The lurid glare of torches served to light them to their foes:
They hewed those felons, hip and thigh, with stern, relentless blows;
Claymore and battle-axe and spear were steeped in slaughter's flood,
While every thistle in the moat was splashed with crimson blood;
And when the light of morning broke, the legions of the Danes
Lay stiff and stark, in ghastly heaps, around the Fort of Slaines!
Nine hundred years have been engulfed within the grave of Time
Since those grim Vikings of the North by death atoned their crime.
In memory of that awful night, the thistle's hardy grace
Was chosen as the emblem meet of Albin's dauntless race;