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| CHILD of Loch Ramor, gently seaward stealing, | |
| In thy placid depths hast thou no feeling | |
| Of the stormy gusts of other days? | |
| Does thy heart, O gentle, nun-faced river, | |
| Passing Schomberg’s obelisk, not quiver, | 5 |
| While the shadow on thy bosom weighs? | |
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| Thou hast heard the sounds of martial clangor, | |
| Seen fraternal forces clash in anger, | |
| In thy Sabbath valley, River Boyne! | |
| Here have ancient Ulster’s hardy forces | 10 |
| Dressed their ranks and fed their travelled horses, | |
| Tara’s hosting as they rode to join. | |
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| Forgettest thou that silent summer morning | |
| When William’s bugles sounded sudden warning | |
| And James’s answered chivalrously clear? | 15 |
| When rank to rank gave the death-signal duly, | |
| And volley answered volley quick and truly, | |
| And shouted mandates met the eager ear? | |
| |
| The thrush and linnet fled beyond the mountains, | |
| The fish in Inver Colpa sought their fountains, | 20 |
| The unchased deer scampered through Tredagh’s gates; | |
| St. Mary’s bells in their high places trembled, | |
| And made a mournful music which resembled | |
| A hopeless prayer to the unpitying Fates. | |
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| Ah! well for Ireland had the battle ended | 25 |
| When James forsook what William well defended, | |
| Crown, friends, and kingly cause; | |
| Well, if the peace thy bosom bid recover | |
| Had breathed its benediction broadly over | |
| Our race and rites and laws. | 30 |
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| Not in thy depths, not in thy fount, Loch Ramor! | |
| Were brewed the bitter strife and cruel clamor | |
| Our wisest long have mourned; | |
| Foul faction falsely made thy gentle current | |
| To Christian ears a stream and name abhorrent, | 35 |
| And all thy waters into poison turned. | |
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| But, as of old God’s prophet sweetened Mara, | |
| Even so, blue bound of Ulster and of Tara, | |
| Thy waters to our exodus gave life; | |
| Thrice holy hands thy lineal foes have wedded, | 40 |
| And healing olives in thy breast embedded, | |
| And banished far the littleness of strife. | |
| |
| Before thee we have made a solemn fœdus, | |
| And for chief witness called on Him who made us, | |
| Quenching before his eyes the brands of hate; | 45 |
| Our pact is made, for brotherhood and union, | |
| For equal laws to class and to communion,— | |
| Our wounds to stanch, our land to liberate. | |
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| Our trust is not in musket or in sabre, | |
| Our faith is in the fruitfulness of labor, | 50 |
| The soul-stirred, willing soil; | |
| In homes and granaries by justice guarded, | |
| In fields from blighting winds and agents warded, | |
| In franchised skill and manumitted toil. | |
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| Grant us, O God, the soil and sun and seasons! | 55 |
| Avert despair, the worst of moral treasons, | |
| Make vaunting words be vile. | |
| Grant us, we pray, but wisdom, peace, and patience, | |
| And we will yet relift among the nations | |
| Our fair and fallen, but unforsaken Isle! | 60 |
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