They heaved the stone; they heap'd the cairn.
Said Ossian, 'In a queenly grave
We leave her, 'mong her fields of fern,
Between the cliff and wave.
'The cliff behind stands clear and bare,
And bare, above, the heathery steep
Scales the clear heaven's expanse, to where
The Danaan Druids sleep.
'And all the sands that, left and right,
The grassy isthmus-ridge confine,
In yellow bars lie bare and bright
Among the sparkling brine.
'A clear pure air pervades the scene,
In loneliness and awe secure;
Meet spot to sepulchre a Queen
Who in her life was pure.
'Here, far from camp and chase removed,
Apart in Nature's quiet room,
The music that alive she loved
Shall cheer her in the tomb.
'The humming of the noontide bees,
The lark's loud carol all day long,
And, borne on evening's salted breeze,
The clanking sea-bird's song,
'Shall round her airy chamber float,
And with the whispering winds and streams,
Attune to Nature's tenderest note
The tenor of her dreams.
'And oft, at tranquil eve's decline,
When full tides lip the Old Green Plain,
The lowing of Moynalty's kine
Shall round her breathe again.
'In sweet remembrance of the days
When, duteous, in the lowly vale,
Unconscious of my Oscar's gaze,
She fill'd the fragrant pail,
'And, duteous, from the running brook
Drew water for the bath; nor deem'd
A king did on her labour look,
And she a fairy seem'd.
'But when the wintry frosts begin,
And in their long-drawn, lofty flight,
The wild geese with their airy din
Distend the ear of night,
'And when the fierce De Danaan ghosts
At midnight from their peak come down,
When all around the enchanted coasts
Despairing strangers drown;
'When, mingling with the wreckful wail,
From low Clontarf's wave-trampled floor
Comes booming up the burthen'd gale
The angry Sand-Bull's roar;
'Or, angrier than the sea, the shout
Of Erin's hosts in wrath combined,
When Terror heads Oppression's rout,
And Freedom cheers behind:--
'Then o'er our lady's placid dream,
Where safe from storms she sleeps, may steal
Such joy as will not misbeseem
A Queen of men to feel:
'Such thrill of free, defiant pride,
As rapt her in her battle-car
At Gavra, when by Oscar's side
She rode the ridge of war,
'Exulting, down the shouting troops,
And through the thick confronting kings,
With hands on all their javelin loops
And shafts on all their strings;
'E'er closed the inseparable crowds,
No more to part for me, and show,
As bursts the sun through scattering clouds,
My Oscar issuing so.
'No more, dispelling battle's gloom,
Shall son for me from fight return;
The great green rath's ten-acred tomb
Lies heavy on his urn.
'A cup of bodkin-pencill'd 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-letter'd 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 echo'd 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,
Who, roaming bare Ben Edar's peak
And Aideen'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 perish'd so,
Though once it thrill'd this 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 suppliant Leinster's 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 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_