The Sorrows of Innisfail

THROUGH the long drear night I lie awake, for the sorrows of Innisfail.
My bleeding heart is ready to break; I cannot but weep and wail.

Oh, shame and grief and wonder! her sons crouch lowly under

The footstool of the paltriest foe

That ever yet hath wrought them woe!

How long, O Mother of Light and Song, how long will they fail to see
That men must be bold, no less than strong, if they truly will to be free?

They sit but in silent sadness, while wrongs that should rouse them to madness,

Wrongs that might wake the very Dead,
Are piled on thy devoted head!

Thy castles, thy towers, thy palaces proud, thy stately mansions all,
Are held by the knaves who crossed the waves to lord it in Brian's hall.

Britannia, alas! is portress in Cobhthach's Golden Fortress,

And Ulster's and Momonia's lands
Are in the Robber-stranger's hands.

The tribe of Eogan is worn with woe; the O'Donnel reigns no more;
O'Neill's remains lie mouldering low, on Italy's fur-off shore;

And the youths of the Pleasant Valley are scattered and cannot rally,

"While foreign Despotism unfurls

Its flag 'mid hordes of base-born churls.

The chieftains of Naas were valourous lords, but their valour was crushed by Craft —
They fell beneath Envy's butcherly dagger, and Calumny's poisoned shaft.

A few of their mighty legions yet languish in alien regions,
But most of them, the Frank, the Free,
Were slain through Saxon perfidie!

Oh! lived the Princes of Ainy's plains, and the heroes of green Dorngole,
And the chiefs of the Mauige, we still might hope to baffle our doom and dole.

Well then might the dastards shiver who herd by the blue Bride river,

But ah! those great and glorious men
Shall draw no glaive on Earth agen!

All-powerful GOD! look down on the tribes who -mourn throughout the land,
And raise them some deliverer up, of a strong and smiting hand!

Oh! suffer them not to perish, the race Thou wert wont to cherish,

But soon avenge their fathers' graves,
And burst the bonds that keep them slaves!