O'DONOHUE'S MISTRESS. Of all the fair months, that round the sun For still, when thy earliest beams arise, Sweet May, returns to me. Of all the bright haunts, where daylight leaves Its lingering smile on golden eves, Fair Lake, thou'rt dearest to me; For when the last April sun grows dim, Thy Naïads prepare * Who dwells, bright Lake, in thee. * The particulars of the tradition respecting O'Donohue and his White Horse, may be found in Mr. Weld's Account of Killarney, or more fully detailed in Derrick's Letters. For many years after his death, the spirit of this hero is supposed to have been seen on the morning of May-day, gliding over Of all the proud steeds, that ever bore Who still, with the first young glance of spring, My love, my chief, to me. While, white as the sail some bark unfurls, Fair Steed, as white and free; And spirits, from all the lake's deep bowers, the lake on his favourite white horse, to the sound of sweet unearthly music, and preceded by groups of youths and maidens, who flung wreaths of delicate spring flowers in his path. Among other stories, connected with this Legend of the Lakes, it is said that there was a young and beautiful girl whose imagination was so impressed with the idea of this visionary chieftain, that she fancied herself in love with him, and at last, in a fit of insanity, on a May-morning threw herself into the lake. * The boatmen at Killarney call those waves which come on a windy day, crested with foam, "O'Donohue's white horses." Of all the sweet deaths that maidens die, Most sweet that death will be, Which, under the next May evening's light, When thou and thy steed are lost to sight, Dear love, I'll die for thee. ECHO. How sweet the answer Echo makes When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes, Yet Love hath echoes truer far, And far more sweet, Than e'er beneath the moonlight's star, Of horn or lute, or soft guitar, The songs repeat. 'Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere, And only then,— The sigh that's breath'd for one to hear, Is by that one, that only dear, Breathed back again! OH BANQUET NOT. OH banquet not in those shining bowers, Our guests, the shades of former years, There, while the myrtle's withering boughs Their lifeless leaves around us shed, We'll brim the bowl to broken vows, To friends long lost, the changed, the dead. Or, while some blighted laurel waves Where valour sleeps, unnamed, forgot |