THE CELTIC CROSS
(SONGS AND BALLADS OF IRELAND - p 45)

Through stormn, and fire, and gloom, I see it stand,
Firm, broad and tall-
The Celtic Cross that marks our Father-land, A,id them all!
Druids, and Danes, and Saxons vainly rage
Around its base;
It standeth shock on schock, and age on age,
Star of a scattered race.

O, Holy Cross! Dear symbol of the dread
Death of our Lord,
Around thee long have slept our Martyr-dead,
Sward over sward!
An hundred Bishops I myself can count
Among the slain.;
Chiefs, Captains, rank and file, a shining mount
Of God's ripe grain.

The Monarch's mace, the Puritan claymore,
Smote thee not down;
On headland steep, on mountain summit hear,
In mart and town;
In Glendalough, in Ara, in Tyrone,
We find thee still,
Thy open arms still stretching to thine own,
O'er town, and lough, and hill.

And they would tear thee out of Irish soil,
The guilty fools!
How time must mock their antiquated toil
and broken tools!
Cranmer and Cromwell from they grasp retired,
Baffled and thrown;
William and Ann to sap thy site conspired-
The rest is known!

Holy Saint Patrick, Father of oour Faith,
Beloved of God!
Shield thy dear church from the impending scaith,
Or, if the rod
Must scourge it yet again, inspire and raise
To emprise high,
Men like the heroic race of other days,
Who joyed to die!

Fear! Wherefore should the Celtic people fear
Their Church's fate?
The day is not - the day was never near -
Could desolate
The Destined Island, all whose seedy clay
Is holy ground-
Its cross shall stand till that predestined day,
When Erin's self is drowned!