| |
| IF I forswear the art divine | |
| That glorifies the dead, | |
| What comfort then can I call mine, | |
| What solace seek instead? | |
| For from my birth our country’s fame | 5 |
| Was life to me, and love; | |
| And for each loyal Irish name | |
| Some garland still I wove. | |
| |
| I ’d rather be the bird that sings | |
| Above the martyr’s grave, | 10 |
| Than fold in fortune’s cage my wings | |
| And feel my soul a slave; | |
| I ’d rather turn one simple verse | |
| True to the Gaelic ear | |
| Than sapphic odes I might rehearse | 15 |
| With senates listening near. | |
| |
| Oh, native land! dost ever mark, | |
| When the world’s din is drown’d | |
| Betwixt the daylight and the dark, | |
| A wandering solemn sound | 20 |
| That on the western wind is borne | |
| Across thy dewy breast? | |
| It is the voice of those who mourn | |
| For thee, in the far West. | |
| |
| For them and theirs I oft essay | 25 |
| Thy ancient art of song, | |
| And often sadly turn away, | |
| Deeming my rashness wrong; | |
| For well I ween, a loving will | |
| Is all the art I own: | 30 |
| Ah me! could love suffice for skill, | |
| What triumphs I had known! | |
| |
| My native land! my native land! | |
| Live in my memory still! | |
| Break on my brain, ye surges grand! | 35 |
| Stand up, mist-cover’d hill! | |
| Still on the mirror of the mind | |
| The scenes I love, I see: | |
| Would I could fly on the western wind, | |
| My native land, to thee! | 40 |
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