Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises, when all men their tribute bring thee?
Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor, when all poets’ mouths shall sing thee?
Ah! the harpings and the salvos and the shouting of thy exiled sons returning!
I should hear, tho’ dead and mouldered, and the grave-damps should not chill my bosom’s burning.
Ah! the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them ’mid the shamrocks and the mosses,
And my heart should toss within the shroud and quiver as a captive dreamer tosses.
I should turn and rend the cere-clothes round me, giant sinews I should borrow—
Crying, “O my brothers, I have also loved her in her loneliness and sorrow.
“Let me join with you the jubilant procession: let me chant with you her story;
Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks, now mine eyes have seen her glory!”
The Dead at Clonmacnois.
(From the Irish of Enoch o’ Gillan.)
T. W. ROLLESTON
In a quiet watered land, a land of roses,
Stands Saint Kieran’s City fair;
And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations
Slumber there.
There beneath the dewy hillside sleep the noblest of the
Clan of Conn,
Each below his stone with name in branching Ogham
And the sacred knot thereon.
There they laid to rest the seven Kings of Tara,
There the sons of Cairbrè sleep—
Battle banners of the Gael, that in Kieran’s plain of crosses
Now their final posting keep.