It is blindness for any one making a tryst to set aside the tryst with Death:
The tryst that we made at Claragh has been kept by me in pale death.
It was destined for me,—unhappy journey! at Feic my grave had been marked out;
It was ordained for me—O sorrowful fight! to fall by warriors of another land.
'Tis not I alone who in the fulness of desires has gone astray to meet a woman—
No reproach to thee, though it was for thy sake—wretched is our last meeting!
Had we known it would be thus, it had not been hard to desist.
The noble-faced, grey-horsed warrior-band has not betrayed me.
Alas! for the wonderful yew-forest,[6] that they should have gone into the abode of clay!
Had they been alive, they would have revenged their lords;
Had mighty death not intervened, this warrior-band had not been unavenged by me.
To their very end they were brave; they ever strove for victory over their foes;
They would still sing a stave—a deep-toned shout,—they sprang from the race of a noble lord.
That was a joyous, lithe-limbed band to the very hour when they were slain:
The green-leaved forest has received them—it was an all-fierce slaughter.
Well-armed Domnall, he of the red draught, he was the Lugh[7] of the well-accoutred hosts:
By him in the ford—it was doom of death—Congal the Slender fell.
The three Eoghans, the three Flanns, they were renowned outlaws;
Four men fell by each of them, it was not a coward's portion.