 | Ballads of Irish chivalry |  |
138
THE SACK OF DUNBUI.
A.D. 1602.
I
They who fell in manhood's pride,They who nobly fighting died,
Fade their memories never, never:
Theirs shall be the deathless name,
Shining brighter, grander ever
Up the diamond crags of fame!
Time these glorious names shall lift
Up from sunbright clift to clift,
Upward! to eternity!
The godlike men of brave Dunbui!
II
Glorious men and godlike men,Well they stemmed the Saxon then,
139
Over river, plain, and sea,
'Gainst the tall and bristling towers
Of the Spartan-manned Dunbui—
Traitor Gael and Saxon churl,
Burning in their wrath to hurl
Ruin on the bold and free
Warrior men of brave Dunbui.
III
Thomond with his traitors came,Carew breathing blood and flame;
First he sent his message in
To the Southern gunsmen three,
Message black as Hell and sin,
Sin and Satan e'er could be;
Would they trusting freres betray,
Would they this for golden pay?
Demon, no! foul treachery
Never dwelt in strong Dunbui.
IV
Onward then that sunny June,On they came in the fiery noon,
On where frowned the stubborn keep,
O'er the rock-subduing flood,
First they took Beare's island steep,
And drenched its crags in helpless blood.
Nought could save—child's, woman's tears—
Curse upon their cruel spears!
Oh, that sight was Hell to see
By thy bristling walls, Dunbui!
V
Nearer yet they crowd and come,With taunting and yelling, and thundering drum,
140
And swear that its towers and defenders must fall,
While the cannon are set, and their death-hail of iron
Crash wildly on bastion and turret and wall;
And the ramparts are torn from their base to their brow—
Ho! will they not yield to the murderers now?
No! its huge towers shall float over Cleena's bright sea,
Ere the Gael prove a craven in lonely Dunbui.
VI
Like the fierce god of battle Mac Geoghegan goesFrom rampart to wall, in the face of his foes;
Now his voice rises high o'er the cannons' fierce din,
Whilst the taunt of the Saxon is loud as before,
But a yell thunders up from his warriors within,
And they dash through the gateway, down, down to the shore.
With their chief rushing on, like a storm in its wrath,
They sweep the cowed Saxon to death in their path;
Ah! dearly he'll purchase the fall of the free,
Of the lion-souled warriors of lonely Dunbui!
VII
Leaving terror behind them, and death in their train,Now they stand on their walls 'mid the dying and slain,
141
That lone summer midnight, ah! short is its reign;
For the morn springeth upward, and valley and hill
Fling back the fierce echoes of conflict again.
And see how the foe rushes up to the breach,
Towards the green waving banner he yet may not reach,
For look how the Gael flings him back to the sea,
From the blood-reeking ramparts of lonely Dunbui!
VIII
Night cometh again, and the white stars look downFrom the hold to the beach, where the batteries frown,
Night cometh again, but affrighted she flies,
Like a black Indian queen from the fierce panther's roar,
And morning leaps up in the wide-spreading skies,
To his welcome of thunder and flame evermore;
For the guns of the Saxon crash fearfully there,
Till the walls and the towers and the ramparts are bare,
And the foe make their last mighty swoop on the free,
The brave-hearted warriors of lonely Dunbui!
IX
Within the red breach see Mac Geoghegan stand,With the blood of the foe on his arm and his brand;
142
“For country, for freedom, religion, and all:
Better sink into death, and for ever be free,
Than yield to the false Saxon's mercy and thrall!”
And they answer with brandish of sparth and of glaive—
“Let them come: we will give them a welcome and grave;
Let them come—from their swords could we flinch, could we flee,
When we fight for our country, our God, and Dunbui!”
X
They came, and the Gael met their merciless shock—Flung them backward like spray from the lone Skellig rock;
But they rally, as wolves springing up to the death
Of their brother of famine, the bear of the snow—
He hurls them adown to the ice-fields beneath,
Rushing back to his dark norland cave from the foe;—
So up to the breaches they savagely bound,
Thousands still thronging beneath and around,
Till the firm Gael is driven—till the brave Gael must flee
In, into the chambers of lonely Dunbui!
XI
In chamber, in cellar, on stairway, and tower,Evermore they resisted the false Saxon's power;
143
The clangor of battle rolls fearfully there,
'Till the morning leaps upward in glory and light,
Then, where are the true-hearted warriors of Beare?
They have found them a refuge from torment and chain:
They have died with their chief, save the few who remain,
And that few—oh, fair Heaven! on the high gallows tree
They swing by the ruins of lonely Dunbui!
XII
Long, long in the hearts of the brave and the freeLive the warriors who died in the lonely Dunbui—
Down time's silent river their fair names shall go,
A light to our race towards the long-coming day;
Till the billows of time shall be checked in their flow
Can we find names so sweet for remembrance as they?
And we will hold their memories for ever and aye,
A halo, a glory that ne'er shall decay,
We'll set them as stars o'er eternity's sea,
The bright names of the warriors who fell at Dunbui!
The Castle of Dunboy or Dunbui, is situated on the shore of Bantry Bay, opposite Beare Island. It belonged to O'Sullivan Beare, and was the great military depot of, and the last fortress that held out for, the Catholics of the South in the year 1602. It was defended, almost successfully, in the summer of that year by 146 men, under their commander, Captain Richard Mac Geoghegan, against an army of nearly 6,000 English, commanded by President Carew. Every man of the 146, together with their heroic commander, fell in its defence, except nine or ten who laid down their arms on condition of their getting quarter, and were hanged a few minutes afterwards. Vide Mac Geoghegan, and Annals of the Four Masters, etc.
| Ballads of Irish chivalry | |