The Flood

Fast fell the mist from vale and brae,
As brightly dawned the autumn day,
And O’er Slieve Gallion’s crest the sun,
Its first bright glow of morning flung,
And when brighter grew the east,
The sun shone down on Ballybriest,
O’er Loorty’s rocks of granite grey,
And o’er Lough Patrick and Lough Fea.

The Mill Lough and the Mill Lough hill,
And dark Crockmoran further still,
It brightly beamed across Moyard,
O’er Moneyconey bleak and scarred,
Lough Ouske, Glengomna and ‘the Rocks’,
Where scanty verdures nature mocks,
Moyola’s sleepy vale awoke,
Beneath the magic of its stroke.

Teeming once more with life renewed,
By cot and hall, by glen and wood,
The farmers soon were all astir,
And soon was heard the reapers whirr,
For hay on many a fertile acre,
Was ready now for the haymaker,
‘Tis noon, the sun at morning bright,
Now scarce can show its feeble light.

The day is sultry, dark and close,
Fast drips the sweat from man and horse,
A farmer working at the ruck,
Called to his men to speed their work,
For he says, “the heavens look queer,
There’s thunder in the atmosphere”
Moyola’s banks are high and dry,
The stream was small that trickled by.

Where Autumn floods so often sweep,
Seething, muddy, broad and deep,
The angry clouds on high arose,
The darkening sky still darker grows,
As if the very heavens were lowered,
The lightening flashed, the thunder roared,
Torrential rain came pouring down,
O’er Vale and hill and mountain brown.

The Big Glen’s rushing waters sweep,
Adown its chasm dark and steep,
O’er Mullan’s fall they swiftly pour,
With noise that drowns the thunder’s roar,
Beneath McBride’s deep bridge they flow,
As on their downward course they go,
Till the Moyola’s waters meet,
A whirling, boiling, seething sheet.

Which gathered from the Connelly’s scarr,
And from Glenviggan further far,
And from wild Altayeskeys ridge,
Go rolling neath the Old Church Bridge,
Down o’er the pavement beams to fall,
And all along the water wall,
Past swollen streams and sodden lands,
Where Connelly’s bridge the river spans.

And on through many’s the changing scene,
By Owenreagh’s meadows and ‘The Green’
With many’s the bend and many’s the turn,
By Wall’s bridge and Glushagh burn,
Heaving tossing, flecked with foam,
It spread o’er many’s the Labby holme,
O’er soils enriched with layers of mud,
Swept down by many’s the Autumn flood.

Uprooted trees and shrubs are tossed,
Like corkwood on its heaving breast,
As broad, deep, muddy and brown,
It flows by Tonagh and Draperstown,
The storm cloud an inky void,
Now hangs o’er Crieve and Derrynoid,
And the loud thunder’s rolling shock,
Reverbrate o’er Hanna’s rock.

‘Tis evening and the sky has cleared,
The thunder clouds have disappeared,
The sun is setting in the west,
Beyond Slievewaddy’s heathery crest,
And e’er its beams shall shine again,
O’er Brackagh’s hills and Corrick’s glen,
The floods like a departing day,
Shall be a distant memory.