"Cusheen Loo" (A Poem)

From Samuel Ferguson’s “The Fairy Well of Lagnanay” and “The Fairy Thorn” to William Allingham’s “The Fairies” and William Butler Yeats’ “The Stolen Child,” fairy imprisonment of the living is a major theme in Irish folklore and literature. J. J. Callanan’s “Cusheen Loo” is another example of this motif, with a young bride who is confined to a fairy palace singing to another woman and pleading with her to fetch her husband and break the enchantment.

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.[1]

Works Referenced

Callanan, J.J. “Cusheen Loo.” The Book of Irish Ballads. Ed. D.F. M’Carthy. Dublin: James Duffy, 1986. 78-79.
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[1] Callanan, 78-79.