"Oh Peregrine! Oh Peregrine!
My cliffs are yours for searching,
My severed crags will guard unseen
Your brood and you when resting;
My creviced face, your hiding place,
My heart my man affronted,
My furrowed brow will show you how
The hunter saves the hunted."
"Oh Allen, still alluring Hill
By Corraig, Djouce and Maulin,
You watched the march of hunting men
Fiodh Cullen through Fiodh Almhaine,
You heard the love song Diarmuid made
In murmurs to the river
Where Gráinne's heart was lost one day
To live in love forever."
"Oh Peregrine, I heard your scream!
We're bound by fate together,
Go tell me if the lark is seen
Above the hummocked heather?
Go tell me if the languid crane
Stands knee deep in the tarn,
And tell me if the sighing reeds
Talk to the croziered fern?
Go out beyond the rills of Cush
Where Figile feeds the Barrow,
And tell me if the eskers blush
With marguerite and yarrow.
Go out beyond the cotton fens
Beyond the móin to Croghan,
And tell me if the summer suns
With purple tinge the fraochan."
"I saw the hazel and the birch,
I saw the crimson berries
With crouching whin and rowan ash
Retreat into the Derries.
I saw the rail tracks cross the bog
From Timahoe descending,
I saw the fumes' emetic rage
On nature's breath offending.
I saw no lark by Croghan Hill
I saw no hummocked heather,
I saw the lilies span the pools
With drownded leaves of sorrow.
I saw the hare, his poisoned lair
Forsaken leave the rushes,
I saw the seabhac's shimmer stare
Into the hungered bushes.
The elk has gone from Lullymore
The wild boar from his island,
The callow's call is heard no more,
The red grouse cry is silent.
The lorried men are in the fen
I heard their engines whining,
Beneath the crown of startled whin
There's fuse and powder mining."
"Oh Conán Maol, Tá muid i ngéill,
Your fighting spirit fails us,
The sordid boon of Worthsworth's lay
With other worth assails us.
Mo grá, mo grá, mo peregrine
Our plight we'll pledge together,
That we might cling by rock and wing
In love to save each other." |