Thou Freedom! which in years agone
Sat gloriously upon our hills; Through all these verdant valleys shone,
And sang in all those mountain rills.

Oh Thou! for whom my children fought;
Their blood upon thine altar stands; The sacrifice! was it for nought?
Is it for nought these clasp their hands?

Their wills were iron—not their lungs;—
They shrank not from the fiercest fight; Their deeds, more than ten thousand tongues,
Plead loudly for their offsprings' right.

Oh! what to us that golden age
When Athens reigned, or ancient Rome; We need not grope through history's page
To greet the scourge we find at home.

My leal ones crave no wizard wand
With topaz gleams their path to pave; But justice, freedom, fatherland,
A hopeful life, and peaceful grave.

Thou mayst not see—for Falsehood veils,
And Truth retires when tyrants reign— Those scenes 'fore which all nature pales,
Nor list the cry of hunger-pain.

Yet thee we hear in every breeze
That round the lonely hamlet raves; Thy mountains echo to thy seas—
"Ye sons of freemen be not slaves."

Before Despair's dim, hollow eye,
Starvation's wan and wasted cheek, Can soul of man stand idly by?
God of their fathers, aid the weak!

Through centuries of direst gloom
The Afric prayed thy dawn to see; At length there tolled Oppression's doom
Out-rung with notes of jubilee.

Too long, in Sorrow's dusky shroud
Thy glorious mien is hid from view; Now Courage wakes, and calls aloud,
Come forth! thou birthright of the true!

And Thou shalt come! for plaintive song
In minor tone, on bended knee, Shall rise the power to conquer wrong;—
And Erin's Ireland shall be free.