[ADDRESS TO BRIAN O'ROURKE "OF
THE BULWARKS" TO AROUSE
HIM AGAINST THE ENGLISH][107]
By his bard, Teig Dall O'Higgin, about 1566.
"And first for Owryrke: I found hym the proudest man that ever I delt with in Irelande." (Sir Henry Sydney to the Privy Council, from Dublin, 1576.)
"The man of war is he who dwells in safety,"
A well-worn adage that shall never cease,
Save only when it girdeth on its armour
May many-wooded Banba hope for peace.
Why sit ye still? the Clans of valorous Eoghan,
The Clans of Conn and Conor round you stand;
Do ye not hear the troops of Saxon England
March o'er your plains and trample down your land?
Let Brian, son of Brian, out of Brefney,
Beware the sweetness of their honeyed tongue,
Their greed and need, their indigence and riches,
Two-handed spoil from Ireland's sons have wrung.
Let Brian, son of Brian, son of Eoghan,
Ponder if one man ever came away,—
Who put his trust in England's perjured honour,—
Unscathed by guile, unharmed by treachery?
As waters rising 'neath the snows of winter,
As hamlets flaming from one secret spark,
So shall the chiefs of Erinn rally round him,
When Brian's star arises on the dark.
Then shall wild creatures find their surest covert
Among the broken homesteads of the Pale;
The wolves' deep snarl be heard beside her mansions,
On grass-green Tara's slopes the children's wail.
Where once arose their lightsome lime-washed dwellings,
Where once were precious things of price displayed,
Be thenceforth whispered, in affrighted accents,
That such things had been, ere O'Rourke's fierce raid.