Here's the poem by Mackay (1858), that was requested on this thread.
However, no one has found the origin of the tune. "Bingen on the Rhine" a poem by Caroline Norton (Levy), was set to music circa 1847 with the same tune, which was later used for "Kevin Barry." Did Mackay write the tune or is it an exsisting tune from the British Isles?

Rolling Home
by Charles Mackay

Up aloft amid the rigging blows the fresh exulting gale,
Strong as springtime in the blossoms filling out each blooming sail;
And the wild waves, cleft behind us, seem to murmur as they flow,
"There are kindly hearts that wait you in the land to which ye go."

Rolling home, rolling home, rolling home, dear land to thee,
Rolling home to merry England, rolling home across the sea.

Twice a thousand miles behind us, and a thousand miles before,
Ancient Ocean heaves to bear us to the well-remembered shore;
New-born breezes swell to waft us to our childhood's balmy skies,
To the glow of friendly faces, to the light of loving eyes.

Every motion of the vessel, every dip of mast or spar,
Is a dance and a rejoicing, and a promise from afar;
And we live the light above us, as it tips the waves around,
All the more because ere coming, it has beam'd on English ground.

And 'tis nearer, ever nearer, to the rising of the morn,
And 'tis nearer, ever eastward, to the land where we were born;
And we'll sing in joyful chorus through the watches of the night;
And shall see the joys of England at the dawning of the light.

Rolling home to little England - though so little yet so great -
With her face of sunny beauty, and her heart as strong as Fate,
With her men of honest nature, with her women good and fair,
With her courage and her virtue that can do as well as bear.

-Richie