The Princes Of The North Poem by Anna Johnston MacManus

Summer and winter the long years have flown
Since you looked your last for ever on the hills of Tyrone;
On the vales of Tyrconnell, on the faces strained that night
To watch you, Hugh and Rory, over waves in your flight.

Not in Uladh of your kindred your bed hath been made,
Where the holy earth laps them and the quicken-tree gives shade;
But your dust lies afar, where Rome hath given space
To the tanist of O'Donnell, and the Prince of Nial's race.

O, sad in green Tyrone when you left us, Hugh O'Neill,
In our grief and bitter need, to the spoiler's cruel steel ?
And sad in Donegal when you went, O Rory Bán,
From your father's rugged towers and the wailing of your clan.

Our hearts had bled to hear of that dastard deed in Spain:
We wept our Eaglet, in his pride, by Saxon vileness slain;
And, girded for revenge, we waited but the call of war
To bring us like a headlong wave from heathery height and scaur.

Ochón and ochón! when the tidings travelled forth
That our chiefs had sailed in sorrow from the glens of the North;
Ochón and ochón! how our souls grew sore afraid,
And our love followed after in the track your keel had made!

And yet in green Tyrone they keep your memory still,
And tell you never fled afar, but sleep in Aileach Hill–
In stony sleep, with sword in hand and stony steed beside,
Until the horn shall waken you–the rock gate open wide.

Will you come again, O Hugh, in all your olden power,
In all the strength and skill we knew, with Rory, in that hour
When the Sword leaps from its scabbard, and the Night hath passed away,
And Banba's battle-cry rings loud at Dawning of the Day.