The great green rath's ten-acred tomb Lies heavy on his urn. A cup of bodkin-pencilled 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-lettered 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 echoed 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, When, roaming bare Ben-Edar's peak And Aide en'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 perished so, Though once it thrilled the 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 Leinster's suppliant 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, What change shall o'er the scene have cross'd What conquering lords anew have come; What lore-armed, 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't cars of dazzling sheen, With courtly train of dame and knight, Where now the fern is green. Or by yon prostrate altar stone