POETRY.
A KERRY STAG.
HE bounded from the ferny bed
Where all the scented night be lay, And on the track of sunrise sped In haste to greet the coming day. The branching heather hardly bent Her blooms beneath his flying feet, As forth upon the wind he went With step as silent and as fleet.
Till on Cairn Tual's summit bare He rested with the world below, And saw the clouds his shoulders wear With the first fires of welcome glow; While all the armies of the morn Their crimson banners forward flung, And in the starless west forlorn A single splendid planet hung.
And ever broader grew the light, Yet still the deeper valleys slept ; • Round the last strongholds of the night The mist's fantastic warriors crept, Till Turk to Tomies called : and straight Their ridges flushed with rosy flame, And through the mountains' eastern gate Smiling the royal morning came.
Far off he saw the haunted seas, The wave-tormented Kerry shore, And to his eager ear the breeze The long Atlantic thunder bore.
Then eastward roamed his glance again, Where fairer, wider vales expand, And blue Killarney's sapphire chain Leads lake on lake to Fairyland.
A shadow darkened overhead : And black against the golden sky, With shining pinions idly spread, A basking eagle floated by.
With haughty gaze the desert king The tyrant of the air pursued, As poised on either moveless wing ' He sought his rocky solitude.
Then, pealing from the rifted crag,
A sudden snarling rifle rang ! And on his stately side the stag
Sank quivering in the dying pang. 0 Regicide! whose murderous play Hath such a monarch overthrown! The generous blood you spilled to-day Was twice as noble as your own !
EDWARD SYDNEY TYLER.
Previous page
