[2] “Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, 1888.”

[19]

[19]

 THE GRAVE OF RURY

Clear as air, the western waters

evermore their sweet unchanging song

Murmur in their stony channels

round O’Conor’s sepulchre in Cong.

Crownless, hopeless, here he lingered;

felt the years go by him like a dream,

Heard the far-off roar of conquest

murmur faintly like the singing stream.

Here he died, and here they tomb’d him,

men of Fechin, chanting round his grave.

Did they know, ah, did they know it,

what they buried by the babbling wave?

Now above the sleep of Rury

holy things and great have passed away;

Stone by stone the stately Abbey

falls and fades in passionless decay.

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