Two princes of the line of Conn Sleep in their cells of clay beside O’Donnell Roe: Three royal youths, alas! are gone, Who lived for Erin’s weal, but died For Erin’s woe! Ah! could the men of Ireland read The names these noteless burial-stones Display to view Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed. Their tears gush forth again, their groans Resound anew! The youths whose relics moulder here Were sprung from Hugh, high Prince and Lord Of Aileach’s lands; Thy noble brothers, justly dear, Thy nephew, long to be deplored By Ulster’s bands. Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time Could domicile Decay or house Decrepitude! They passed from Earth ere Manhood’s prime, Ere years had power to dim their brows Or chill their blood. And who can marvel o’er thy grief, Or who can blame thy flowing tears, That knows their source? O’Donnell, Dunnasava’s chief, Cut off amid his vernal years, Lies here a corse Beside his brother Cathbar, whom Tirconnell of the Helmets mourns In deep despair-- For valour, truth, and comely bloom, For all that greatens and adorns, A peerless pair. O, had these twain, and he, the third, The Lord of Mourne, O’Niall’s son, Their mate in death-- A prince in look, in deed, and word-- Had these three heroes yielded on The field their breath, O, had they fallen on Criffan’s plain, There would not be a town or clan From shore to sea, But would with shrieks bewail the Slain, Or chant aloud the exulting _rann_[3] Of jubilee! When high the shout of battle rose, On fields where Freedom’s torch still burned Through Erin’s gloom, If one, if barely one of those Were slain, all Ulster would have mourned The hero’s doom! If at Athboy, where hosts of brave Ulidian horsemen sank beneath The shock of spears, Young Hugh O’Neill had found a grave, Long must the North have wept his death With heart-wrung tears! If on the day of Ballach-myre The Lord of Mourne had met, thus young, A warrior’s fate, In vain would such as thou desire To mourn, alone, the champion sprung From Niall the Great! No marvel this--for all the Dead, Heaped on the field, pile over pile, At Mullach-brack, Were scarce an _eric_[4] for his head, If Death had stayed his footsteps while On victory’s track!