The Irish Standard

SHAMROCKS FROM ERIN

VISION OF KING BRIAN.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF*

The great old Irish houses, the proud old Irish
names,
Like stars upon the midnight, to-day
their
luster gleams--
Gone are the great old houses--the proud old
names are low,
That shed a glory o'er the land a thousand
years ago.
These were the great old houses o'er whom a
spirit held
Mystic watching at life's closing, in the distant
days of old;
Oft foretold they of death's advent, in a slowly
chanted wail,
And often in the tones that glad a warrior in
his mail.
And wheresoe'er a scion of those great old
houses be,
In the country of his fathers, or the lands be-
yond the sea,
In city, or in hamlet, by the valley, on the hill.
'The spirit of his brave old sires is watching o'er
him still.
'Twas thus before the battle
that freed
the
Irish land,
That crushed the Dane forever on
Clontarf's
empurpled strand.
'Twas thus that brave
King Brian, at the midnight
hour of the night,
Saw a vision as he slumbered, befitting kingly
sight.
A
woman pale
and
beautiful--a woman sad
and fair--
Proud and stately was her stature, black and
flowing was her hair;
White as snow the robe around her, floating
shadow-like and free,
Whilst with a silver trumpet's tone,
to
the
sleeper thus spoke she:
"King! unto thee 'tis given, to triumph o'er
the Dane--
To drive his routed army forth unto the northern main;
But the palace of thy fathers
thou
shalt never
see again,
Thou, and the son thou lovest,
shall
sleep
among the slain.
"
Yet faith into the future thy memory shall live.
And to the souls of men unborn a glorious name
give:
Thy dynasty shall perish before a factious band,
But thy spirit shall forever dwell upon the
Irish land.
Men yet unborn shall know thee as thy country's
sword and shield.
Wise and prudent in the council, brave and
skilful in the field.
When the factious and
the
spoilers
shall
trample on the free.
They will pray to God to raise them a Deliverer
like thee.
"Thou shalt leave unto thy country, 'mid the
nations, a proud name;
Thou shalt leave it peace and freedom, and a
bright and glorious fame:
Thou shalt leave it upraised altars.
happy
homes and smiling fields,
Where the Sower shall be reaper of what Heaven's bounty yields.
Yet trampling on the country the spoiler's foot
shall come,
Woo'd to conquest and to plunder by factious
feud at home;
Milesian with Milesian shall battle day by day
Till the glory of the Irish land shall pass from
it away
"The fanatic and the bigot shall come with fire
and brand,
With foreign swords and foreign
laws,
black
heart and bloody hand;
They will trample on the altar, they
will
desecrate the shrine,
And pollute each holy relic that thy country
holds divine.
But thy country shall stand firm thro' plunder
and thro' scathe,
To that which thou shalt die for,
her consecrated faith;
Though her altar be in ruins, though her con-
querors slay and rive,
Yet, despite of ban or guerdon, her faith shall
still survive.
"Thy country's best and bravest shall struggle
long in vain.
And some shall seek in distant lands to 'scape
a conqueror's chain;
And some shall fall from princely hall, e'en to
the peasant's shed,
And many on her hard fought fields shall slumber
with the dead.
But the God whose hand is stretched forth, thy
country to chastise,
In His own good time and
fitting, will bid
the
prostrate rise:
For her faith He has recorded where the mighty
seal is set,
And His mercy, ay, it shall gush forth to vivify
her yet.
In her deepest hour of sorrow, in her hour of
darkest shame,
Thy country still will treasure the glory of thy
name.
In her greatest hour of triumph, when her history shall bear
to the future all her glory, thine shall be foremost there.
No more spoke she unto him, but passed like
mist away,
As it floats up
from
the valley
beneath the
summer ray
No more spoke she unto him, but
ever
on
the
gale,
Until the hour of dawning, came a low and mys-
tic wail.
Next day, amid the
foremost.
brave
Morrogh
fighting fell.
the flower of Irish chivalry--the son he loved
so well:
And from our shores
forever
was swept that
day the Dane
But the old King and his valiant son were num-
bered with the slain!
*The battle of Clontarf was fought on Good
Friday, 23d April, 1014.