Whereon was set, by hands unknown,

A rugged monument of stone.

The great winds mourn, and sobs the wave

Beneath the lichened cairn of Maeve.

From many a rocky Leitrim height

O’er Lough Gill’s waters, blue and bright,

From where Benbulbin fronts the foam,

And sees the Sligo ships put home,

Maeve’s hill is like a pharos flame,

As is eternally her name!

’Neath azure tides of morning air

Ripple the waves of Ballysadare

Looks o’er the Rosses far to sea,—

Looks far to sea, remembering

Maeve’s loveliness, a vanished thing.

The cromlechs, gray with eld, below,

Recall the dreams of long ago,—

The dreams of kern and king, both slave

To beauty, and the white Queen Maeve;

And though she slumbers, deep, so deep,

Her golden memory may not sleep!