  It is seven years since they last awoke From their death-like sleep in Mullaghmast, And the ghostly troop, with its snow-white horse, On the Curragh plain to Kilkea rode past. For the Lord of Kildare goes forth to-night, And has left his rest in the lonely rath. Oh, roughen the road for the silver shoes, That they wear full soon on his homeward path. So thus to his own he may come again, With a trumpet blast and his warriors bold, And the spell that was by his lady cast Will pass away as a tale once told. For dearly she loved her noble lord, And she wished that no secret from her he kept, So she longed to know why in chamber small He watched and toiled while the household slept. But the Wizard Earl would not tell to her The secret dark of his vaulted cell, “For fear,” he said, “in the human frame, Lets loose the power of furthest hell.” But she feared for naught save his waning love, And at length to her wish he bent an ear, So flood, and serpent, and ghost gave place, For the lady’s heart had shown no fear. Then her lord to a bird was soon transformed, That rested its wing on her shoulder fair; But the lady screamed and swooned away When a cat sprang forth from the empty air. For a woman must fear for the one she loves, And a woman’s heart will break in twain, When she knows that her hand has struck the blow To the man she had died to save from pain. And thus the Earl must sleep as dead Till the silver shoes of his steed are worn, By which every seven years, they say, To Kilkea and back to the rath he’s born. And swiftly they pass, that phantom band, With the Earl on his charger gleaming white, So we think ’tis the shade of a cloud goes by, With a shifting beam of the moon’s pale light. Peers Hervey. |
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