tell, too, of a bush that he once took shelter under from the rain, and
how he 'praised it first; and then when it let the rain down, he
dispraised it, and it withered up, and never put out leaf or branch
after.' I have seen his poem on the bush in a manuscript book, carefully
written in the beautiful Irish character, and the great treasure of a
stonecutter's cottage. This is the form of the curse: 'I pronounce
ugliness upon you. That bloom or leaf may never grow on you, but the
flame of the mountain fires and of bonfires be upon you. That you may
get your punishment from Oscar's flail, to hack and to bruise you with
the big sledge of a forge.'

There are some other verses made by him that have been less legendary in
their effect. The story is:--'It was Anthony Daly, a carpenter, was
hanged at Seefin. It was the two Z's got him put away. He was brought
before a judge in Galway, and accused of being a Captain of Whiteboys,
and it was sworn against him that he fired at Mr. X. He was a one-eyed
man; and he said: "If I did, though I have but one eye, I would have hit
him"--for he was a very good shot; and he asked that some object should
be put up, and he would show the judge that he would hit it, but he said
nothing else. Some were afraid he'd give up the names of the other
Whiteboys; but he did not. There was a gallows put up at Seefin; and he
was brought there sitting on his coffin in a cart. There were people all
the way along the road, and they were calling on him to break through
the crowd, and they'd save him; and some of the soldiers were Irish, and
they called back that if he did they'd only fire their guns in the air;
but he made no attempt, but went to the gallows quiet enough. There was
a man in Gort was telling me he saw it, planting potatoes he was at
Seefin that day. It was in the year 1820; and Raftery was there at the
hanging, and he made a song about it. The first verse of the song said:
"Wasn't that the good tree, that wouldn't let any branch that was on it