The child of her bosom, did rivet her chain!
Yet think not for ever her vengeance shall sleep,
Wild harp that once praised him, sing louder his shame,
And where’er o’er the deep thy free numbers may sweep,
Bear the curse of a nation on Wellington’s name!
THOMAS DAVIS
Clare’s Dragoons
Air: ‘Viva la’
When, on Ramillies’ bloody field,
The baffled French were forced to yield,
The victor Saxon backward reeled
Before the charge of Clare’s Dragoons.
The Flags, we conquered in that fray,
Look lone in Ypres’ choir, they say,
We’ll win them company today,
Or bravely die like Clare’s Dragoons.
CHORUS
Viva la, for Ireland’s wrong!
Viva la, for Ireland’s right!
Viva la, in battle throng,
For a Spanish steed, and sabre bright!
The brave old lord died near the fight,
But, for each drop he lost that night,
A Saxon cavalier shall bite
The dust before Lord Clare’s Dragoons.
For, never, when our spurs were set,
And never, when our sabres met,
Could we the Saxon soldiers get
To stand the shock of Clare’s Dragoons.
CHORUS
Viva la, the New Brigade!
Viva la, the Old One, too!
Viva la, the rose shall fade,
And the shamrock shine for ever new!
Another Clare is here to lead,
The worthy son of such a breed;
The French expect some famous deed,
When Clare leads on his bold Dragoons.
Our colonel comes from Brian’s race,
His wounds are in his breast and face,
The bearna baoghail is still his place,
The foremost of his bold Dragoons.
CHORUS
Viva la, the New Brigade!
Viva la, the Old One, too!
Viva la, the rose shall fade,
And the Shamrock shine for ever new!
There’s not a man in squadron here
Was ever known to flinch or fear;
Though first in charge and last in rere,
Have ever been Lord Clare’s Dragoons;
But, see! we’ll soon have work to do,
To shame our boasts, or prove them true,
For hither comes the English crew,
To sweep away Lord Clare’s Dragoons.
CHORUS
Viva la, for Ireland’s wrong!
Viva la, for Ireland’s right!
Viva la, in battle throng,
For a Spanish steed and sabre bright!
Oh! comrades! think how Ireland pines,
Her exiled lords, her rifled shrines,
Her dearest hope, the ordered lines,
And bursting charge of Clare’s Dragoons.
Then fling your Green Flag to the sky,
Be Limerick your battle-cry,
And charge, till blood floats fetlock-high,
Around the track of Clare’s Dragoons!
CHORUS
Viva la, the New Brigade!
Viva la, the Old One, too!
Viva la, the rose shall fade,
And the Shamrock shine for ever new!
DION BOUCICAULT
(1820–90)
The Wearing of the Green
O Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that’s going round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;
St Patrick’s Day no more we’ll keep, his colours can’t be seen,
For there’s a bloody law again the wearing of the Green.
I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he said, ‘How’s poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?’
She’s the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
They are hanging men and women for the wearing of the Green.
Then since the colour we must wear is England’s cruel Red,
Sure Ireland’s sons will ne’er forget the blood that they have shed.
You may take the shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod,
But ’twill take root and flourish there, though under foot ’tis trod.
When law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow,
And when the leaves in summer-time their verdure dare not show,
Then I will change the colour that I wear in my caubeen,
But till that day, please God, I’ll stick to wearing of the Green.
But if at last our colour should be torn from Ireland’s heart,
Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old isle will part;
I’ve heard a whisper of a country that lies beyond the sea,
Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedom’s day.
O Erin, must we leave you, driven by a tyrant’s hand?
Must we ask a mother’s blessing from a strange and distant land?
Where the cruel cross of England shall nevermore be seen,
And where, please God, we’ll live and die still wearing of the Green.
‘CARROLL MALONE’
(William McBurney, 182?–92)
The Croppy Boy
A Ballad of ’98
‘Good men and true! in this house who dwell,
To a stranger bouchal, I pray you tell
Is the Priest at home? or may he be seen?
I would speak a word with Father Green.’
‘The Priest’s at home, boy, and may be seen;
’Tis easy speaking with Father Green;
But you must wait, till I go and see
If the holy Father alone may be.’
The youth has entered an empty hall –
What a lonely sound has his light foot-fall!
And the gloomy chamber’s chill and bare,
With a vested Priest in a lonely chair.
The youth has knelt to tell his sins.
‘Nomine Dei,’ the youth begins:
At ‘mea culpa’ he beats his breast,
And in broken murmurs he speaks the rest.
‘At the siege of Ross did my father fall,
And at Gorey my loving brothers all.
I alone am left of my name and race;
I will go to Wexford and take their place.
‘I cursed three times since last Easter Day –
At Mass-time once I went to play;
I passed the churchyard one day in haste,
And forgot to pray for my mother’s rest.
‘I bear no hate against living thing;
But I love my country above my King.
Now, Father! bless me, and let me go
To die, if God has ordained it so.’
The Priest said nought, but a rustling noise
Made the youth look above in wild surprise;
The robes were off, and in scarlet there
Sat a yeoman captain with fiery glare.
With fiery glare and with fury hoarse,
Instead of blessing, he breathed a curse:
‘’Twas a good thought, boy, to come here and shrive;
For one short hour is your time to live.
‘Upon yon river three tenders float;
The Priest’s in one, if he isn’t shot;
We hold his house for our Lord the King,
And – Amen, say I – may all traitors swing!’
At Geneva barrack that young man died,
And at Passage they have his body laid.
Good people who live in peace and joy,
Breathe a prayer and a tear for the Croppy boy.
JOHN KELLS INGRAM
(1823–1907)
The Memory of the Dead
Who fears to speak of Ninety-Eight?
Who blushes at the name?
Wh
en cowards mock the patriot’s fate,
Who hangs his head for shame?
He’s all a knave or half a slave
Who slights his country thus:
But a true man, like you, man,
Will fill your glass with us.
We drink the memory of the brave,
The faithful and the few –
Some lie far off beyond the wave,
Some sleep in Ireland, too;
All, all are gone – but still lives on
The fame of those who died;
And true men, like you, men,
Remember them with pride.
Some on the shores of distant lands
Their weary hearts have laid,
And by the stranger’s heedless hands
Their lonely graves were made;
But though their clay be far away
Beyond the Atlantic foam,
In true men, like you, men,
Their spirit’s still at home.
The dust of some is Irish earth;
Among their own they rest;
And the same land that gave them birth
Has caught them to her breast;
And we will pray that from their clay
Full many a race may start
Of true men, like you, men,
To act as brave a part.
They rose in dark and evil days
To right their native land;
They kindled here a living blaze
That nothing shall withstand.
Alas! that Might can vanquish Right –
They fell, and passed away;
But true men, like you, men,
Are plenty here today.
Then here’s their memory – may it be
For us a guiding light,
To cheer our strife for liberty,
And teach us to unite!
Through good and ill, be Ireland’s still,
Though sad as theirs, your fate;
And true men, be you, men,
Like those of Ninety-Eight.
JOHN TODHUNTER
Aghadoe
There’s a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
There’s a green and silent glade in Aghadoe,
Where we met, my Love and I, Love’s fair planet in the sky,
O’er that sweet and silent glen in Aghadoe.
There’s a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
There’s a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe,
Where I hid him from the eyes of the redcoats and their spies
That year the trouble came to Aghadoe!
Oh! my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
On Shaun Dhuv, my mother’s son in Aghadoe,
When your throat fries in hell’s drouth, salt the flame be in your mouth,
For the treachery you did in Aghadoe!
For they tracked me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
When the price was on his head in Aghadoe;
O’er the mountain through the wood, as I stole to him with food,
When in hiding low he lay in Aghadoe.
But they never took him living in Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
With the bullets in his heart in Aghadoe,
There he lay, the head – my breast keeps the warmth where once ’twould rest –
Gone, to win the traitor’s gold from Aghadoe!
OSCAR WILDE
from The Ballad of Reading Gaol
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
‘That fellow’s got to swing.’
Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.
I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty space.
He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.
He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.
CANON CHARLES O’NEILL
(1887–1941)
The Foggy Dew
As down the glen one Easter morn
Through a city fair rode I,
There armed lines of marching men,
In squadrons passed me by;
No pipe did hum, no battle drum
Did sound out its loud tattoo,
But the angelus bell o’er the Liffey’s swell
Rang out through the foggy dew.
Right proudly high o’er Dublin town
They flung out the flag of war.
’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky,
Than at Suvla or Sud el Bar.
And from the plains of royal Meath
Strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia’s Huns, with their long-range guns,
Sailed into the foggy dew.
As the night fell black the rifle’s crack,
Made perfidious Albion reel;
Through that leaden hail seven tongues of flame
Flashed out o’er the lines of steel.
By each shining blade a prayer was said,
That to Ireland her sons be true,
And when morning broke still the green flag shook
Out its folds in the foggy dew.
It was England bade our Wild Geese go,
That smal
l nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Suvla’s waves
On the fringe of the great North Sea.
Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side
Or fought beside Cathal Brugha
Their names we would keep where the Fenians sleep,
’Neath the shroud of the foggy dew.
But the bravest fell and the requiem knell
Rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
In the springtime of the year,
While the world did gaze with deep amaze,
At those fearless men and few
Who bore the fight that freedom’s light
Might shine through the foggy dew.
Back through the glen I rode again
And my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then from those valiant men
Who I never shall see more;
As to and fro in my dreams I go
I’ll kneel and pray for you,
For Slavery fled, you glorious dead,
When you fell in the foggy dew.
PATRICK MACGILL
(1890–1963)
La Bassée Road
(Cuinchy, 1915)
You’ll see from the La Bassée Road, on any summer’s day,
The children herding nanny-goats, the women making hay.
You’ll see the soldiers, khaki clad, in column and platoon,
Come swinging up La Bassée Road from billets in Bethune.
There’s hay to save and corn to cut, but harder work by far
Awaits the soldier boys who reap the harvest fields of war.
You’ll see them swinging up the road where women work at hay,
The straight long road, – La Bassée Road – on any summer day.
The night-breeze sweeps La Bassée Road, the night-dews wet the hay,
The boys are coming back again, a straggling crowd are they.
The column’s lines are broken, there are gaps in the platoon,
They’ll not need many billets, now, for soldiers in Bethune,
For many boys, good lusty boys, who marched away so fine,
Have now got little homes of clay beside the firing line.
Good luck to them, God speed to them, the boys who march away,
A-singing up La Bassée road each sunny summer day.
The Guns
(Shivery-shake Dug-out, Maroc.)
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 79
