The Song of Echo

Dawn came softly, as a dove,
O'er the cove of slumb'ring ocean;
Bending boughs were thrilled, above,
With cooing love and sweet commotion.
All around from blossomed bowers,
Fragrant flow'rs sent odours airy;
Lo, there shone a radiant light —
A brilliant, bright, and noble Fairy!

Ah, she wept in weary woe,
Her accents low, her full tears flowing,
Her sobbing sighs came sad and slow,
Her tresses go on breezes blowing,
Bowed the head that once was high,
Dim her eye, with woe and worry,
It rent the heart to hear her sigh —
So sad, and sick, and sore, and sorry.

"Now," she said, "I'm lorn and lone,
As, 'neath stone, a corpse of coldness;
Darts go through me, friends I've none,
Gone is Thomond's ancient boldness.
Faint my spirit now and sore,
Strength is o'er, my heart is breaking;
Down the breeze a venom blows —
Cause of woes — a Shrew is shrieking!

"Long I've lain 'neath Druid sway,
Whose cry was gay, from hill to hollow;
All I've answered, night or day,
Faithful still their fate I follow.
No horn of Chieftain on the height, —
No murmur slight of billow dying,
But found responses,, loud or light —
Thou, aright, heard my replying.

"Once my accents bore command
O'er the land, like mellow thunder:
Conn I sang, and Eoghan's fight,
Mac Morna's might, and Finn, our Wonder!
From wood and scar, I sped afar
Of noble war the rolling clangour,
My bosom's sword! — now, no such lord
Starts from the sward in awful anger.

"Last I told our grief of griefs,
The Flight of Chiefs o'er foreign water;
The Fall of Erinn's fairest flow'r,
William's power, and Aughrim's slaughter:
The bullet flies, — my wild notes rise
With battle's cries, and cannon's roaring;
They kill, they kill; — my wail is shrill
A wounded Nation still deploring.

"Vaunt not yet, though faint I seem,
Ye shall not deem Me lost for ever;
Though ruin roll in sullen stream,
And Morning's beam appeareth never.
I a thousand fights have seen, —
And I have been, by fetters, bounded, —
And I have served and sung My Queen
When foe on foe went under, wounded!"