| WHAT need you, being come to sense, | |
| But fumble in a greasy till | |
| And add the halfpence to the pence | |
| And prayer to shivering prayer, until | |
| You have dried the marrow from the bone; | 5 |
| For men were born to pray and save: | |
| Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, | |
| It’s with O’Leary in the grave. | |
| |
| Yet they were of a different kind | |
| The names that stilled your childish play, | 10 |
| They have gone about the world like wind, | |
| But little time had they to pray | |
| For whom the hangman’s rope was spun, | |
| And what, God help us, could they save: | |
| Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, | 15 |
| It’s with O’Leary in the grave. | |
| |
| Was it for this the wild geese spread | |
| The grey wing upon every tide; | |
| For this that all that blood was shed, | |
| For this Edward Fitzgerald died, | 20 |
| And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, | |
| All that delirium of the brave; | |
| Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, | |
| It’s with O’Leary in the grave. | |
| |
| Yet could we turn the years again, | 25 |
| And call those exiles as they were, | |
| In all their loneliness and pain | |
| You’d cry ‘Some woman’s yellow hair | |
| Has maddened every mother’s son’: | |
| They weighed so lightly what they gave, | 30 |
| But let them be, they’re dead and gone, | |
| They’re with O’Leary in the grave. | |
