Glen Moylena Poem by Anna Johnston MacManus

All the Summer for our loving, with the soft wind in the wheat!
Ah! but Autumn brought disaster, speeding far on deadly feet.
We two kept our tryst that eve; how you clasped me, loth to leave
Though the pikemen sought their chief in Glen Moylena.

'Ere I go to meet my doom, Love, one kiss–the best and last.
Sweet wet eyes, oh, vex me not with haunting memories of the past.
Make me brave for death; I pray, since I tread a sterner way
Than the woodbine-scented paths of Glen Moylena.

To the wise moon gleams of steel flashed defiance from the shade,
Round the hill the red-coats toiled, plunder laden, unafraid;
Then the horror of the meeting, pike and pike sprang out in greeting–
(Sleep in peace, ye pallid ghosts of Glen Moylena).

'This for Eileen, yellow-haired, this for dear and dark-eyed Maeve,
This for altar overthrown, this for desecrated grave,
Strong and swift for hunger dire, withered mother, murdered sire'–
Red the heart's-blood tinged each pike in Glen Moylena.

Fighting through the startled night, fighting while the shy dawn peeps
On stark forms upon the sward; green and red in ghastly heaps;
Hand to hand in desperate strife, fighting for your country's life,
Fighting till ye lost the day in Glen Moylena.

Since you came not, stor mo chroidhe, through the gloom I wandered far:
High above in heaven trembled here and there a frightened star,
I could here the sleuth-hounds bay, tracking sure their bleeding prey,
Hear the cry of spear-tossed babes in Glen Moylena.

In those awful hours, while Death reaped for harvest Ireland's best,
By the thorn-crowned rath I stole, where some old king takes his rest,
Kindly angels mourned with me, when beneath our trysting-tree,
Cold and wan I found you, love, in Glen Moylena.

Brave in life, brave in death, in the foremost ranks you fell,
With the torn green banner draped round the heart that loved it well,
Staring with your dead grey eyes to the pitiful wet skies,
Saddest day of all the days in Glen Moylena!

: : : : : :

There's a quiet dell, unknown save to Love and me alone,
Where the Springtime enters first, and where Summer holds her throne;
Where I kneel at eve and weep tears that never thrill your sleep,
Only keep your grave-grass green in Glen Moylena.