And fixed on empty space, why burn Her eyes with momentary wildness; And wherefore do they then return To more than woman’s mildness? Dishevelled are her raven locks; On Connocht Moran’s name she calls; And oft amidst the lonely rocks She sings sweet madrigals. Placed in the foxglove and the moss, Behold a parted warrior’s cross! That is the spot where, evermore, The lady, at her shieling[53] door, Enjoys that, in communion sweet, The living and the dead can meet: For, lo! to love-lorn fantasy, The hero of her heart is nigh. IV. Bright as the bow that spans the storm, In Erin’s yellow[54] vesture clad, A son of light—a lovely form, He comes and makes her glad; Now on the grass-green turf he sits, His tasselled horn beside him laid; Now o’er the hills in chase he flits, The hunter and the deer a shade! Sweet mourner! those are shadows vain That cross the twilight of her brain; Yet she will tell you she is blest, Of Connocht Moran’s tomb possessed, More richly than in Aghrim’s bower, When bards high praised her beauty’s power, And kneeling pages offered up The morat[55] in a golden cup. V. “A hero’s bride! this desert bower, It ill befits thy gentle breeding: And wherefore dost thou love this flower To call—‘My love lies bleeding?’” “This purple flower my tears have nursed; A hero’s blood supplied its bloom: I love it, for it was the first That grew on Connocht Moran’s tomb. Oh! hearken, stranger, to my voice! This desert mansion is my choice! And blest, though fatal, be the star That led me to its wilds afar: For here these pathless mountains free Gave shelter to my love and me; And every rock and every stone Bear witness that he was my own. VI. “O’Connor’s child, I was the bud Of Erin’s royal tree of glory; But woe to them that wrapt in blood The tissue of my story! Still as I clasp my burning brain, A death-scene rushes on my sight; It rises o’er and o’er again, The bloody feud—the fatal night, When chafing Connocht Moran’s scorn, They called my hero basely born; And bade him choose a meaner bride Than from O’Connor’s house of pride. Their tribe, they said, their high degree, Was sung in Tara’s psaltery;[56] Witness their Eath’s victorious brand,[57] And Cathal of the bloody hand; Glory (they said) and power and honour Were in the mansion of O’Connor: But he, my loved one, bore in field A meaner crest upon his shield. VII.