DEATH OF SCHOMBERG
'Twas on the day when kings did fight
Beside the Boyne's dark water
And thunder Roared from every height
And earth was read with slaughter;
That morn an aged chieftain stood
Apart from mustering bands
And, from a height that crowned the flood
Surveyed broad Erin's land
His hand upon his sword hilt leant
His war-horse stood beside
And anxiously his eyes were bent
Across the rolling tide;
He thought of what a changeful fate
Had born him from the land
Where frowned his father's castle gate
High o'er the Renish strand
And placed before his opening view
A realm where strangers bled
Where he, a leader, s carcely knew
The tongue of those he led;
He looked upon his chequered life
From boyhood's earliest time
Through scenes of tumult and of strife
Endured in every clime
To where the snows of eighty years
Usurped the raven's strand
And still the din was in his ears
The broad-sword in his hand;
He turned him to futurity
Beyond the battle plain
But then a shadow from on high
Hung o'er the heaps of slain
And through the darkness of the cloud
The chief's prophetic glance
Beheld, with winding-sheet and shroud
His fatal hour advance;
He quailed not as he felt him near
The inevitable stroke
But dashing off one rising tear
'Twas thus the old man spoke:
"God of my fathers! Death is nigh
My soul is not deceived
My hour is come, and I would die
The conqueror I have lived!
Four Thee, for Freedom, have I stood
For both I fall to -day:
Give me but victory for my blood
The price I gladly pay!
"Forbid the future to restore
A Stuart's despot gloom
Or that, by freemen dreaded more
The tyranny of Rome!
From either curse let Erin freed
As prosperous ages run
Acknowledge what a glorious deed
Upon that day was done!"
He said--fate granted half his prayer
His steed he straight bestrode
And fell as on the routed rear
Of Jame's host he rode;
He sleeps in a cathedral's gloom
Amongst the mighty dead;
And frequent o'er his hallowed tomb
Redeedful pilgrims tread:
The other half, though fate deny
We'll arrive for one and all
And William's Schomberg's spirits nigh
We'll gain or fighting fall!
