What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland’ s dead and gone,
It’ s with O’ Leary in the grave.
Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman’ s rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland’ s dead and gone,
It’ s with O’ Leary in the grave.
Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland’ s dead and gone,
It’ s with O’ Leary in the grave.
Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You’ d cry, ‘Some woman’ s yellow hair
Has maddened every mother’ s son’:
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they’ re dead and gone,
They’ re with O’ Leary in the grave.