XI.

Touched by the pathos of the song,
Though every note was rumbled wrong,
Scarce could the sympathetic bride
Her conjugal emotions hide.
To see her husband's corse! and oh!
A wolf to bite him from her so!
A wolf — all Erin's saints forbid! —
Whose skin was but her coverlid!
Beneath that softness lurked there life
To make a widow of a wife!
To make her lord resign his breath!
To make her see him stiff in death!
Ye modern spouses, never scoff
At the fond tear she hurried off;
But as she dashed the tear away,
She smiled and laboured to be gay.

XII.

" What is this ring, " she said, " Sir Knight,
That on your finger looks so bright,
Outshining the fair star of morn?
Some old love-token, I'll be sworn!
I'll pull it off, dear! " At the word,
Thunder far-off was muttering heard,
And lightning faintly played to own
It quivered for the mystic stone.
Then all was hushed as death again,
Save that a sound swung down the glen,
As tolling on the ear it fell
From Bunamargy Friary bell.
Dull waxed the sun; a dusky red
Through the dense atmosphere was spread;
Rooks to their tree-tops cawed retreat,
Oppressed with suffocating heat.

XIII.

The chief (confusion marked his brow)
Cried, " Bathershane! be asy now!
'Tis but a toy, a gift to me,
Sent from a dead friend now at sea. "
Here conscience whispered, Many a wave,
Thou Lust's, thou Avarice's slave!
Is rolling o'er a luckless fair,
Driven by thy falsehood to despair.
Turn from thy wife! thou wilt be found
As false to her as her that's drowned.
Turn from thy wife, thy dalliance check;
Cease paddling in her ivory neck;
Think on the Lady of the Wreck!

XIV.

" Sent from a friend at sea who's dead! "
The now half-jealous lady said,
Wouldst into life the lifeless drag?
Thou banter'st me, my Tooleywhagg!
Dead men, who sometimes float I hear,
Transmit no presents home, my dear.
Come, come! this toy, this gewgaw thing,
This showy, baubling, foppish ring,
Befits thy manly finger ill;
Have it I must, Sir Knight, and will. "
Quick from his hand she twitched the stone,
And laughing fixed it on her own.
That instant burst a bombard cloud
O'er Blarneygig's high turrets loud,
And while its grand artillery roared,
Both sheeted fires and waters poured.
Earth's huge maternal sides upborne
With horrid labour throes were torn,
Then Wicklow first thy mountains bold
Fear tinged with something much like gold;
Moneykillcark's unfathomed bog
Rushed o'er the vales of Tullyhog;
The forest shuddered o'er the buck,
The shrinking pond left dry the duck,
Who thrown upon her glossy back,
Fluttered but quaked too much to quack;
The craven from his dunghill flew,
And stilled his cock-a-doodle-doo.

XV.

Nature as seagirt Erin shook,
Her laws of gravity forsook.
The bucket's cordage cracked in twain,
That wound the lady from the main —
The bucket then ne'er meant to fly,
Disdained the beach and sought the sky;
The lofty Watch Tower's roof beat in,
And crushed the warder Rory Flinn;
Expiring drunk, he " whisky " cried,
All water buckets damned, and died.
The sea that laved the castle's base,
Arose the battlements to face;
Fronting the windows foaming came,
Where sat the chieftain with his dame,
And full a minute ere its fall,
Spread a broad waving watery wall!
Sudden it sunk; — the orb of day
Now struggling with the clouds for sway,
The awful tempest rolled away.
Strewed o'er the chamber from the strand
Lay seaweed, cockleshells, and sand;
And in a corner shivering sat,
Wet through with brine, a water-rat:
On the O'Shaughnashane it fixed
Its eyes with anger, sorrow mixed;
Showed its sharp teeth in doleful spite,
And knapped and chattered at the knight.