Page:Hallowe'en festivities (1903).djvu/179

Rh "God save thee, Eileen bawn astor, and guide thy naked feet, And keep the fainting life in us till thou come back with meat.

"God send the moon to show thee light upon the way so drear, And mind thou well the rocky dell, and heed the rushy mere."

She kissed her father's palsied hand, her mother's pallid cheek, And whirled out on the driving storm beyond the craggy reek.

All night she tracks, with bleeding feet, the rugged mountain way, And townsfolks meet her in the street at flushing of the day.

But God is kinder on the moor than man is in the town, And Eileen quails before the stranger's harsh rebuke and frown.

Night's gloom enwraps the hills once more and hides a slender form That shudders o'er the moor again before the driving storm.

No bread is in her wallet stored, but on the lonesome heath She lifts her empty hands to God, and prays for speedy death.

Yet struggles onward, faint and blind, and numb to hope or fear, Unmindful of the rocky dell or of the rushy mere.

But, ululu! what sight is this?— what forms come by the reek? As white and thin as evening mist upon the mountain's peak.

Mist-like they glide across the heath—a weird and ghostly band; The foremost crosses Eileen's path, and grasps her by the hand.

"Dear daughter, thou hast suffered sore, but we are well and free; For God has ta'en our life from us, nor wills it long to thee.

"So hie thee to our cabin lone, and dig a grave so deep, And underneath the golden gorse our corpses lay to sleep —