Felicia Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 35 1834/Keene
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 35, Page 272
KEENE, OR FUNERAL LAMENT OF AN IRISH MOTHER OVER HER SON.
BY MRS HEMANS.
Many of these Keenes abound with touches of a wild and simple pathos. The following is not a translated one, but only in imitation of their peculiar style, which seems to bear much analogy to the characteristics of Irish music.
Darkly the cloud of night comes rolling on—
Darker is thy repose, my fair-hair'd son!
Silent and dark!
There is blood upon the threshold
Whence thy step went forth at morn,
Like a dancer's in its fleetness,
O my bright first-born!
At the glad sound of that footstep
My heart within me smiled;—
Thou wert brought me back all silent
In thy blood, my child!
Darkly the cloud of night comes rolling on—
Darker is thy repose, my fair-hair'd son!
Silent and dark!
I thought to see thy children
Laugh with thine own blue eyes;
But my sorrow's voice is lonely
Where my life's flower lies.
I shall go to sit beside thee
Thy kindred's graves among;
I shall hear the tall grass whisper—
I shall hear it not long!
Darkly the cloud of night comes rolling on—
Darker is thy repose, my fair-hair'd son!
Silent and dark!
And I too shall find slumber
With my lost son in the earth;—
Let none light up the ashes
Again on our hearth!
Let the roof go down! Let silence
On the home for ever fall,
Where my boy lay cold, and heard not
His lone mother's call!
Darkly the cloud of night comes rolling on—
Darker is thy repose, my fair-hair'd son!
Silent and dark!