| Padraic Colum (1881–1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922. |
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| 138. The Irish Mother in the Penal Days |
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| By John Banim |
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| NOW welcome, welcome, baby-boy, unto a mother’s fears, | |
| The pleasure of her sufferings, the rainbow of her tears, | |
| The object of your father’s hope, in all he hopes to do, | |
| A future man of his own land, to live him o’er anew! | |
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| How fondly on thy little brow a mother’s eye would trace, | 5 |
| And in thy little limbs, and in each feature of thy face, | |
| His beauty, worth, and manliness, and everything that’s his, | |
| Except, my boy, the answering mark of where the fetter is! | |
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| Oh! many a weary hundred years his sires that fetter wore, | |
| And he has worn it since the day that him his mother bore; | 10 |
| And now, my son, it waits on you, the moment you are born; | |
| The old hereditary badge of suffering and scorn! | |
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| Alas, my boy, so beautiful!—alas, my love so brave! | |
| And must your gallant Irish limbs still drag it to the grave? | |
| And you, my son, yet have a son, foredoomed a slave to be, | 15 |
| Whose mother still must weep o’er him the tears I weep o’er thee! | |
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