Save us all from Fairy thrall! Ellen sees her face the rim Twice and thrice, and that is all-- Fount and hill and maiden swim All together melting dim! 'Una! Una!' thou may'st call, Sister sad! but lith or limb (Save us all from Fairy thrall!) Never again of Una bawn, Where now she walks in dreamy hall, Shall eyes of mortal look upon! O! can it be the guard was gone, That better guard than shield or wall? Who knows on earth save Jurlagh Daune? (Save us all from Fairy thrall!) Behold the banks are green and bare, No pit is here wherein to fall: Aye--at the fount you well may stare, But nought save pebbles smooth is there, And small straws twirling one and all. Hie thee home, and be thy prayer, Save us all from Fairy thrall. _Sir Samuel Ferguson_ ON THE DEATH OF THOMAS DAVIS I walked through Ballinderry in the Spring-time, When the bud was on the tree; And I said, in every fresh-ploughed field beholding The sowers striding free, Scattering broad-cast forth the corn in golden plenty On the quick seed-clasping soil, Even such, this day, among the fresh-stirred hearts of Erin, Thomas Davis, is thy toil! I sat by Ballyshannon in the summer, And saw the salmon leap; And I said, as I beheld the gallant creatures Spring glittering from the deep, Through the spray, and through the prone heaps striving onward To the calm clear streams above, So seekest thou thy native founts of freedom, Thomas Davis, In thy brightness of strength and love! I stood on Derrybawn in the Autumn, I heard the eagle call, With a clangorous cry of wrath and lamentation That filled the wide mountain hall, O'er the bare deserted place of his plundered eyrie; And I said, as he screamed and soared, So callest thou, thou wrathful-soaring Thomas Davis, For a nation's rights restored! And, alas! to think but now, and thou art lying, Dear Davis, dead at thy mother's knee; And I, no mother near, on my own sick-bed, That face on earth shall never see: I may lie and try to feel that I am not dreaming, I may lie and try to say 'Thy will be done'-- But a hundred such as I will never comfort Erin For the loss of the noble son! Young husbandman of Erin's fruitful seed-time, In the fresh track of danger's plough! Who will walk the heavy, toilsome, perilous furrow Girt with freedom's seed-sheets now? Who will banish with the wholesome crop of knowledge The flaunting weed and the bitter thorn, Now that thou thyself art but a seed for hopeful planting Against the resurrection morn?