'What change shall o'er the scene have crossed; What conquering lords anew have come What lore-arm'd, mightier Druid host From Gaul or distant Rome! 'What arts of death, what ways of life, What creeds unknown to bard or seer, Shall round your careless steps be rife, Who pause and ponder here; 'And, haply, where yon curlew calls Athwart the marsh, 'mid groves and bowers, See rise some mighty chieftain's halls With unimagined towers: 'And baying hounds, and coursers bright, And burnish'd cars of dazzling sheen, With courtly train of dame and knight, Where now the fern is green. 'Or, by yon prostrate altar-stone May kneel, perchance, and, free from blame, New holy men with rites unknown New names of God proclaim. 'Let change as may the Name of Awe, Let right surcease and altar pall, The same One God remains, a law For ever and for all. 'Let change as may the face of earth, Let alter all the social frame, For mortal men the warp of birth And death are still the same. 'And still, as life and time wear on, The children of the waning days, (Though strength be from their shoulders gone To lift the loads we raise,) 'Shall weep to do the burial rites Of lost ones loved; and fondly found, In shadow of the gathering nights, The monumental mound. 'Farewell! the strength of men is worn: The night approaches dark and chill: Sleep, till perchance an endless morn Descend the glittering hill.' Of Oscar and Aideen bereft, So Ossian's song. The Fenians sped Three mighty shouts to heaven; and left Ben Edar to the dead. _Sir Samuel Ferguson_ DEIRDRE'S LAMENT FOR THE SONS OF USNACH _From the Irish_ The lions of the hill are gone, And I am left alone--alone-- Dig the grave both wide and deep, For I am sick, and fain would sleep! The falcons of the wood are flown, And I am left alone--alone-- Dig the grave both deep and wide, And let us slumber side by side. The dragons of the rock are sleeping, Sleep that wakes not for our weeping-- Dig the grave, and make it ready, Lay me on my true-love's body. Lay their spears and bucklers bright By the warriors' sides aright; Many a day the three before me On their linkèd bucklers bore me. Lay upon the low grave floor, 'Neath each head, the blue claymore; Many a time the noble three Reddened these blue blades for me. Lay the collars, as is meet, Of their greyhounds at their feet; Many a time for me have they Brought the tall red deer to bay. In the falcon's jesses throw, Hook and arrow, line and bow; Never again, by stream or plain, Shall the gentle woodsmen go.