three causes for the moan
That rises everywhere now they are gone:
Be kind, O King, unto this two and one!

HONORO BUTLER AND LORD KENMARE (1720)

In bloom and bud the bees are busily
    Storing against the winter their sweet hoard
That shall be rifled ere the autumn be
    Past, or the winter comes with silver sword
To fright the bees, until the merry round
Tells them that sweets again are to be found.

The lusty tide is flowing by in ease,
    Telling of joy along its brimming way;
Far in its waters is an isle of trees
    Whereto the sun will go at end of day,
As who in secret place and dear is hid,
And scarce can rouse him thence tho' he be chid.

Now justice comes all trouble to repair,
    And cheeks that had been wan are coloured well,
The untilled moor is comely, and the air
    Hath a great round of song from bird in dell,
And bird on wing and bird on forest tree,
And from each place and space where bird may be.

The languid are made strong, the strong grow stronger,
    There is no grievance here, and no distress,
The woeful are not woeful any longer,
    The rose hath put on her a finer dress,
And every girl to bloom adds bloom again,
And every man hath heart beyond all men.

For the Star of Munster, Pearl of the Golden Bough,
    Comes joyfully this day of days to wed
Her choice of all whom fame hath loved till now,
    And who chose her from all that love instead:
The Joy of the Flock, the Bud of the Branch is she,
Crown of the Irish Pride and Chivalry.

He is a chief and prince, well famed is he,
    The love of thousands unto him does run;
And all days were before and all will be,
    He was and will be loved by every one;
And she and he be loved by all no less
Who courage love, and love, and loveliness.

The nobles of the province take their wine,
    And drink a merry health to groom and bride;
They shall be drunken ere the sun decline,
    And all their merrymaking lay aside
In deep, sweet sleep that seals a merry day
Until the dawn, when they shall ride away,

Leaving those two who now are one behind.
    O Moon! pour on the silence all thy beams,
And for this night be beautiful and kind;
    Weave in their sleep thy best and dearest dreams;
And fortune them in their own land to be
Safe from all evil chance, and from all enmity.

CLANN CARTIE

My heart is withered and my health is gone,
For they who were not easy put upon,
Masters of mirth and of fair clemency,
Masters of wealth and gentle charity,
They are all gone. Mac Caura Mor is dead,
Mac Caura of the Lee is finished,
Mac Caura of Kanturk joined clay to clay
And gat him gone, and bides as deep as they.

Their years, their gentle deeds, their flags are furled,
And deeply down, under the stiffened world,
In chests of oaken wood are princes thrust,
To crumble day by day into the dust
A mouth might puff at; nor is left a trace
Of those who did of grace all that was grace.

O Wave of Cliona, cease thy bellowing!
And let mine ears forget a while to ring
At thy long, lamentable misery:
The great are dead indeed, the great are dead;
And I, in little time, will stoop my head
And put it under, and will be forgot
With them, and be with them, and thus be not:
Ease thee, cease thy long keening, cry no more:
End is, and here is end, and end is sore,
And to all lamentation be there end:
If I might come on thee, O howling friend!
Knowing that sails were drumming on the sea
Westward to Eiré, and that help would be
Trampling for her upon a Spanish deck,
I'd ram thy lamentation down thy neck.

THE LAND OF FÁL

If all must suffer equally, and pay
    In equal share for that sin wrought by Eve,
O Thou, if Thou wilt deign to answer, say:
    Why are the poor tormented? why made grieve
The innocent? why are the free enslaved?
    Why have the wicked peace tho' void of ruth?
Why are there none to pity, when, dismayed,
    And sick with fear, the lamb bleats to the tooth
That tears him down? why is the cry unheard
    Of lonely anguish? why, when the land of Fál
Had loved Thee long and well, was she not spared
    The ruin that hath stamped her under all
        That mourn and die?

INIS FÁL

Now may we turn aside and dry our tears,
And comfort us, and lay aside our fears,
For all is gone—all comely quality,
All gentleness and hospitality,
All courtesy and merriment is gone;
Our virtues all are withered every one,
Our music vanished and our skill to sing:
Now may we quiet us and quit our moan,
Nothing is whole that could be broke; no thing
Remains to us of all that was our own.

OWEN O'NÉILL

If poesy have truth at all,
    If some great lion of the Gael
Shall rule the lovely land of Fál;
    O yellow mast and roaring sail!
Carry the leadership for me,
Writ in this letter, o'er the sea
    To great O'Néill.

EGAN O'RAHILLY

Here in a distant place I hold my tongue;
I am O'Rahilly:
When I was young,
Who now am young no more,
I did not eat things picked up from the shore.
The periwinkle, and the tough dogfish
At even-time have got into my dish!
The great, where are they now! the great had said—
This is not seemly, bring to him instead
That which serves his and serves our dignity—
And that was done.

I am O'Rahilly:
Here in a distant place I hold my tongue,
Who once said all his say, when he was young!

RIGHTEOUS ANGER

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer:
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair,
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see
On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,
And threw me out of the house on the back of my head!

If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day;
But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.

THE WEAVERS

Many a time your father gave me aid
    When I was down, and now I'm down again:
You mustn't take it bad or be dismayed
    Because I say, young folk should help old men
    And 'tis their duty to do that: Amen!

I have no cows, no sheep, no cloak, no hat,
    For those who used to give me things are dead
And my luck died with them: because of that
    I