'Or, angrier than the sea, the shout Of Erin's hosts in wrath combined, When Terror heads Oppression's rout, And Freedom cheers behind:-- 'Then o'er our lady's placid dream, Where safe from storms she sleeps, may steal Such joy as will not misbeseem A Queen of men to feel: 'Such thrill of free, defiant pride, As rapt her in her battle-car At Gavra, when by Oscar's side She rode the ridge of war, 'Exulting, down the shouting troops, And through the thick confronting kings, With hands on all their javelin loops And shafts on all their strings; 'E'er closed the inseparable crowds, No more to part for me, and show, As bursts the sun through scattering clouds, My Oscar issuing so. 'No more, dispelling battle's gloom, Shall son for me from fight return; The great green rath's ten-acred tomb Lies heavy on his urn. 'A cup of bodkin-pencill'd clay Holds Oscar; mighty heart and limb One handful now of ashes grey: And she has died for him. 'And here, hard by her natal bower On lone Ben Edar's side, we strive With lifted rock and sign of power To keep her name alive. 'That while from circling year to year, Her Ogham-letter'd stone is seen, The Gael shall say, "Our Fenians here Entombed their loved Aideen." 'The Ogham from her pillar-stone In tract of time will wear away; Her name at last be only known In Ossian's echo'd lay. 'The long-forgotten lay I sing May only ages hence revive, (As eagle with a wounded wing To soar again might strive,) 'Imperfect, in an alien speech, When, wandering here, some child of chance Through pangs of keen delight shall reach The gift of utterance,-- 'To speak the air, the sky to speak, The freshness of the hill to tell, Who, roaming bare Ben Edar's peak And Aideen's briary dell, 'And gazing on the Cromlech vast, And on the mountain and the sea, Shall catch communion with the past And mix himself with me. 'Child of the Future's doubtful night, Whate'er your speech, whoe'er your sires, Sing while you may with frank delight The song your hour inspires. 'Sing while you may, nor grieve to know The song you sing shall also die; Atharna's lay has perish'd so, Though once it thrill'd this sky, 'Above us, from his rocky chair, There, where Ben Edar's landward crest O'er eastern Bregia bends, to where Dun Almon crowns the west: 'And all that felt the fretted air Throughout the song-distempered clime, Did droop, till suppliant Leinster's prayer Appeased the vengeful rhyme. 'Ah me, or e'er the hour arrive Shall bid my long-forgotten tones, Unknown One, on your lips revive Here by these moss-grown stones,