The choral dirge that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shrieking maid her bosom beat, And strewed with choicest herbs his scented grave; Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel, Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms, When, at the bugle's call, with fire and steel, The sturdy clans poured forth their bony swarms, And hostile brothers met to prove each other's arms.

When a chieftain perishes in battle, his followers mourn more for him, than for thousands of their equals that may have fallen around him.