the arrows that murder sleep,"
At every hour in the night's black deep;
Pangs of Love through the long day ache
All for the dead Dinertach's sake.

Great love of a hero from Roiny's plain
Has pierced me through with immortal pain,
Blasted my beauty and left me to blanch,
A riven bloom on a restless branch!

Never was song like Dinertach's speech,
But holy strains that to Heaven's gate reach.
A front of flame without boast or pride,
Yet a firm, fond mate for a fair maid's side.

A growing girl--I was timid of tongue,
And never trysted with gallants young,
But, since I won on into passionate age,
Fierce love-longings my heart engage.

I have every bounty that life could hold,
With Guare, arch-monarch of Aidne cold,
But fallen away from my haughty folk,
In Irluachair's field my heart lies broke.

There is chanting in glorious Aidne's meadow
Under St. Colman's Church's shadow;
A hero flame sinks into the tomb--
Dinertach, alas, my love and my doom!

Chaste Christ! that unto my life's last breath
I trysted with Sorrow and mate with Death;
At every hour of the night's black deep,
These are the arrows that murder sleep!

THE DESERTED HOME

(An eleventh-century poem)

Keenly cries the blackbird now;
From the bough his nest is gone.
For his slaughtered mate and young
Still his tongue talks on and on.

Such, alas! not long ago
Was the woe my heart befell;
Therefore, wherefore thine so grieves
It perceives, O bird, too well!

Poor heart burnt with grief within
By the sin of that rash band!
Little could they guess thy care,
Crying there, or understand.

From afar at thy clear call
Fluttered all thy new-fledged brood.
Now thy nest of love lies hid
Down amid the nettles rude.

In one day the herd-boy crew
Careless slew thy fledgelings fine.
One the fate to thine and thee,
One the fate to me and mine.

As thy mate upon the mead
Chirruped, feeding at thy side,
Taken in their snaring strands,
At the herd-boy's hands she died.

O Thou Framer of our fates,
Not an equal lot have all!
Neighbour's wife and child are spared,
Ours, as though uncared for, fall.

Fairy hosts with blasting death
Breathed on mine a breath abhorred;
Bloodless though their evil ire,
It was direr than the sword.

Woe our wife! and woe our young!
Sorrow-wrung ou