Clinton Scollard

A Song for Joyce's Country

O a song for Joyce's Country, where the grim wild mountains be,
And the wind wails over the moorland as the wind wails over the sea,
Where the new moon's silver sickle sees little of grain to reap,
And the wraith of the mist goes creeping as soft as the feet of sleep!

O a song for Joyce's Country, and the lonely loughs that lie,
Wrapt in the cloak of silence, under the great gray sky;
For the glens that have held in keeping for more than a thousand springs
The ancient Druid wonders and the secrets of the kings!

O a song for Joyce's Country, and the graves of the mightiest men
That ever had birth in Erin! Will their like e'er come again?
Men of the thews of titans, of the strong, unwavering hand,
Who wrested a meagre guerdon from the breast of this lean land!

O a song for Joyce's Country, since it haunts one like a dream
That comes in the dusk ere dawning, ere the first bright sunrise beam;
A dream of dolor and vastness, of clouds that are swept and swirled
O'er the desolate wastes and waters of a joy-forsaken world!