesian race aloneEver flows the music of her woe!For slain heir to bygone throne,And for Chief laid low!Hark!... Again, methinks, I hear her weepingYonder! Is she near me now, as then?Or was but the night-wind sweepingDown the hollow glen?
Text: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, edited and selected by W. B. Yeats (Walter Scott, London, 1888). Public domain.