De Ginkel’s army remained in the neighborhood of the field of battle long enough to give it an opportunity of burying all of the Irish dead, were it so disposed. The country-people remained away, in terror of their lives and poor belongings—particularly cattle—until decomposition had so far advanced as to make the task of sepulture particularly revolting. And thus it came to pass that nearly all the Irish slain were left above ground, “exposed to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; many dogs frequenting the place afterward, and growing so fierce by feeding upon man’s flesh that it became dangerous for any single man to pass that way. And,” continues Story in his narrative so frequently quoted, “there is a true and remarkable story of a greyhound [meaning the large, rapacious, and ferocious, Irish Wolf Dog that existed in those days, although extinct since the last century] belonging to an Irish officer: the gentleman was killed and stripped in the battle, whose body the dog remained by night and day, and tho’ he fed on other corps [es] with the rest of the dogs, yet he would not allow them, or anything else, to touch that of his master. When all the corps [es] were consumed, the other dogs departed, but he used to go in the night to the adjacent villages for food, and presently to return again to the place where his master’s bones were only then left; and thus he continued till January following, when one of Colonel Foulk’s soldiers, being quartered nigh hand, and going that way by chance, the dog, fearing he came to disturb his master’s bones, flew upon the soldier, who, being surprised at the suddenness of the thing, unslung his piece, then upon his back, and killed the poor dog.” Ireland’s national poet, Thomas Moore, in the beautiful words, set to that weirdly mournful air: “The Lamentation of Aughrim,” thus pours out in deathless melody the heart of his unfortunate country: “Forget not the field where they perished,— The truest; the last of the brave— All gone and the bright hopes we cherished Gone with them and sunk in the grave. “Oh, could we from death but recover Those hearts as they bounded before, In the face of high heaven to fight over That combat for freedom once more. “Could the chain for a moment be riven Which Tyranny flung round us then— No, ’tis not in man, nor in heaven, To let Tyranny bind it again! “But ’tis past; and tho’ blazoned in story The name of our victor may be; Accurst is the march of that glory Which treads on the hearts of the free!