The Wild Irish Girl: A National TaleMorgan, Lady (Sydney)
General
The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale
Morgan, Lady (Sydney)
British -- Ireland -- Fiction; Celts -- Fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; Love stories; Princesses -- Fiction
We had now reached the burial ground; near which the funeral was met
by the parish priest, and the procession went three times round the
cemetry, preceded by the priest, who repeated the _De profundis_ as did
all the congregation.
“This ceremony,” said Father John, “is performed by us instead of the
funeral service, which is denied to the Roman Catholics. For _we_ are
not permitted, like the Protestant ministers, to perform the last solemn
office for our departed fellow creatures.”
While he spoke we entered the churchyard, and I expressed my surprise
to Glorvina, who seemed wrapt in solemn meditation, at the singular
appearance of this rustic little cemetery, where, instead of the
monumental marble,
“The storied urn, or animated bust,”
an osier, twisted into the form of a cross, wreathed with faded
foliage, garlands made of the pliant sally, twined with flowers; alone
distinguished the “narrow house,” where
“The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”
Without answering, she led me gently forward towards a garland which
seemed newly planted. We paused. A young woman who had attended the
funeral, and withdrawn from the crowd, approached the garland at the
same moment, and taking some fresh gathered flowers from her apron,
strewed them over the new made grave, then kneeling beside it wept and
prayed.
“It is the tomb of her lover,” said I.--“_Of her father!_” said
Glorvina, in a voice whose affecting tone sunk to my heart, while her
eyes, raised to heaven, were suffused with tears. The filial mourner now
arose and departed, and we approached the simple shrine of her sorrowing
devotion. Glorvina took from it a sprig of rosemary--its leaves were
humid! “It is not _all_ dew,” said Glorvina, with a sad smile, while her
own tears fell on it, and she presented it to me.
“Then you think me worthy of sharing in these divine feelings,” I
exclaimed, as I kissed off the sacred drops; while I was now confirmed
in the belief that the tenderness, the sufferings, and declining health
of her father, rendered him at that moment the sole object of her
solicitude and affection. And with him only, could I, without madness,
share the tender, sensible, angelic heart of this sweet interesting
being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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