“THE THIRD TRUMPET”
A BALLAD OF MEATH, MAY 1, 1654
(After this Third Trumpet had been sounded no further grace was allowed to any Irish recusants)
Part I
Can it be true this thing they say?
That she and I beyond that day
At home here may no longer stay?
Mary, queen of earth and sea,
Dear Mary, have mercy on her and me!
Since my father died six months are gone,
Brothers and sisters have I none.
My lady and I live here alone.
Castle towers, you are stout and tall,
And the Boyne flows close to your outer wall!
Thirteen winters hath she lain
Pallet-held in woeful pain,
Small hope she ever will rise again!
Mary, queen of earth and sea,
Sweet Mary, look down upon her and me!
Old Murrough swears they shall not in,
But my lord is dead; our force is thin;
More blood to spill methinks were sin.
Here ’neath our Trysting Oak, I weep.
All round and round the grass rolls deep,
Sweet Saints! How sound the cattle sleep!
Part II
They took her down our twisted stair,
Great their haste and scant their care,
And laid her by the stairfoot there.
Quick and short was their task in truth,
Yet might they, so meseems, in sooth
To threescore years have shown some ruth!
Murrough, they took to our Trysting Tree,
They hanged him there for all to see,
He, who had nursed me on his knee!
Jolt, jolt, jolt, across the plain,
They jolted us in wind and rain,
Those jolts still beat inside my brain!
With eyes uplifted to the sky,
Like some carved image did she lie,
Betimes I hoped that she might die!
The third night out there came a sound
Just as the dawn was stealing round,
I crept towards her o’er the ground.
Out i’ the straw she raised her head,
“Daughter, a priest!” was all she said,
Then lay again as she were dead.
Sound, sound asleep lay half a score,
I crept betwixt them, crossed the floor,
And shortly gained the outer door.
No snood, no shoe I stayed to snatch;
The lintel all but touched the thatch
As with great heed I raised the latch.
The plain spread all around me soon,
Swathed and dim as in a swoon,
To eastward slipped a young pale moon.
And close at hand a crooked lane
’Twixt low thatched roofs all wet with rain,
Nought else only the silent plain.
Four women. Was it fear or cold
Made them so tremble? I grew bold
And swiftly had mine errand told.
Three stared wild-eyed as at the dead,
The fourth rose up; no word she said—
She motioned to me with her head.
She led me on along the path
To where it crossed a low brown rath,
Then paused, and spake one word—“Soggarth!”
“Soggarth!” The word was like a spell,
Sainted and sweet like some church bell,
Lifting the soul to heaven from hell!
Rough were the stones and cold the ground,
As swift I climbed that low brown mound,
Then paused atop, and gazed around.
The rath spread round me brown and bare,
Only a few sparse thorns grew there,
No cross, no shrine, no sign of prayer.
Down to the earth like any stone
Sudden I fell, and lay there prone,
Heart-broken, desolate, alone!
And surely then I must have died,
But scoopèd in the rath I spied,
A low brown hole in its low brown side.
Brambles and briars, else was nought,
Toothed were the thorns as I strove and wrought,
With bleeding fingers toiled and fought.
Sudden they yielded, I espied,
A hole wherein a man might hide,
Tall stones there were on either side.
And straight my lips gave forth a cry,
“Help! Or unshriven she’ll surely die!”
There was no answer but a sigh.
Scooped in the great stone’s dripping face,
Three feet or less about its space—
A deep dark, awesome, noisome place.
Yet for a surety one lay there,
Wrapped in black weeds of coarsest wear.
My knees knocked, and I breathed a prayer.
A priest! Most old, most worn, most frail,
With lint-white hair, and visage pale.
I fell on my knees, and told my tale.
He listened with a pitying face,
“God’s hand,” he said, “in this I trace.
Lead, daughter, lead me to the place.”
I led him back across the rath,
The thorn-trees all but closed the path,
And once methought a sound—“Soggarth!”
I heeded not, and hurried by,
My soul afire lest she should die
Unshriven; help being now so nigh!
Cold and wide in open day
The plain spread under that narrow way,
We had all but reached the place where she lay—
When over me like a stream in flood,
There swept the thought that those men of blood
Would seize and slay him. So I stood.
And turning swiftly round I spake,
“Father, thy life they’ll surely take!
Turn back, turn back, for Jesu’s sake!”
He stood a moment silently,
Dimly he looked on earth and sky—
And said—“The times are good to die!”
Part III
Bad men, praise God, are not all bad,
One day they gave me to be sad,
Full knowing she was all I had!
The next they laid her in the ground
To eastward of that low brown mound,
Other small graves were there I found.
Then smoothed the sod, and walked away,
I stayed a little while to pray,
No mourner else had she that day.
Or so methought. There came a sound,
My head I raised, and past the mound
By twos and threes they crept around.
Oh poor kind hearts, hearts made of gold!
Trembling, half-naked, bent, and old,
Some young; all starved with want or cold!
Barefooted, sick, mishabit, lame,
At risk of their poor lives they came,
Yet knew they not her very name!
We knelt together on the mound,
Our muttered prayer scarce made a sound,
The silence seemed to lap us round.
Above us, spread a soft blue sky
The south-west wind stole softly by,
It seemed a pleasant thing to die.
Yet fear for these gat hold of me,
And I prayed them very earnestly
To leave me, lest mishap might be.
With dropping tears and soul on rack,
I watched the last one leave the track,
Then kissed the grave, and so went back.
Western lands, you are bleak and bare,
Yet the grace of God comes everywhere.
And now because her peace is deep
Great peace to mine own heart doth creep,
To stay, please God, till I too sleep.
Mary, mother, to whom we pray
Keep east and west, the green and the grey.
Both of them safe in thine arms this day,
Now and for evermore I pray.