From the introduction to this poem:
This song is supposed to have been sung by a young bride, who was forcibly detained in one of those forts which are so common in Ireland, and to which the good people (i.e. the fairies) are very fond of resorting. Under pretence of hushing her child to rest, she retired to the outside margin of the fort, and addressed the burthen of her song to a young woman whom she saw at a short distance, and whom she requested to inform her husband of her condition, and to desire him to bring the steel knife to dissolve the enchantment.
Cusheen Loo
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Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
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Sleep, my child! for the rustling trees,
Stirr'd by the breath of summer breeze,
And fairy songs of sweetest note,
Around us gently float.
Sleep! for the weeping flowers have shed
Their fragrant tears upon thy head,
The voice of love hath sooth'd thy rest,
And thy pillow is a mother's breast.
Sleep, my child!
Weary hath pass'd the time forlorn,
Since to your mansion I was borne,
Tho' bright the feast of its airy halls,
And the voice of mirth resounds from its walls.
Sleep, my child!
Full many a maid and blooming bride
Within that splendid dome abide,-
And many a hoar and shrivell'd sage,
And many a matron bow'd with age.
Sleep, my child!
Oh, thou who hearest this song of fear,
To the mourner's home these tidings bear.
Bid him bring the knife of the magic blade,
At whose lightning-flash the charm will fade.
Sleep, my child!
Haste! for tomorrow's sun will see
The hateful spell renewed for me;
Nor can I from that home depart,
Till life shall leave my withering heart.
Sleep, my child!
Sleep, my child! for the rustling trees,
Stirr'd by the breath of summer breeze,
And fairy songs of sweetest note,
Around us gently float.
Notes:
Although 'Cusheen Loo' is widely attributed to attributed toJ. J. Callanan,
it was explicitly disowned by him in letters to
Crofton Croker and
William Maginn.
In A History of Verse Translation from the Irish, 1789-1897 (pub., Rowman & Littlefield, 1988),
Robert Welch writes:
John O'Mahoney, in Poetry and Legendary Ballads of the South of Ireland, following the example of D. F. MacCarthy and Spalding, ascribed to Callanan an article on Irish Poetry and two other translations (‘The Lamentation of Felix MacCarthy’ and ‘Cusheen Loo’) which, with his translation ‘On The Last Day’, had appeared over his initials in Bolster’s Quarterly Magazine for August 1826. However, as D. J. O’Donoghue has pointed out, bound with the British Museum copy of The Recluse of Inchidoney are manuscript letters from Callanan to Crofton Croker and William Maginn, making it clear he did not write the article… and that he made but one of the translations, that is, ‘On The Last Day’.
It is not known for certain who wrote this article, or who made the translations, but judging from the style of the prose, and by the fact that he edited the magazine himself, it seems possible that they were the work of John Windele, scholar-antiquary, folklorist and litterateur. A fascinating man, Windele had a passion for ogham stones, and had a ‘megalithic library’ in his house on Blair’s Hill in Cork. He… was a patron of Irish scribes,… [and] ..he was a friend and correspondent of Callanan’s.
pp. 70-71 in:
A History of Verse Translation from the Irish, 1789-1897
By Robert Welch
Colin Smythe Ltd., 1988
Yeats evidently picked up this mistaken attribution, as well as the
introductory paragraph to the poem, from one or another of the sources Welch has
noted.
