Poetry Archives

There beams no light from thy hall to-night,
  Oh, House of Fame;
No mead-vat seethes and no smoke upwreathes
  O’er the hearth’s red flame;
No high bard sings for the joy of thy kings,
  And no harpers play;
No hostage moans as thy dungeon rings
  As in Muircherteach’s day.

Fallen! fallen! to ruin all in
  The covering mould;
The painted yew, and the curtains blue,
  And the cups of gold;
The linen, yellow as the corn when mellow,
  That the princes wore;
And the mirrors brazen for your queens to gaze in,
  They are here no more.

The sea-bird’s pinion thatched Gormlai’s grinnan;
  And through windows clear,
Without crystal pane, in her Ard-righ’s reign
  She looked from here
There were quilts of eider on her couch of cedar;
  And her silken shoon
Were as green and soft as the leaves aloft
  On a bough in June.

Ah, woe unbounded where the harp once sounded
  The wind now sings;
The grey grass shivers where the mead in rivers
  Was outpoured for kings;
The min and the mether are lost together
  With the spoil of the spears;
The strong dun only has stood dark and lonely
  Through a thousand years.

But I’m not in woe for the wine-cup’s flow,
  For the banquet’s cheer,
For tall princesses with their trailing tresses
  And their broidered gear;
My grief and my trouble for this palace noble
  With no chief to lead
‘Gainst the Saxon stranger on the day of danger
  Out of Aileach Neid.