Poem by John Banim

* * *

[Note: Air--``I'd mourn the hopes that leave me;'' 
Or, ``A rose tree in full bearing.'']

``Oh, well I love to see thee
So bravely look, my only boy--
But thy courage--can it free thee?
Alas, alas, it may destroy!
'Twas in your father's eye, boy,
The day they dragg'd him by our door,
A shameful death to die, boy,
Ere thee to him thy mother bore!''

``They shall not drag me, mother,
Like him, unto the gallows tree--
They shall not tear another,
The last and only one, from thee;
And yet shall they restore me
The rights they've robb'd from him and me,
Or else--while Heaven is o'er me--
A worse foe than my father see!''

``What mean you now, my own boy?
Your death upon their fighting field
Would leave me all as lone, boy,
As any which their hate can yield!''
``Mother, I do not fear them,
Even should they dare the worst they could;
Yet never will I cheer them
A challenge to their strife of blood!''

``And how then win your own, boy,
Though pure and high your quarrel stands,
From their stern hearts of stone, boy,
And from their griping iron hands?''
``A battle still must win it!
A battle, mother, they shall rue,
Although no blood flow in it,
To make the widow childless too!''

1. Soggarth Aroon
2. Demand and Supply
3. The New Reformation
4. The Celt’s Paradise. Second Duan
5. The Irish Mother in the Penal Days

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