Music and Poetry

O WOMAN of the piercing wail,

Who mournest o’er yon mound of clay

With sigh and groan,

Would God thou wert among the Gael!

Thou would’st not then from day to day

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Weep thus alone.

’Twere long before around a grave

In green Tyrconnel, one could find

This loneliness;

Near where Beann-Boirche’s banners wave,

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Such grief as thine could ne’er have pined

Companionless.

Beside the wave in Donegal,

In Antrim’s glens, or fair Dromore,

Or Killilee,

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Or where the sunny waters fall

At Assaroe, near Erna shore,

This could not be.

On Derry’s plains, in rich Drumcliff,

Throughout Armagh the Great, renowned

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In olden years,

No day could pass but woman’s grief

Would rain upon the burial-ground

Fresh floods of tears!

O no!—From Shannon, Boyne, and Suir,

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From high Dunluce’s castle-walls,

From Lissadill,

Would flock alike both rich and poor:

One wail would rise from Cruachan’s halls

To Tara Hill;

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And some would come from Barrow-side,

And many a maid would leave her home

On Leitrim’s plains,

And by melodious Banna’s tide,

And by the Mourne and Erne, to come

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And swell thy strains!

O, horses’ hoofs would trample down

The mount whereon the martyr-saint

Was crucified;

From glen and hill, from plain and town,

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One loud lament, one thrilling plaint,

Would echo wide

There would not soon be found, I ween,

One foot of ground among those bands

For museful thought,

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So many shriekers of the keen

Would cry aloud, and clap their hands,

All woe-distraught!

Two princes of the line of Conn

Sleep in their cells of clay beside

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O’Donnell Roe:

Three royal youths, alas! are gone,

Who lived for Erin’s weal, but died

For Erin’s woe.

Ah, could the men of Ireland read

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The names those noteless burial-stones

Display to view,

Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed,

Their tears gush forth again, their groans

Resound anew!

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The youths whose relics moulder here

Were sprung from Hugh, high prince and lord

Of Aileach’s lands;

Thy noble brothers, justly dear,

Thy nephew, long to be deplored

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By Ulster’s bands.

Theirs were not souls wherein dull time

Could domicile decay, or house

Decrepitude!

They passed from earth ere manhood’s prime,

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Ere years had power to dim their brows,

Or chill their blood.

And who can marvel o’er thy grief,

Or who can blame thy flowing tears,

Who knows their source?

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O’Donnell, Dunnasava’s chief,

Cut off amid his vernal years,

Lies here a corse

Beside his brother Cathbar, whom

Tyrconnell of the Helmets mourns

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In deep despair:

For valour, truth, and comely bloom,

For all that greatens and adorns,

A peerless pair.

Oh, had these twain, and he, the third,

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The Lord of Mourne, O’Niall’s son

(Their mate in death),

A prince in look, in deed, and word,

Had these three heroes yielded on

The field their breath,

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Oh, had they fallen on Criffan’s plain,

There would not be a town or clan

From shore to sea,

But would with shrieks bewail the slain,

Or chant aloud the exulting rann

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Of jubilee!

When high the shout of battle rose,

On fields where Freedom’s torch still burned

Through Erin’s gloom,

If one, if barely one of those

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Were slain, all Ulster would have mourned

The hero’s doom!

If at Athboy, where hosts of brave

Ulidian horsemen sank beneath

The shock of spears,

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Young Hugh O’Neill had found a grave,

Long must the North have wept his death

With heart-wrung tears!

If on the day of Ballach-myre

The Lord of Mourne had met thus young,

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A warrior’s fate,

In vain would such as thou desire

To mourn, alone, the champion sprung

From Niall the Great!

No marvel this—for all the dead,

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Heaped on the field, pile over pile,

At Mullach-brack,

Were scarce an eric for his head,

If death had stayed his footsteps while

On victory’s track!

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If on the Day of Hostages

The fruit had from the parent bough

Been rudely torn

In sight of Munster’s bands-MacNee’s—

Such blow the blood of Conn, I trow,

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Could ill have borne.

If on the day of Ballach-boy

Some arm had laid by foul surprise,

The chieftain low,

Even our victorious shout of joy

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Would soon give place to rueful cries

And groans of woe!

If on the day the Saxon host

Were forced to fly—a day so great

For Ashanee—

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The Chief had been untimely lost,

Our conquering troops should moderate

Their mirthful glee.

There would not lack on Lifford’s day,

From Galway, from the glens of Boyle,

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From Limerick’s towers,

A marshalled file, a long array

Of mourners to bedew the soil

With tears in showers!

If on the day a sterner fate

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Compelled his flight from Athenree,

His blood had flowed,

What numbers all disconsolate,

Would come unasked, and share with thee

Affliction’s load!

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If Derry’s crimson field had seen

His life-blood offered up, though ’twere

On Victory’s shrine,

A thousand cries would swell the keen,

A thousand voices of despair

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Would echo thine!

Oh, had the fierce Dalcassian swarm

That bloody night of Fergus’ banks

But slain our Chief,

When rose his camp in wild alarm—

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How would the triumph of his ranks

be dashed with grief!

How would the troops of Murbach Mourn

If on the Curlew Mountains’ day

Which England rued,

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Some Saxon hand had left them lorn,

By shedding there, amid the fray,

Their prince’s blood!

Red would have been our warriors’ eyes

Had Roderick found on Sligo’s field

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A gory grave,

No Northern Chief would soon arise

So sage to guide, so strong to shield,

So swift to save.

Long would Leith-Cuinn have wept if Hugh

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Had met the death he oft had dealt

Among the foe;

But, had our Roderick fallen too,

All Erin must, alas! have felt

The deadly blow!

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What do I say? Ah, woe is me!

Already we bewail in vain

Their fatal fall!

And Erin, once the great and free,

Now vainly mourns her breakless chain,

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And iron thrall.

Then, daughter of O’Donnell, dry

Thine overflowing eyes, and turn

Thy heart aside,

For Adam’s race is born to die,

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And sternly the sepulchral urn

Mocks human pride.

Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne,

Nor place thy trust in arm of clay,

But on thy knees

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Uplift thy soul to God Alone,

For all things go their destined way

As He decrees.

Embrace the faithful crucifix,

And seek the path of pain and prayer

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Thy Saviour trod;

Nor let thy spirit intermix

With earthly hope, with worldly care,

Its groans to God!

And Thou, O mighty Lord! Whose Ways

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Are far above our feeble minds

To understand,

Sustain us in these doleful days,

And render light the chain that binds

Our fallen land!

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