[p i]
]SPRAYS OF SHAMROCK

[p iii]
]SPRAYS OF SHAMROCK
BY CLINTON SCOLLARD

PORTLAND MAINE
THE MOSHER PRESS
MDCCCCXIV

[p iv]
]COPYRIGHT
CLINTON SCOLLARD
1914

[p v]
]CONTENTS

[p 1]
]SPRAYS OF SHAMROCK

[p 2]
]Just a few songs of her,

Not of the wrongs of her

Many and bitter and long though they be,—

Songs of the hills of her,

Songs of the rills of her,

Ireland, set like a gem in the sea!

Just a few songs of her,

Not of the thongs of her,

She that is bound, and yet fain would be free,—

Songs of the gleams of her,

Glamours and dreams of her,

Ireland, girt by the arms of the sea!

[p 3]
]

MUCKROSS

At night there came unto MacCarthy More

A hooded vision with a voice that said,

“Go thou straightway and raise a house to God

Upon the spot where stands the Rock of Song!”

So with the golden lifting of the dawn

Upsprang the chieftain and loud called his kerns,

And bade them seek the Rock. For many a day

They roved the sweeping meads and fens and fells

In fruitless search, and ever forth again

Relentlessly he drove them from his hold

Beside the dimpling waters of Lough Leane.

“The Rock!” he cried, “find ye the Rock of Song!”

And still they found it not. Then the gaunt chief,

His long locks hoary with the frost of years,

Girded himself, and turned his tottering steps

Abroad in the soft lengthening of the dusk

Athwart a woodland close, and saw and heard

A little maid, her pitcher held at poise,

Singing an old lament in minors clear

[p 4]
]And plaintive as the twilight, words that voiced

The poignant, passionate yearning of the soul.

“A sign!” the spent man whispered low, “a sign!”

And on the spot he raised a house to God.

[p 5]
]THE HILL OF MAEVE

I

This is the hill of Maeve, the queen,

A mighty bulwark of gray-green

Whereon was set, by hands unknown,

A rugged monument of stone.

The great winds mourn, and sobs the wave

Beneath the lichened cairn of Maeve.

II

From many a rocky Leitrim height

O’er Lough Gill’s waters, blue and bright,

From where Benbulbin

fronts the foam,

And sees the Sligo ships put home,

Maeve’s hill is like a pharos flame,

As is eternally her name!

III

’Neath azure tides of morning air

Ripple the waves of Ballysadare

[p 6]
]Under where frowning Knocknarea

Looks o’er the Rosses far to sea,—

Looks far to sea, remembering

Maeve’s loveliness, a vanished thing.

IV

The cromlechs, gray with eld, below,

Recall the dreams of long ago,—

The dreams of kern and king, both slave

To beauty, and the white Queen Maeve;

And though she slumbers, deep, so deep,

Her golden memory may not sleep!

[p 7]
]AT KILLYBEGS

At Killybegs above the crags

The gray gulls pipe with voices thinned,

And all the green trees are like flags

That wave and waver in the wind.

At Killybegs about the dunes

Rustle the crispy grass and whin,

And low the long tide croons and croons

As it creeps out, as it creeps in.

At Killybegs the white sails race

When the blue sea is like a floor;

Like doubt night falls with haggard face;

Sometimes the ships return no more.

The brown bee drains the cottage flowers

Of honey to their crimson dregs,

And love hath many happy hours

’Twixt birth and death at Killybegs!

[p 8]
]THE CRIPPLE

I have dreams of the outer islands,

Firths and forths of the Far-Away;

I have dreams of the heathery highlands

Under the golden day.

I have dreams of a sliding river—

Shannon—under the stars and sun;

I have dreams how the oar-blades quiver,

And the silvery salmon run.

I have dreams of a blithe lad striding

Out through the streets of Limerick-town;

I have dreams of a sweet maid biding

Under a thatch of brown.

But here I lie all huddled and hidden,

(Oh, the eternity it seems!)

Brooding desolate and bed-ridden,

Living only in dreams!

[p 9]
]AN EXILE

I can remember the plaint of the wind on the moor,

Crying at dawning, and crying at shut of the day,

And the call of the gulls that is eerie and dreary and dour,

And the sound of the surge as it breaks on the beach of the bay.

I can remember the thatch of the cot and the byre,

And the green of the garth just under the dip of the fells,

And the low of the kine, and the settle that stood by the fire,

And the reek of the peat, and the redolent heathery smells.

And I long for it all though the roses around me are red,

And the arch of the sky overhead has bright blue for a lure,

And glad were the heart of me, glad, if my feet could but tread

The path, as of old, that led upward and over the moor!

[p 10]
]ABBEYDORNEY

Abbeydorney, Abbeydorney,

Long ago thy race was run,

Prone thou art ’mid thickets thorny,

Shrine of Kyrie Eleison!

Scarcely now a wild rose petal

The neglected cloister owns,

And the flaunting dock and nettle

Wave above the chancel stones.

Once through Kerry twilights tender

Vesper bells their anthems tolled,

And ’mid chants, in churchly splendor,

Princely abbots were enrolled.

Tall Fitz Maurice with his crozier,

O’Clonarchy of Lismore,

They are less now than the osier

Swaying by the Cashen’s shore!

Only when the moon is hidden,

Only when the moor-winds rave,

Eerily arise unbidden

Ghostly transept, ghostly nave.

[p 11]
]Only when the night grows denser

March the bent monks one by one,

Singing to the sway of censer,

Kyrie—Kyrie Eleison!

So, amid thy thickets thorny,

All thy state and glory seem,

Abbeydorney, Abbeydorney,

Like a dim and fleeting dream!

[p 12]
]A SONG FOR JOYCE’S COUNTRY

O a song for Joyce’s Country, where the grim wild mountains be,

And the wind wails over the moorland as the wind wails over the sea,

Where the new moon’s silver sickle sees little of grain to reap,

And the wraith of the mist goes creeping as soft as the feet of sleep!

O a song for Joyce’s Country, and the lonely loughs that lie,

Wrapt in the cloak of silence, under the great gray sky;

For the glens that have held in keeping for more than a thousand springs

The ancient Druid wonders and the secrets of the kings!

O a song for Joyce’s Country, and the graves of the mightiest men

That ever had birth in Erin! Will their like e’er come again?

Men of the thews of titans, of the strong, unwavering hand,

Who wrested a meagre guerdon from the breast of this lean land!

[p 13]
]O a song for Joyce’s Country, since it haunts one like a dream

That comes in the dusk ere dawning, ere the first bright sunrise beam;

A dream of dolor and vastness, of clouds that are swept and swirled

O’er the desolate wastes and waters of a joy-forsaken world!

[p 14]
]BALLAD OF PROTESTANT’S LEAP

It was Sir Frederick Hamilton’s men

Were hungry for the fray,

And it was a son of the bog and fen

Would guide them on their way.

By the good book an oath he took,

This glib and open guide,

And so it was over bent and brook

They needs must up and ride.

They rode them fast, they rode them far,

By day’s last fitful flame,

Until, by the light of the evening star,

To a heathery slope they came.

Then spake the guide, with a glint of pride,

With a catch of his breath spake he,

“Ye may fall, if over the crest ye ride,

On the Irish enemy!

“When I drop my cloak by yon stunted oak,

Do ye ply the lash and spurs,

And there ’ll be no one see another sun

Of the popish worshippers!”

[p 15]
]He has gone to the crest by the dwarfèd tree,

He has crept on foot and hand,

And now with a wave his cloak drops he

As a sign to the waiting band.

Oh, it ’s ride, Sir Frederick Hamilton’s men,

Ye men of ire and brawn,

And it ’s smile, ye son of the bog and fen,

To see them urge swift on!

Did they purge with the sword the Irish camp?

Nay, for the story saith

Through the evening dusk, through the evening damp,

They rode to a tryst with death.

It was over a cliff that was black and sheer

To the vale of fair Glencar

That they plunged with frenzied shrieks of fear

’Neath the eye of the mountain star.

Oh, it was Sir Frederick Hamilton’s men

Set forth to smite and slay,

And it was a son of the bog and fen

That guided them on their way!

[p 16]
]ETCHING AT NIGHT

I wandered in the streets of Galway-town,

When night had let her dusky curtains down,

And in a doorway, tall and fair and slight,

Framed by an inner beam of golden light,

Beheld a maiden of madonna face,

Pensive and sad, yet with a nameless grace,

Presage, I thought, of the unfolding years,

That hide some things that are too deep for tears!

[p 17]
]THE SPECTRAL ROWERS

What is that shimmering line of white

Gliding under the stark midnight—

Gliding—gliding—gliding—gliding—

Where the river gleams when the moon is bright?

There is never a sound save the night bird’s cry,

And the languid water lapsing by—

Lapsing—lapsing—lapsing—lapsing—

Under the arch of a leaden sky.

’T is the winding Garavogue’s spectral crew,

Bound for the port of dreams-come-true—

Rowing—rowing—rowing—rowing—

With a swinging stroke that is firm and true.

Do they ever reach their bourn? may be;

Yet who can say?—not we!—not we!—

Fading—fading—fading—fading—

Ere morn comes over the hills to the sea.

’T is so with all of the visions of man,

Howe’er he strive and howe’er he plan—

Fleeting—fleeting—fleeting—fleeting—

For life, alas, is a narrow span!

[p 18]
]TYRCONNELL

They crowned Tyrconnell

On the rock of Doon;

“Hail! hail!” they said,

To that anointed head,

The henchman all;

They led him to the hall;

“Hail! hail! Tyrconnell!”

How the rafters rang!

Clang! clang!

How the blades out-sprang,

Like shimmering lake-water underneath the moon!

They slew Tyrconnell

On the rock of Doon;

“Traitor!” they said,

Of that anointed head,

The henchmen all

Who haled him from the hall;

“Base, base Tyrconnell!”

How the scabbards rang!—

Clang! clang!

As the blades out-sprang,

Like shimmering lake-water underneath the moon!

[p 19]
]THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Where the wild sea-mew flocks and flees,

And neither winds nor skies beguile,

Foam-set amid the Irish seas

Is rugged Skellig Michael isle.

Up its escarpments, rough and grim,

To its bleak summit rimmed with moss,

The monks of old with prayer and hymn

Hewed out the weary “Way of the Cross.”

Gone are these holy toilers—gone;

They rest now in their long repose,

From the red dusk to the red dawn,

’Neath the sea-pinks and tangled rose.

But sorrow bides with us and ill,

And stress and sacrifice and loss,

And we must strive to meet them still

Climbing the weary “Way of the Cross.”

[p 20]
]THE ISLE OF DOOM

Out of the mist off Galway shore,

Out of the morning mist,

Rose the island of Hy Brasail

With its crags of amethyst;

Crags of purple and amethyst,

And meads of gleaming green,

Rose the island of Hy Brasail

With a shimmer of sea between.

And what shall come to Galway shore,

What shadow of doom prevail,

With this fading dream of the mists of morn,

This island of Hy Brasail?

[p 21]
]DESMOND