They move with steps as swift as still,
’Twixt Collin mount and Slemish hill,
They glide along the misty plain,
And ford the sullen muttering Maine;
Some drive the cattle o’er the hills,
And some along the dried-up rills;
But still a strong force doth surround
The chiefs, the dame, the steed, and hound.

Thus ere the bright-faced day arose,
The Bann lay broad between the foes. 
But how to paint the inward scorn,
The self-reproach of those that morn,
Who waking found their chieftain gone,
The cattle swept from field and bawn,
The chieftain’s castle stormed and drained,
And, worse than all, their honour stained!

But when the women heard that Anne,
The queen, the glory of the clan
Was carried off by midnight foes,
Heavens! such despairing screams arose,
Such shrieks of agony and fright,
As only can be heard at night,
When Clough-i-Stookan’s mystic rock
The wail of drowning men doth mock.[92]

But thirty steeds are in the town,
And some are like the ripe heath, brown,
Some like the alder-berries, black,
Some like the vessel’s foamy track;
But be they black, or brown, or white,
They are as swift as fawns in flight,
No quicker speed the sea gull hath
When sailing through the Gray Man’s Path.[93]

Soon are they saddled, soon they stand,
Ready to own the rider’s hand,
Ready to dash with loosened rein
Up the steep hill, and o’er the plain;
Ready, without the prick of spurs,
To strike the gold cups from the furze: 
And now they start with winged pace,
God speed them in their noble chase!

By this time, on Ben Bradagh’s height,
Brave Con had rested in his flight,
Beneath him, in the horizon’s blue,
Lay his own valleys of Tirhugh. 
It may have been the thought of home,
While resting on that mossy dome,
It may have been his native trees
That woke his mind to thoughts like these.

“The race is o’er, the spoil is won,
And yet what boots it all I’ve done? 
What boots it to have snatched away
This steed, and hound, and cattle-prey? 
What boots it, with an iron hand
To tear a chieftain from his land,
And dim that sweetest light that lies
In a fond wife’s adoring eyes?

“If thus I madly teach my clan,
What can I hope from beast or man? 
Fidelity a crime is found,
Or else why chain this faithful hound? 
Obedience, too, a crime must be,
Or else this steed were roaming free;
And woman’s love the worst of sins,
Or Anne were queen of Antrim’s Glynnes!

“If, when I reach my home to-night,
I see the yellow moonbeam’s light
Gleam through the broken gate and wall
Of my strong fort of Donegal;
If I behold my kinsmen slain,
My barns devoid of golden grain,
How can I curse the pirate crew
For doing what this hour I do?

“Well, in Columba’s blessed name,
This day shall be a day of fame,—­
A day when Con in victory’s hour
Gave up the untasted sweets of power;
Gave up the fairest dame on earth,
The noblest steed that e’er wore girth,
The noblest hound of Irish breed,
And all to do a generous deed.”