Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.
A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century
By James Clarence Mangan (1803–1849)I
Through a land of morn;
The sun, with wondrous excess of light,
Shone down and glanced
Over seas of corn
And lustrous gardens aleft and right.
Even in the clime
Of resplendent Spain
Beams no such sun upon such a land;
But it was the time,
’T was in the reign,
Of Cáhal Mór of the Wine-red Hand.
By my side a man
Of princely aspect and port sublime.
Him queried I,
“O my Lord and Khan,
What clime is this, and what golden time?”
When he,—“The clime
Is a clime to praise,
The clime is Erin’s, the green and bland;
And it is the time,
These be the days,
Of Cáhal Mór of the Wine-red Hand!”
And circling fires,
And a dome rose near me, as by a spell,
Whence flowed the tones
Of silver lyres,
And many voices in wreathéd swell;
And their thrilling chime
Fell on mine ears
As the heavenly hymn of an angel-band,—
“It is now the time,
These be the years,
Of Cáhal Mór of the Wine-red Hand!”
And, behold! a change
From light to darkness, from joy to woe!
King, nobles, all,
Looked aghast and strange;
The minstrel-group sate in dumbest show!
Had some great crime
Wrought this dread amaze,
This terror? None seemed to understand!
’T was then the time,
We were in the days,
Of Cáhal Mór of the Wine-red Hand.
But lo! the sky
Showed fleckt with blood, and an alien sun
Glared from the north,
And there stood on high,
Amid his shorn beams, a skeleton!
It was by the stream
Of the castled Main,
One autumn eve, in the Teuton’s land,
That I dreamed this dream
Of the time and reign
Of Cáhal Mór of the Wine-red Hand!