I roused and ranged about me three score of burnished spears,

And rode across the moorland, the north wind round my ears.

It bore me buoyant tidings,—your beauty and your grace,—

And, as I galloped forward, I yearned upon your face.

We fared by Abbeydorney, Listowel and Lixnaw,

Where all my word was wisdom, and all my look was law.

We never paused to bivouac; we never paused to sleep

Where murmurous Feale Water ran shallow or ran deep.

The blustering O’Brien who ruled the kerns of Claire.

Then, mire and foam-bespattered, about the dusk of day

We came where Galway’s turrets loomed over Galway’s bay.

The silence throbbed with trumpets, tumultuous, elate,

And you, a flower of wonder, bloomed in the castle gate.

You made the flush of sunset seem but a pallid thing;

Your voice had all the rapture that trembles through the spring.

Within your eyes the love-light was glory after drouth;

All summer’s hoarded honey was one kiss from your mouth.

Deirdre, whose tragic beauty the great Cuchullin knew,

And Maeve, the long lamented, sooth, what were they to you!

And when the wine was drunken there stood the stolÈd priest.

He oped the holy bride-book; he read the marriage rite;

And then—and then—mavourneen, it was our wedding night!

Would I might dream it over, the dream I dreamed yestreen,

That I was King in Kerry, and you were Galway’s Queen!