From: Astraea (hjdevrie@ese.UCSC.EDU)
Subject: traditional Irish
21 lines (?) 

I have not slept since the moon lit the heavens last night,
Just setting the fire and stroking the ember to light.
The household's retired and I am left here to sigh,
The roosters are crowing, all the world is asleep barring I.

My soul is enthralled with your mouth, your face and your brow.
For your sparkling blue eyes I abandoned contentment and glee,
Due to longing for you, I'm unable to travel the way,
O Friend of my bosom, the hills come between you and me.

Wise men proclaim that lovesickness can leave one unwell,
I did not believe it until my poor heart came under its spell,
A malaise is my craze, I failed to ignore,
With a hundred and more aching pangs it's pierced my heart to the core.

I met a Banshee by the Fairyrath near Bellina,
I asked her politely if one could be cured of this 'Gea'.
She answered my kindly in tones so simple and low,
Once it sets in the heart it cannot be freed evermore.

                   _A LAMENTATION_
 
   For the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight, of Kerry,
           who was killed in Flanders, 1642
 
           From the Irish by Clarence Mangan
 
 
There was lifted up one voice of woe,
One lament of more than mortal grief,
Through the wide South to and fro,
for a fallen Cheif.
In the dead of night that cry thrilled through me,
I looked out upon the midnight air?
My own soul was all as gloomy,
As I knelt in prayer.
 
O'er Loch Gur, that night, once-twice--yea, thrice--
Passed a wail of anguish for the Brave
That half curled into ice
Its moon-mirroring wave.
Then uprose a many-toned wild hymn in
Choral swell from Ogra's dark ravine,
And Mogeely's Phantom Women
Mourned the Geraldine!
 
Far on Carah Mona's emerald plains
Shrieks and sighs were blended many hours,
And Fermoy in fitful strains
Answered from her towers.
Youghal, Keenalmeaky, Eemokilly,
Mourned in concert, and their piercing keen
Woke to wondering life the stilly
Glens of Inchiqueen.
 
>From Loughmoe to yellow Dunanore
There was fear ; the traders of Tralee
Gathered up their golden store,
And prepared to flee ;
For, in ship and hall from night till morning,
Showed the first faint beamings of the sun,
 
All the foreigners heard the warning
Of the Dreaded One!
"This," they spake, "portendeth death to us,
If we fly not swiftly from our fate!"
Self-conceited idiots! thus
Ravingly to prate!
Not for base-born higgling Saxon trucksters
Ring laments like those by shore and sea!
Not for churls with souls like hucksters
Waileth our Banshee!
 
For the high Milesian race alone
Ever flows the music of her woe!
For slain heir to bygone throne,
And for Chief laid low!
Hark!. . .Again, methinks, I hear her weeping
Yonder! Is she near me now, as then?
Or was but the night-wind sweeping
Down the hollow glen?

"The wind was wailing at the windows: it had wailed all day; but, as night
deepened, it took a new tone an accent keen, piercing, almost articulate to     
the ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the nerves, trilled in every
gust.                                             
'Oh, hush! hush!' I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and making 
a vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching cry. I had
heard that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation had forced on me     
a theory as to what it boded. Three times in the course of my life, events
had taught me that these strange accents in the storm - this restless,          
hopeless cry - denote a coming state of the atmosphere unpropitious to life.
Epidemic diseases, I believed, were often heralded by a gasping, sobbing,
tormented, long-lamenting east wind. Hence, I inferred, arose the legend of
the Banshee."

-Charlotte Bonte, Villette