School: Kilkea, Mageney (roll number 9123)

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1. The Wizard Earl - A Legend of Kilkea Castle (continued)

   

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   When, crouching from beneath a chest
   Upsprung the cruel cat,
   The evil one, with ill design
   To seize it where it sat.

   
   Then she who feared not for herself
   Outstretched her lifted arm
   In terror lest her well-beloved
   Should suffer any harm.

   
   But Powers Dark no pity knows,
   For, when her swoon was o'er,
   The Earl and all his knights were gone
   She saw them nevermore.

   
   Enchanted now, 'tis said they sleep
   Until the spell is past,
   Full-armoured by their steeds, within
   The Rath of Mullaghmast,

   
   And every seven years, to where
   The Curragh's plain lies wide,
   They start, upon their chargers all
   and round its borders ride,

   
   And then to Kilkea Castle,
   Unto the haunted room,
   And back again to Mullaghmast,-
   For so it is their doom;

   
   But though at dead of night they ride
   The earl you well may know,
   When sounds of horse & armour pass.
   By his charger white as snow;

   
   That charger, too, is silver shod,
   And when those shoes are worn
   The spell out-spent, the Earl again
   Will gloriously return;

   
   And when he comes, oh then let all
   True man and women pray,
   That his good wife may meet him at
   The Castle of Kilkea.

   
   There is an ancient prophecy
   That when this Earl shall come,
   Victoriously, as I have said,
   Unto this castle home,

   (continues on next page)

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

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