THE WOODS OF ST JOHNS By Ned Brennan * Ye dark solemn woods by the Shannon's green shore What rapture I feel

as I see ye once more And rest in your soul-soothing shadows to-day Where fleeted life's happiest moments away When gay was my heart as the warble whose song Enlivened each shady retreat all day long As in childhoods sweet days here I fondly delayed To cull the wild flowers of the Emerald glade. How changed are each leafy arcade and lone dell Where erstwhile the fairies delighted to dwell And marshalled their hosts by the light of the moon As thick as were leaves by an Autumn blast strewn Where druidic ghosts in the dark winter nights Come back to perform their old mystical rites And the Banshee at eve sang her sad monotone As a soul from it's weary prison had flown. I see not alas my old favourite trees That sang me a soft lullaby in the breeze AS I lay at their feet and a calm holy dream Oer my soul used to steal like a moon oer a stream Like the saddening mementoes l found to remain Of loved friends of my youth whom I sought here in vain The spot where those trees on their branches on high Calls up from my bosom its tenderest sigh. For the stranger came here and his vandalic hand Which blurs every beauty that graces our land Has levelled to earth those tall giants that stood Like wary old sentinels guarding the wood And the Shannon that calmly flowed on by their side Will receive their dark shadows no more on its tide Nor bear far-away their sere leaves Autumn tossed Like the brightest hearts hopes on times streams that are lost. But wasted old woods, still to me are ye dear And dimmed is my eye with a sorrowful tear As from my recesses I slowly depart Whose memory for aye shall be fresh in my heart As westwards the sun fades in hues gay and bright And robed are the trees in the mild amber light And hushed is the stream in a motionless spell Loved haunts of my childhood I bid thee farewell. * Ned Brennan was probably from the Kiltoom area of South Roscommon. He emigrated to the US and worked as a journalist, eventually becoming editor of the Boston Pilot. He returned to Ireland and became master of the workhouse in Athlone. He is buried in Kiltoom. (H. Maher Roscommon Authors Ros. Co. Library, 1978 p.17)