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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Remember the Glories of Brien the Brave

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.

Munster

Remember the Glories of Brien the Brave

By Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

REMEMBER the glories of Brien the brave,

Though the days of the hero are o’er;

Though lost to Mononia, and cold in the grave,

He returns to Kinkora no more.

That star of the field, which so often hath poured

Its beam on the battle, is set;

But enough of its glory remains on each sword

To light us to victory yet.

Mononia! when Nature embellished the tint

Of thy fields, and thy mountains so fair,

Did she ever intend that a tyrant should print

The footstep of slavery there?

No! Freedom, whose smile we shall never resign,

Go, tell our invaders, the Danes,

That ’t is sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrine,

Than to sleep but a moment in chains.

Forget not our wounded companions, who stood

In the day of distress by our side;

While the moss of the valley grew red with their blood,

They stirred not, but conquered and died.

That sun which now blesses our arms with his light

Saw them fall upon Ossory’s plain;—

O, let him not blush, when he leaves us to-night,

To find that they fell there in vain.