The red, redeeming dawn
Kindled in Easter skies,
Falls like God's judgment on
Lawyers, and lords, and lies.
What care these evil things,
Though menaced and perplexed,
While Kipling's banjo strings
Blaspheme a sacred text?
Never did freemen stand,
Never were captains met,
From Dargai to the Rand,
From Parnell to De Wet,
Never, on native sod,
Weak Justice fared the worst,
But Kipling's Cockney “Gawd”
Most impotently cursed.
So now, when Lenten years
Burgeon, at last, to bless
This land of Faith and Tears
With fruitful nobleness,
The poet, for a coin,
Hands to the gabbling rout
A bucketful of Boyne
To put the sunrise out.
“Ulster” is ours, not yours,
Is ours to have and hold,
Our hills and lakes and moors
Have shaped her in our mould.
Derry to Limerick Walls
Fused us in battle flame;
Limerick to Derry calls
One strong-shared Irish name.
We keep the elder faith,
Not slain by Cromwell's sword;
Nor bribed to subtler death
By William's broken word.
Free from those chains, and free
From hate for hate endured,
We share the liberty
Our lavish blood assured.
One place, one dream, one doom,
One task and toil assigned,
Union of plough and loom
Have bound us and shall bind.
The wounds of labour healed,
Life rescued and made fair —
There lies the battlefield
Of Ulster's holy war.