The Bards of Old
Those olden bards, those glorious bards, who sang in the distant times,—
They stir me like a trumpet blast—their wild melodious rhymes;
In those old strains, o’er Erin’s plains the Fenian legions march,
And still their living deeds are blazed on song’s triumphal arch.
I see the stern unconquered Fionn, that thunderbolt in fight,
Pursue from Tara’s princely bowers young Grainne’s love-lit flight;
The milk-white stag on Lene’s clear strand her northward swift career;
Deep-mouthed Bran, the matchless hound, and Osgar’s magic spear;
The chase, the strife, the free, gay life,— witch, dragon, men and beast;
The games they played, the works they made, the rich and joyful feast;
That was the life—’twas life indeed; those were the glorious times,
When men wrought deeds well worthy song, and bards sang deathless rhymes.
Those olden bards, those glorious bards, who reigned when earth was young,—
When Love and Beauty fired their muse, how sweet the songs they sung!
They’re living still, shall live for aye, those queens and ladies bright,
Who sat enthroned in the world of song, like stars in summer’s night.
There Niav, the maid of golden curls, still curbs her snow-white steed,—
She whose soft eyes and jewelled hand are warrior minstrels’ meed;
O’er Muma’s sea in twilight bower swan-bosomed Cliona reigns,
And Deirdre’s fate still wakes the tear in Ulad’s lonely plains;
To the moaning wind on Moyle’s cold wave Lir’s daughters yet are wailing,
And still in the low moon’s waning light the cygnets sad are sailing.
Sublime were the lays of the olden bards, and sweet the songs they sung;
And though the world grows old and hoar, their strains are ever young.
Those olden bards, those glorious bards, they sang of land and sea,
The stars that roll through changeless paths, the winds that rove so free;
A pæan of joy to Sol they poured, to Luna a gladsome hymn,—
An ode to the light of day so bright, a rann to the dark night dim.
They looked to the sky with raptured eye, they dreamed of the restless main,
And evermore to the flowery earth they chanted the mystic strain.
By the winding streams they loved to stray, or far among forests green,
And oft at gloaming’s tranquil hour in lonesome raths were seen.
Their words were of hope to the sons of men, of praise to God on high,—
Their songs were of beauty that ne’er grows old, of virtue that ne’er shall die.
O honor those olden, glorious bards—honor their deathless songs!—
But for them, mayhap, e’en hope had despaired in the night of our darksome wrongs!
Notes
Published in The Household Library of Ireland’s Poets (1887) by Daniel Connolly and in Irish National Poems (1911) by Timothy D Sullivan.