At Kilcolman Castle
(NEAR, BUTTEVANT, COUNTY CORK.)
A POET’S house it was — ay, long ago.
(Evicted by the avenging fire, he fled!)
A poet’s house, indeed, it stands to-day:
Those wingèd poets, troubadours of air,
The wren and robin, claim it as their home.
The faëry mountains hang above it still: —
Old Father Mole in Tipperara stands,
Like a dull storm-cloud with Olympian guests,
(Evicted by the avenging fire, he fled!)
A poet’s house, indeed, it stands to-day:
Those wingèd poets, troubadours of air,
The wren and robin, claim it as their home.
The faëry mountains hang above it still: —
Old Father Mole in Tipperara stands,
Like a dull storm-cloud with Olympian guests,
As in the days of her the Faëry Queene.
Ay, every highway leads to Faeryland,
Which passes by; and Mulla yonder flows,
With its green alders, where together sat
The Shepherd of the Ocean and his host,—
The Pooka’s tower far off a lonely square,
Gray Kilnemullah with sad ruins near.
And, hark! — what sound is heard so weird and faint ?
A sound of some new Faëryland is this —
A bugle blown by elfin trumpeter,
Who flies with rumors strange from lands remote.
And, look! — where yonder, with his harnessed Fire,
Some faëry lord his wondrous chariot drives
Far over the hills from far to far away!
Ay, every highway leads to Faeryland,
Which passes by; and Mulla yonder flows,
With its green alders, where together sat
The Shepherd of the Ocean and his host,—
The Pooka’s tower far off a lonely square,
Gray Kilnemullah with sad ruins near.
And, hark! — what sound is heard so weird and faint ?
A sound of some new Faëryland is this —
A bugle blown by elfin trumpeter,
Who flies with rumors strange from lands remote.
And, look! — where yonder, with his harnessed Fire,
Some faëry lord his wondrous chariot drives
Far over the hills from far to far away!
John James Piatt.
- The home of Edmund Spenser, who there wrote The Faerie Queene, and was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh (vide Colin Clout ’s Come Home Again). A line of telegraph wire, a few yards below and in front of the ruined castle, was heard fitfully murmuring Æolian music as we walked on toward Doneraile, and less than two miles westward a train upon the Great Southern and Western Railway was passing.↩