Note 17 — Chapter XXXVIII
Reading edition
The metre of the original is hepta-syllabic, each line ending in a dissyllable, and there is no regular beat or accentuation in the verse, which though printed as a four-line stanza, would really run some way thus—
"Foobon on ye, Cringe cowards, Are your powers Departed?
Galls your country Are tearing, Overbearing, Flint-hearted."
The Irish themselves, either through the influence of English verse or through the natural evolution of the Irish language, changed this metre in the next century into one not unlike my English verses above.