THE FLAG OF OUR LAND.
COME kinsmen, come clansmen, from South and
from North,
Hark! hark! the wild slogan of war pealing forth!
It rings through each vale, and from peak unto peak
The heather-clad mountains in thunder-tones speak;
It calls on our loyal, our true, and our brave,
From the whispering heath and the hollow-toned wave,
With sabre and musket, and red battle-brand,
To gather once more ’neath the Flag of our Land.
Shall the stranger still rule in the halls of our sires?
Shall our waters still mirror the plunderers’ fires?
Shall our manhood be lost, and our darling old sod
By tyrants and traitors forever be trod?
’Mid the nations around us, oh, say, shall our name,
Our cause, and our people be bywords for shame?
No! We swear by the graves of our fathers to stand
For freedom or death ’neath the Flag of our Land!
By the fame of our martyrs, the memory of those
Who fell, side by side, ever fronting their foes;
By the plunderers’ fires and the murderers’ steel;
By the wrongs we have felt and the hatred we feel;
By the scaffold’s red path and the dungeon’s dread gloom,
And their myriad victims who call from the tomb,
Meet the foe and strike home with a vengeance-nerved hand,
Till his false blood shall crimson the Flag of our Land!
HURRAH FOR LIBERTY.
AROUSE ye from your slumbering,
Awake to life once more,
The time for idle pleadings
And for vain regrets is o’er;
We’ll bend and crouch no more like hounds,
But in a fight like men,
With men’s brave hearts and men’s stout arms
We’ll win our own again.
Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for liberty!
Till death we stand,
To make our land
A nation proud and free.
We bent unto the tyrant,
And we prayed in vain for years,
But now we’re going to try, boys,
Rifle-balls instead of tears.
Our sighs shall be the trumpet’s call,
The rolling of the drum,
And in future our petitions
From the cannon’s mouth shall come.—Hurrah!
From Galway right to Wicklow,
And from Cork to Donegal,
We’ll march once more for liberty
To win it or to fall.
We’ll flaunt our flag from cliff and crag,
And guard it with our steel;
We’ll show our foes what deadly blows
Each Irish arm can deal.—Hurrah!
In ages past the redcoats quailed
Before our fathers’ might;
Have we not still the courage left
To battle for the right?
Though cowards dread the troops in red,
We’ll cross their steel with joy,
And show that Irish valor was
Not spent at Fontenoy.