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'What ails you that you look so pale,
O fisher of the sea?'
''Tis for a mournful tale I own,
Fair maiden Marjorie.'

'What is the dreary tale to tell,
O toiler of the sea?'...

At the grey dawn, amongst the felling leaves,
A little bird outside my window swung,
High on a topmost branch he trilled his song,
And 'Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!' ever sung.
...

This is my brave singer,
With his beak of gold;
Now my heart's a captive
In his song's sweet hold.

O, the lark's a rover,
Seeking fields above:
But my serenader
Hath a human love.
...

Banagher Rhue of Donegal,
(Holy Mary, how slow the dawn!)
This is the hour of your loss or gain:
Is go d-tigheadh do, mh'irn'n slan! {21}

Banagher Rhue, but the hour was ill...

I closed my hands upon a moth
And when I drew my palms apart,
Instead of dusty, broken wings
I found a bleeding human heart.

I crushed my foot upon a worm
That had my garden for its goal,...

This is an evil night to go, my sister,
To the fairy-tree across the fairy rath,
Will you not wait till Hallow Eve is over?
For many are the dangers in your path!
...

Who knocks at the Geraldine's door to-night
In the black storm and the rain?
With the thunder crash and the shrieking wind
Comes the moan of a creature's pain.

And once they knocked, yet never a stir...

I struck you once, I do remember well.
Hard on the track of passion sorrow sped,
And swift repentance, weeping for the blow;
I struck you once-and now you're lying dead!
...

Thrice in the night the priest arose
From broken sleep to kneel and pray.
'Hush, poor ghost, till the red cock crows,
And I a Mass for your soul may say.'

Thrice he went to the chamber cold,...

Who was stealing the Baron's wine,
Golden sherry and port so old,
Precious, I wot, as drops of gold?
Lone to-night he came to dine,

Flung himself in his oaken chair,...

This is the story of Black Earl Roderick, the story and the song of his pride and of his humbling; of the bitterness of his heart, and of the love that came to it at last; of his threatened destruction, and the strange and wond...