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‘(An t.Sean Bhean Bhocht).
VOL. II.-No. 3. BELFAST,
12TH MARCH, 1897.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
x
, Cean Dubh Dilis.
Oh! dear dark head, bowed low in death black sorrow,
, Let not thy heart be trammelled in despair ; -
Lift, lift thine eyes unto the radiant morrow,
And wait the light that surely shall break there.
What: though the grave hath closed'above thy dearest,
I All are not gone that love thee, nor all tied ;
And though thine own sweet tongue thou seldom hearest,
, Yet shall it ring again, Oh ! dear dark head.
011.! dear dark head that mourneth by the waters,
Crooning a caoina for the countless graves, A
Of Valiant sons and brave true-hearted daughters,
Waiting‘ the angels’ trump beneath the waves.
Take from each rising. sun some ray to cheer thee,
some gleam of glory from each‘ sunset red ;
They bring an hour all close and closer near thee,
That shall avenge these‘ graves Oh I clear dark head.
Oh ! dear darl; head, though but the curlews screaming
Wakens the echoes of the hill and glen ;
Yet shalt’ thou see oncemore the bright steel gleaming,
V A Yet shalt thou hear again the tramp of men ;
, nd thmlgh their fathers fate be theirs, shall others
‘With hearts as faithful still that pathway tread,
. Till we have set, Oh 1 mother dear of mothers,
A n3tl0n’s: crown upon thy dear dark head.
' Oh‘! dear dark head, let not thy waiting daunt thee,
'n:ht3 future if thou willest can be thine ;
, past can summon up no shades to haunt thee,
Lif?fl::fluf6d faith or desecrated shrine ;
, ’, th)’ heart then, for each year of mourning,
.TE:::h glgh You breathed, everyteari you shed,
Th yet shall be a jewel bright adorning p
Y mant1e’s myriad folds, Oh -l dear dark head.
Celtic Literary Society,
W FEAR NA MUINTIR
Dublin. -
“When Men were of Warlike Mood.”
“ My grandfather he was a Heart of Oak,
His arm was strong, and sure his stroke;
At Ballynahinchhe was there I ween,
And he did good work in his cloak of Green.
Hurrah! hurrah ! for my own dear West!
Hurrah ! for the Land that my heart loves best I
. Hurrah for my pike, and hurrah for my skenel
And ten times hurrah for my cloak of Green I "
HE words of the ballad flashed into his memory as
lg l
in
he looked from his hiding-place upon the crest of
Slemish over the boggy lands stretching away to
g Skerry and beyond that to the valley of the Braid.
The pale stars twinkled down ‘in the chilly March
dawning on still paler images of themselves mirrored-far
below in pools of slow brown water; the frost nipped
young green shoots of heather springing here and there
from the stones, and‘ it nipped his flesh also, in spite of the
protecting suit of leather which he wore, until from very
loneliness he tried to hum the air an old ballad-singer had
sung for him at a street corner in Ballymena the night be-
fore as he passed through the town. Hisvmission to the
North was one of much importance; the trusty men of the
Bann-Shore were eagerly awaiting orders from the Brother-
hood, and in Bellaghy the Derry rebels had organised and
drilled assiduously, expecting newsxof the rising to reach
them at any moment. True, O’Leary, Kickham, Luby,
and others just as brave, were behind prison bars, but Ste-
phens was free,‘and not so far distant after all, and across
broad seas in the greater Ireland, O’Mahony still endea-
voured to revive a phantom hope in his breaking heart that
had throbbed alternately to passionate joy and utter de-
spair through many weary years. 186 5 had been a record
of disaster, but ’66 held brighter days in store, God grant.
So the leaders prophesied and believed, while the rank-and-
file, trusting in these words of encouragement, returned,
more grimly determined than’ever, to their stealthyfworl:
of preparation by ruined rath and shadowy glen-side.
Dan Sheridan understood fully the danger of his posi-
tion as organiser; yet, in his travels throughout the country,
i t he had, up to the present, been marvellously successful [in
eluding the clutch of the law. The initiated in “Dublin
I