Obedient ever to those laws
Which jar not with that Higher Will; Thou! Leader in their righteous cause,
With beacon rays their spirits fill.
Thou mayst not see—for Falsehood veils,
And Truth retires when tyrants reign— Those scenes 'fore which all nature pales,
Nor list the cry of hunger-pain.
Yet thee we hear in every breeze
That round the lonely hamlet raves; Thy mountains echo to thy seas—
"Ye sons of freemen be not slaves."
Before Despair's dim, hollow eye,
Starvation's wan and wasted cheek, Can soul of man stand idly by?
God of their fathers, aid the weak!
Through centuries of direst gloom
The Afric prayed thy dawn to see; At length there tolled Oppression's doom
Out-rung with notes of jubilee.
Too long, in Sorrow's dusky shroud
Thy glorious mien is hid from view; Now Courage wakes, and calls aloud,
Come forth! thou birthright of the true!
And Thou shalt come! for plaintive song
In minor tone, on bended knee, Shall rise the power to conquer wrong;—
And Erin's Ireland shall be free.