Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MAIRGREAD BAN (FAIR-HAIRED MARGARET), by ROBERT DWYER JOYCE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MAIRGREAD BAN (FAIR-HAIRED MARGARET), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My wild heart's love, my woodland dove
Last Line: My lovely mairgread ban.


MY wild heart's love, my woodland dove,
The tender and the true,
She dwells beside a blue stream's tide
That bounds through sweet Glenroe;
Through every change her love's the same, --
A long bright summer dawn,
A gentle flame, -- and oh, her name
Is lovely Mairgread ban:
Oh, joy, that on her paths I came,
My lovely Mairgread ban!

When winter hoar comes freezing o'er
The mountains wild and grey,
Her neck is white as snow-wreaths bright
Upon thy crags, Knockea;
Her lips are red as roses sweet
On Darra's flowery lawn;
Her fairy feet are light and fleet,
My gentle Mairgread ban;
And oh, her steps I love to meet,
My own dear Mairgread ban!

When silence creeps o'er Houra's steeps,
As blue eve ends its reign,
Her long locks' fold is like the gold
That gleams o'er sky and main.
My heart's dark sorrow fled away
Like night before the dawn,
When one spring day I went astray,
And met my Mairgread ban,
And felt her blue eyes' witching ray,
My lovely Mairgread ban.

One summer noon, to hear the tune
Of wild birds in the wood,
Where murmuring streams flashed back the beams,
All rapt in bliss I stood;
The birds sang from the fairy moat,
From greenwood, brake, and lawn;
But never throat could chant a note
So sweet as Mairgread ban,
As through the vales her wild songs float,
My lovely Mairgread ban.





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