Eight hundred years of blood and tears
have followed the English pale;
But to this day still, holds the iron-hard will
of the free-born Irish Gael.
No Roman trod on Irish sod,
'twas Celtic holy ground;
And when Northmen came, they gave their name
to the death and life they found.
A land of poets, a land of bards,
a land of warriors true;
Of war and peace, and birth and death,
the breadth of life it knew.
Then Orangemen came, like a cold steel rain,
from a foreign sovereign crown;
And on the head of the Irish-bred
an English foot came down.
By Cromwell's boot and pillaged loot
the best of Eire they stole;
By the devil's jaws of penal laws
they tried to steal her soul.
By gun and fire, they purged all Eire,
genocide, their goal;
And millions died by the dirt roadside,
starvation's horrid toll.
Leaded whips and prison ships
dispersed the once proud Gael;
And to scattered corners of the Earth,
the Irish seeds set sail.
Around the world the Gael-seed swirled,
spreading to foreign lands;
And one by one, with heart and gun,
tore them from English hands.
But the homeland stays, under English ways,
divided, split apart;
And the lion roars from eastward shores,
to threaten the Gaelic heart.
United by fate, divided by hate,
plantation's victims all;
Refusing to run from an English gun,
they follow freedom's call.
By pen and word, or freedom's sword,
will come a Gaelic dawn;
And an Irish rain will dissolve the pain
when the foreign crown is gone.
Copyright 2001, Craig Smith - all rights reserved.
