On the death of his favourite Bard
Times of the Danes Circa 800AD
Your voice that once enraptured me
With all its magic power of sound;
Your songs of love and bravery,
The hills no longer echo round.
Your harp hangs silent on the wall,
I gaze at it through blinding tears.
Oh! How those strings to me recall
The faded joys of other years;
For when you woke the Harp to life,
You could lull a babe to sleep;
Could make an army mad for strife,
Or cause them all to sigh and weep.
But death has dimmed your fiery eye,
And hushed the music of your tongue;
Among the heroes now you lie,
Of whom in other days you sung.
And now your strain shall thrill no more
My heart in war or banquet hall;
Which I had valued more than all.
Sleep in peace! You cannot see,
The gloom that falls on Erin’s Isle;
The stranger comes to bind the free,
To steal, to murder, and defile.
To Godless foreign foes a prey,
Her glorious day is nearly run;
A thousand years shall pass away
Before the rising of her Sun!
Hugh Alexander 1910