I

Many have longed for a maiden fair,
Who still is free as summer air :
Longing youths are strong and bright ;
She is free as summer light.
"Melcha, Melcha," parents say,
" Time flies, my child ! no more delay !
Young Geraldine would lead thee home ;
Worthier wooer will not come."
Half her young heart may playful lean
To the love of the love of Geraldine ;
But little she cares for rout or ball,
With flushing face and soft footfall ;
She plies her needle, churns her cream,
Milks a heifer of snowy gleam,
And more than all the pensive child
Loves to wander alone and wild.
With her own kindred bee or bird.
Far from all the human herd.
Over heather, over hill,
By the torrent, by the still
Lake-margin, in a noonday trance,
Brooding over old romance.

Melcha favours with her love
Every flowery nook and cove ;
Floats upon the placid stream.
Silvern as a silver bream,
Flying from a common life
All too full of soil and strife ;
Till once her shallop drifted to a cave
That looks upon Lough Lean's cool whispering wave,
Where silent water-light for loving eyes
Weaves mazy melodies
Over pellucid filmy fern,
Whose is many a fairy urn,
Festooning fair the rocky cavern- wall,
And glowing in a trickling waterfall,
Among sweet closely-woven mosses,
Where a rainbow globelet crosses
Ever to supply the losses,
Growing from long ferny nerves,
Like a meteor,
Startling merrily upon a flowery floor
A blue-eyed blossom, till it thrills and swerves !

Ruddied with the fiery globe.
Autumn's gorgeous golden robe
Involves majestic mountain forms,
Crags familiar with storms.
Grandly towering aglow.
Burning tranquil waves below,
Purpled here with miles of heather,
Shadowed often altogether.
Yonder shines the Eagle's Nest
In a glorious verdure-vest :
She hath climbed his rocky crest ;
Seen the stately eagle hover,
Imperial-poised, a thunder-cloud above her,
Whom a pearly sunbeam found
Luminous-brown, with all around
Opal air, and o'er the glens
Under, and o'er all the fens.

If eagles are monarchs of air,
Red deer are lords of the glen !
Behold ! a stag over there.
Defiant of hounds and men,
In a lair of tall Osmunda,
Antlered, large-eyed, a wonder.

She looked upon the luminous lake,
Seeing tufts of bilberry shake
In a wandering i)reeze
O'er their images ;
Red-boled luxuriant arbute trees,
With white flower and crimson fruit.
Glossy-leaved lave their root.
Darkening all the glass ;
Saw the languid lake-lives waver
Below in a luminous water-quaver,
Where shadowy fishes pass ;
Heard the lapping wavelets kiss.
While she dreamed of that or this —
Dreamed of old romance.
While light elf-like droppings dance.
Twinkling play
In a fairy spray.
" I would fly the vulgar toil ;
I would fly the strife and soil ;
I would slumber, and awake
In the bosom of the lake ! "
She is lulled to sweet repose
By a far-off mellow chime.
By the water's murmured rhyme.
By the wild bee in the thyme.
Till her eyelids close.

Hark ! a long sweet note resounding,
From the mountain clear rebounding !
Hills are all alive with voices.
With soft spirit noises.
Naiads of the shadowy water.
Every gentle woodland daughter,
All ye lovely fays who are
In the valleys of Glenaa !
All who haunt the Purple Mountain,
Souls of many a far-off fountain,
All in air, or underground.
Or in hollow cliff spellbound.
Breathe your delicate spirit-voices I
Eagle's Nest is all alive,
As though he were a fairies' hive ;
Musically ruffled he rejoices ;
Hurrying notes in sweet confusion,
Marrying with soft collusion ;
Awful, solemn-toned, and loud ;
Low as from beneath a shroud ;
Pausing now for a reply
From far crags and cliffs that lie
Underneath another sky !
Now they fall to slumber, murmuring unquietly.
High Carantuohil is the last to hear.
Murmuring from his cloud.andsolitary sphere.
What is the mild mystic trouble,
Where in the lake
Sun floats, a flashing double ?
Maiden, awake!
One emerges from the flood,
A snowy steed and rider, with pure radiance imbued !
He doth not seem of mortal mould,
Whose lineaments, how grave and pale !
Beam from a raised visor of gold.
Whose silver dripping mail,
And lofty plume him tall reveal
More than all sons of mortals ; his white steed
Stately paces the blue mead.
Slowly toward fair Melcha's nook
His majestic course he took :
Delighted wonder made her start ;
Fearless flutters her young heart.
" So my long-fondled tales are true :
Here is Lord O'Donoghue ! "'
He, swift leaping from his horse,
Seized her hand with gentle force :
She, gazing in the awful eyes.
Found them full of loving light ;
Lovely seemed to her the knight ;
Then she veiled her maiden eyes ;
And her tender heart was taken.
Taken ere she was aware,
By the spirit tall and white,
Ere he spake, " O maiden fair ! "
Spake with accent soft and rare,
"Wilt thou wed the waters blue?
Wilt thou love O'Donoghue?
Wilt thou love me, maiden mild ?
Fair my dwelling, gentle child !
Under the blue water !
Yet, 'tis weird, and vast, and cold ;
I desire a mortal daughter
To enfold !
But I know not if the wave
Unto thee would prove a grave : . . .
. . . All those wonders shall be thine.
If thou wilt be mine I "
"Thine!"
So the little Melcha breathed ;
And the spirit's arms enwreathed
Her a moment, as he won her :
" Darling, meet me when May morning-
Earth with bridal wreaths adorning.
Opens earliest eyes upon her !
Wait me on the tufted rock :
Well thou knowest I will not mock . . .
. . . From your white bosom give me yon silk scarf like flame ! "
He stole it, she allowing, and he vanished as he came.

O ! how poor is our dull earth,
Till the happy morn have birth.
And Melcha's father's bitter wife
Doth not sweeten Melcha's life I
With such unearthly eyes she moved, it roused a dark derision ;
She stumbled o'er her daily tasks i' the glamour of her vision.
She moved as one who is amazed,
With a sudden splendour dazed :
" Dare I with a spirit go
To the crystal realms below ?
And will he keep faith with me.
Far lowlier than he ?
I deem he was a monarch mild ;
And yet a Paynim, I a Christian child !
May I wed a fairy undefiled ?
But he is glorious and true I
I told the priest of our sweet interview,
Under close confession-seal :
He deemed it some hallucination ;
' Our Lady hover over thee, and heal 1
Flee very verges of damnation !
I know thou dost prefer thy nook
By yonder lake to holy book.
Or holy ordinance ; be wary !
Dally not with Paynim fairy I '
Nay, my love's a holy feast !
He but dotes, our aged priest :
And since I know he must be good,
I will tell him of the rood !
What a noble conquest this !
He shall taste eternal bliss.
By his love for little me ;
And, for reward, what wonders he
Will reveal to my glad mind,
By the many undivined I
Yet do I sleep, or do I wake ?
Shall I live beneath the lake ? . . .
He told me 'twas like Heaven there . . .
With him I will fly anywhere ! "

But Melcha had a younger sister,
Whom she cherished ; and she kissed her
With strange tenderness that night
Of April, ere the eventful light.
Misting tears are in her eyes,
Looking on her ere she flies ;
Looking in toward the bed,
Where a fair and dreamless head
Slumbers on without a sorrow,
Blithe to-day, and blithe to-morrow.
Little Melcha cannot sleep.
Shall she laugh, or shall she weep ?
She must leave her virgin chamber.
Where she taught a rose to clamber ;
She must leave her little bird,
Who in a sweet May dawn is stirred.
And the snowy folds of fume,
That curtain frail her beamy room,
Yea, and leave the mother's grave.
Her young grief was wont to lave.

Ere the sun she flies away :
Is it not the first of May ?
But she hath a favourite fawn
Silver-clear as a May dawn ;
Tho' he must leave her at the lake,
Till the last he'll not forsake !
Still a silver twinkling star
Laughs over woodlands of Glenaa ;
Yet the merry bird hath warbled.
O'er his five eggs wine-immarbled,
Notes that fall a rich perfume
Over orchards in white bloom ;
These festoon a violet air,
As she looks among the boughs.
In her bridal gossamer,
Where no costly jewel glows.
Save some dews that fall on her
From young foliage and fir.
Now a rosy gleam hath tinged
Waters fair, and forest-fringed ;
Far away tall Carantuohil
Glows in Heaven, a lonely jewel !

There a moment let her falter,
There before the woodland altar,
Where a lamp for ever burns
In a chapel among the ferns,
Asking of the carven Christ :
" Do I well to keep the tryst?"

She is at the tufted rock,
Hearing gentle water shock
Clear beneath her ; a careering hawk
Hangs o'er abrupt dark-wooded heights of
Tore !
At whose rich feet tall ash, hawthorn, and holly,
Hang shadowy bowers over waters melancholy.
Dinis isle, and many an isle.
Fair await the morning smile ;
Between the hills a purple light fills heavenly chalices ;
Till lo ! the Sun Himself enthroned in mountain palaces !

And when He touched the flashing flood,
Music welled from wave and wood ;
A celestial harmony
Floated over earth and sky. . . .
While from burning waves of blue
Burst the spirit O'Donoghue !
Beautiful youths and maidens, lovely waterpowers.
All enwreathed with heavenly flowers.
Like airy fancies from a poet's bowers.
Undulating o'er the gay
Crystal glory, many a fay,
Follow the war-horse as he prances,
Foam dancing all around him as he dances !
She beholds her crimson scarf
In the beams of morning laugh.
Bound about her stately charmer,
Bound about his radiant armour —
Now they are near the trysting-place ;
Melcha's heart is like a leaf;
But when her lover looks into her face,
Those glorious amorous eyes are her relief.
He opens wide his arms to take her !
She will dare the fatal leap I
From his alluring nought shall shake her. . . .
She hath plunged into the deep ! . .
And the fairy fawn must weep.
Held to his heart she dares the dive
Explores a waterworld alive !
Only a vapour seems to glide,
Where O'Donoghue won his bride !