De Lacy and D'Alton, can ye reckon your slain? Where's your chieftain, fierce Nangle? Has De Netterville fled? Ask the Molingar eagles, whom their carcasses fed. * The red hand for ever. Ho! ye riders from Ormond, will ye brag in your hall, How your lord was struck down with his mail'd knights and all? Swim at midnight the Shannon, beard the wolf in his den, Ere you ride to Moycashel on a foray again! ----A. G. Geoghegan. FONTENOY |Thrice at the huts of Fontenoy the English column failed, And twice the lines of St Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed; For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery, And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary. As vainly, through De Baari's wood, the British soldiers burst, The French artillery drove them back, diminished and dispersed. The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye, And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance to try. On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride! And mustering come his chosen troops, like clouds at eventide. Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread, Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head; Steady they step a-down the slope--steady they climb the hill-- Steady they load--steady they fire, moving right onward still, Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as though a furnace blast, Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets showering fast; And on the open plain above they rose, and kept their course, With ready fire and grim resolve, that mocked at hostile force. Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grow their ranks, They break, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean banks. More idly than the summer flies French tirailleurs rush round; As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons strew the ground; Bomb-shell, and grape, and round shot tore, still on they marched and fired-- Fast, from each volley, grenadier and voltigeur retired. "Push on, my household cavalry," King Louis madly cried: To death they rush, but rude their shock--not unavenged they died. On through the camp the column trod--King Louis turns his rein *, "Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed, "the Irish troops remain;" And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo, Were not these exiles ready then, fresh, vehement, and true. "Lord Clare," he says, "you have your wish, there are your Saxon foes;" The marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes! How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay!