Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Deirdrè’s Farewell to Alba
By From the Gaelic
A
The pain that hath no relief,
Alas! for the dreadful morrow
To dawn on our day of grief!—
O land in the orient glowing,
The last of thy smiles hath shone
On us, for Fate’s wind is blowing,
And the wave of our doom speeds on,
And a blight from the westward cometh, and the bloom of our life is gone!
With the purple moors at their feet,
Of the clear leaf-mirroring fountains
And rivers of waters sweet;
Of the fragrant wood-bowers twining,
And the cataract’s sounding roar,
Of the lakes in their splendor shining,
With the pine-woods whispering o’er,—
Ah! naught but my lord, my lover, could lure me from thy green shore!
To list to the falling rill,
To the breeze in the woodland alley
And the goshawk’s note from the hill,
To the light-winged swallow pursuing
His mate with a joyous cry,
To the cuckoo’s voice and the cooing
Of doves in the pine-tops high,
And the throstle’s song in the thicket, and the lark’s from the morning sky!
By the fresh sea-breezes fanned,
Where the waters of Drayno’s harbor
Sing over silver sand,
Happy from morn till even
We ’ve watched the seabirds play,
And the ocean meeting the heaven
In the distance far away,
And the gleam of the white-sailed galleys, and the flash of the sunlit spray!
How happy our days did pass;
Many its flowers perfuming,
And studding like gems the grass:
There the Foxglove purpled the hollow,
And the Iris flaunted its gold,
And the flower that waits for the swallow,
Its dainty bloom to unfold,
With the Hyacinth blue and the Primrose, laught in the breezy wold.
’Neath our happy home-porch hid,
On venison sweet from the heather
And flesh of the mountain kid,
On game from the forest cover
And fish from the crystal stream,
We feasted till eve was over,
And the moon with her silver gleam
Soared o’er the dusky pine-woods out from the realm of dream.
Of freedom from sore distress!
O land where no cloud came ever
To darken our happiness!
O home of pleasure and promise
And peace unto mine and me,
When I see thy shores fade from us,
I sigh in my misery,
And send my voice o’er the waters crying farewell to thee!