It is not the blush by the morning sun spread
That tints the horizon so luridly red—
It is not the heath on the mountain side high,
Whose blaze flings the glare on the far-flushing sky—
'Tis the flame of the village illumines the air,
Where the shriek of the maiden, in madden'd despair,
Pleads to the heart of the monsters in vain,
Who are dyed with the blood of her kindred slain!
Spare! spare them, cursed Wilmot![1] the heroes who lie
On those gore crimson'd couches, unfriended, to die!
To the helpless—the fallen—some pity extend—
They fought but their altars and homes to defend!
Behold their deep wounds!—they are foes—but they're men!—
You never will blench at their onset again!
'Tis vain, the lone war-steed that gasps on the plain,
When midnight broods over the dying and slain,
As well might expect the gaunt wolves to forbear,
As the hope of the merciless Saxon to spare!
O'SULLIVAN'S RETURN.
[The following ballad is founded on an ill-remembered story of an Irish chief returning after long absence on the Continent, and being wrecked and drowned close to his own castle.]
Air—"Cruiskeen Lawn."—Slow time.
I.
O'Sullivan has come
Within sight of his home,
He had left it long years ago;
The tears are in his eyes,
And he prays the wind to rise
As he looks tow'rds his castle from the prow, from the prow,
As he looks tow'rds his castle from the prow.
- ↑ One of the acts of Sir Charles Wilmot, one of Elizabeth's pacificators of Ireland, was to butcher in cold blood the sick and wounded whom he found in a deserted Irish camp.
