"Sister," saith the gray swan, "Sister, I am weary,' Turning to the white swan wet, despairing eyes; "O," she saith, " my young one." "O," she saith,

66

my dearie,'

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Casts her wings about him with a storm of cries.

Woe for Lir's sweet children whom their vile stepmother

Glamoured with her witch-spells for a thousand

years;

Died their father raving-on his throne another
Blind before the end came from his burning tears.
She-the fiends possess her, torture her forever,
Gone is all the glory of the race of Lir,
Gone and long forgotten like a dream of fever :
But the swans remember all the days that were.

Hugh, the black and white swan with the beauteous feathers;

Fiachra, the black swan with the emerald breast;

Conn, the youngest, dearest, sheltered in all weathers,

Him his snow-white sister loves the tenderest. These her mother gave her as she lay a-dying,

To her faithful keeping, faithful hath she been, With her wings spread o'er them when the tempest's crying,

And her songs so hopeful when the sky's serene.

Other swans have nests made 'mid the reeds and

rushes,

Lined with downy feathers where the cygnets sleep Dreaming, if a bird dreams, till the daylight blushes, Then they sail out swiftly on the current deep,

With the proud swan-father, tall, and strong, and stately,

And the mild swan-mother, grave with household

cares,

All well-born and comely, all rejoicing greatly:

Full of honest pleasure is a life like theirs.

A

JOHN FRANCIS WALLER
(1810-1894)

LOVE IN REALITY

Translated from the Celtic

WAY with the nonsense of vain poetasters,
Their sighing and dying's all lying and fudge;
They say love's a disease full of woes and dis-

asters:

I deny it point-blank, and think I'm a judge.

I boldly assert by my manhood, that no man
Is all that he should be who is not in love;
And Providence, sure, sent us beautiful woman,
The joy, not the plague of existence to prove.

For myself I'm in love, head and ears, at the present,
With a maid like a swan so graceful and fair,
And the symptoms I find, on the whole, very pleasant,
And just the reverse of what poets declare.

I shed not a tear, and I ne'er think of sighing;
I moan not, I groan not, in fanciful woe;
And if truth must be told, I am so far from dying
Of love, but for love I'd have died long ago.

I keep up flesh and blood for the sake of this beauty;
I make it a point to be sound wind and limb;

I eat well, I drink well, I sleep as a duty,

For then of my love all sweet things I can dream.

I can listen to music and still feel delighted;

It shakes not my spirits to hear a sweet song; My pace is quite steady, not like one affrighted

Or a tree down a torrent swept swiftly along.

I've my voice at command, and my words are ne'er wanting;

And if half of the clothes in Conn's northern

domain

Were heap'd on my back, with their heat I'd be

panting,

And fire is much hotter, I grant, than my skin.

If I stood 'neath a torrent, or plung'd in the ocean,
I'd come out rather chilly and not over dry;

If robust health and strength can cause death, I've a
notion

I'm just in the very condition to die.

I'm not swollen out with grief till a long rope won't bind me;

My mouth is more moist than the touchwood, no

doubt;

And I'll give you my oath, that you never will find

me

Drinking dry a deep lake to extinguish my drought.

I can tell night and day without making a blunder:
A ship from a wherry, as well as the best;

And I know white from black, which you'll say is a
wonder,

Despite all the love that is lodged in my breast.

1

A mountain I never mistake for the ocean,

A horse I can tell with great ease from a deer,
Of great things and small I've an excellent notion,
And distinguish a fly from a whale very clear.

And now to conclude with a stiffish conundrum –
"A part of the stern of a boat o'er the wave,
Seven hazels whose barren twigs cast no fruit under

'em,'

Is the name of the fair one who holds me a slave.

Not one in a thousand that try will make out of it
The name of the maid most belov'd of my heart;
And though love touch my brain, yet the sense 'twon't
take out of it,

For I swear there's no poison or pain in his dart.

A

MARY OF THE CURLS

S oak-leaves, when autumn is turning them sere,
Is the hue of my own Mary's beautiful hair;
And light as young ash-sprays, that droop in
the grove,

Are the ringlets that wave round the head that I love.

Dear Mary! each ringlet, so silken and fine,
Is a fetter that round my poor heart you entwine;
And if the wide ocean I roamed to the West,
It would still draw me back to the maid I love best.

Like stars that shine out from the calm summer sky
Are the glances that beam from your melting blue eye;