Where Shannon’s waves with smiling face
Woo smiling banks with soft embrace,
A modest cabin stood beside
Its gentle perfume-laden tide.
The sunshine of an honest life,
A prattling child, a loving wife,
The joys of home, their blessings shed
Around the peasant tenant’s head.
The twinkling stars of summer skies
Reflected back his colleen’s eyes,
His baby’s locks the noonday rays
Encircled with a golden haze.
But drear December, dark and chill,
Whirled blighting blasts adown the hill,
Sickness and famine scourged the land;
And in their train the landlord band,
And aiding in their mission dire
The liveried hounds in England’s hire.
In one brief hour their work was o’er,
A happy home was home no more.
The wintry skies looked sadly down,
Half veiled in tears, half wrapt in frown,
Upon the babe that sobbed to rest
Upon its dying mother’s breast.
A week—a month—he had no power
To mark or count each anguished hour,
He knew not if ’twere night or day
When wife and infant passed away.
Without a hope to dull the pain
That numbed his heart and seared his brain,
Despair behind and gloom before,
He left his native Shannon’s shore,
Whose rippling wavelets seemed to press
The ship’s dark side with fond caress,
While chimes from many a distant bell
Breathed Mother Erin’s last farewell.
Uncouth in dress, but huge of limb,
With earnest faces fierce and grim,
Are gathered near a silent swamp,
Rough toilers from a mining camp;
The rasping tones of Ulster greet
The voice of Munster soft and sweet,
And Connaught’s mellow accent blends,
But one and all are Ireland’s friends.
Yet whispering pines that bend above
Hear words of hatred, not of love;
Tears that from eyes of strong men fall
Are not of mercy, but of gall.
Each has a sickening tale to tell
Of England’s robber rule of hell,
Each has a deeply cherished cause
To hate her power and curse her laws.
“Then who will venture life, and go
To wreak our vengeance on this foe,
Though ’mid the ruins he may lie?”
And he from Shannon answers “I!”
The western breezes catch the vow
That surges from his bosom now,
The exile’s vengeful brand to bear
And smite the tiger in his lair.
In Babylonian halls to-night
Are strains of mirth and flashing light,
The sheen of satin, gleaming gems
In scores of priceless diadems;
These are the butterflies, the drones,
Vampires who feed on blood and bones.
Ah, cruel parasites, beware,
One victim of your wrong is there.
The London skies are black with cloud
The earth enwrapt in night’s dark shroud,
As by the despot’s citadel
A hand from Shannon fires the shell.
England, to thee and thine belongs
The memory of uncounted wrongs
That, multiplied through all the years,
Have dried the fount of Ireland’s tears.
Thy fate is sealed, thy knell has tolled,
Not thrice the sum of thrice thy gold
Can turn the wrath thou hast defied
Of hearts like those from Shannon’s side.
Thy future sky is overcast,
Thy halcyon days forever past,
Earthquake and storm shall overwhelm
Thy towers and fanes, thy laws and realm.