There stood one day a poor old man
      above its broken bridge;
    He heard no running rivulet,
      he saw no mountain-ridge;
    He turn’d his back on Sheegus Hill,
      and view’d with misty sight
    The Abbey walls, the burial-ground
      with crosses ghostly white;
    Under a weary weight of years
      he bow’d upon his staff,
    Perusing in the present time
      the former’s epitaph;
    For, gray and wasted like the walls,
      a figure full of woe,
    This man was of the blood of them
      who founded Asaroe.

    From Derry to Bundrowas Tower,
      Tirconnell broad was theirs;
    Spearmen and plunder, bards and wine,
      and holy abbot’s prayers;
    With chanting always in the house
      which they had builded high
    To God and to Saint Bernard,—­
      where at last they came to die. 
    At worst, no workhouse grave for him!
      the ruins of his race
    Shall rest among the ruin’d stones
      of this their saintly place. 
    The fond old man was weeping;
      and tremulous and slow
    Along the rough and crooked lane
      he crept from Asaroe.

A DREAM

    I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;
    I went to the window to see the sight;
    All the Dead that ever I knew
    Going one by one and two by two.

    On they pass’d, and on they pass’d;
    Townsfellows all, from first to last;
    Born in the moonlight of the lane,
    Quench’d in the heavy shadow again.

    Schoolmates, marching as when we play’d
    At soldiers once—­but now more staid;
    Those were the strangest sight to me
    Who were drown’d, I knew, in the awful sea.

    Straight and handsome folk; bent and weak, too;
    Some that I loved, and gasp’d to speak to;
    Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
    Some that I had not known were dead.

    A long, long crowd—­where each seem’d lonely,
    Yet of them all there was one, one only,
    Raised a head or look’d my way: 
    She linger’d a moment—­she might not stay.

    How long since I saw that fair pale face! 
    Ah!  Mother dear! might I only place
    My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
    While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!

    On, on, a moving bridge they made
    Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
    Young and old, women and men;
    Many long-forgot, but remember’d then.

    And first there came a bitter laughter;
    A sound of tears the moment after;
    And then a music so lofty and gay,
    That every morning, day by day,
    I strive to recall it if I may.

THE FAIRIES