Black Harps in the Hills
Let Saxons sing of Saxon kings,
Red faced swine with a greasy beard –
Through my songs the Gaelic broadsword sings,
The pibrock skirls and the sporran swings,
For mine is the blood of the Irish kings
That Saxon monarchs feared.
The heather bends to a marching tread,
The echoes shake to a marching tune –
For the Gael has supped on bitter bread,
And follows the ghosts of the mighty dead,
And the blue blades gleam and the pikes burn red
In the rising of the moon.
Norseman reaver or red haired Dane,
Norman baron or English lord –
Each of them reeled to a reddened rain,
Drunken with fury and blind with pain,
Till the black fire spilled from the Gaelic brain
And the steel from the broken sword.
But never the chiefs in death lay still,
Never the clans lay scattered and few –
But a new face rose and a new voice roared,
And a new hand gripped the broken sword,
And the fleeing clans were a charging horde,
And the old hate burned anew!
Brian Boruma, Shane O’Neill,
Art McMurrough and Edward Bruce,
Thomas Fitzgerald – ringing steel
Shakes the hills and the trumpets peal,
Skulls crunch under the iron heel!
Death is the only truce!
Clontarf, Benburb, and Yellow Ford –
The Gael with red Death rides alone!
Lamh derg abu! And the riders reel
To Hugh O’Donnell’s girding steel
And the lances of Tyrone!
Edward Fitzgerald, Charles Parnell,
Robert Emmet – I smite the harp!
Wolfe Tone and Napper Tandy – hail!
The song that you sang shall never fail
While one brain burns with the fire of the Gael
And one last sword is sharp –
Lamh laidir abu! Lamh derg abu!
Munster and Ulster, north and south,
The old hate flickers and burns anew,
The heather shakes and the pikes gleam blue.
And the old clans charge as they charged with you
Into Death’s red grinning mouth!
We have not won and we have not lost –
Fire in Kerry and Fermanagh –
We have broken the teeth in the Saxon’s boast
Though our dead have littered each heath and coast,
And by God, we will raise another host!
Slainte – Erin go bragh.