Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis

79
As a huge mill-stone, cracking it in three,
And so into his body, every part
Of which was filled with the expanding barbs
"That is enough: by that one blow I fall,"
Ferdiah said. "Indeed, I now may own
That I am sickly after thee this day,
Though it behoved not thee that I should fall
By stroke of thine;" and then these dying words
He added, tottering back upon the bank:
FERDIAH.
O Hound, so famed for deeds of valour doing,
'Twas not thy place my death to give to me;
Thine is the fault of my most certain ruin,
And yet 'tis best to have my blood on thee.
The wretch escapes not from his false position,
Who to the gap of his destruction goes;
Alas! my death-sick voice needs no physician,
My end hath come--my life's stream seaward flows.
The natural ramparts of my breast are broken,
In its own gore my struggling heart is drowned:--
Alas! I have not fought as I have spoken,
For thou hast killed me in the fight, O Hound!
Cuchullin towards him ran, and his two arms
Clasping about him, lifted him and bore
The body in its armour and its clothes
Across the Ford unto the northern bank,
In order that the slain should thus be placed
Upon the north bank of the Ford, and not
Among the men of Erin, on the west.
Cuchullin laid Ferdiah down, and then
A sudden trance, a faintness on him came
When bending o'er the body of his friend.
Laegh saw the weakness, which was seen as well
By all the men of Erin, who arose
Upon the moment to attack him there.
"Good, O Cuchullin," Laegh exclaimed, "arise,