NATIVE SWORDS

(A Volunteer song - 1st July 1792)

We've bent too long to braggart wrong,
While force our prayers derided;
We've fought too long ourselves among,
By knaves and priests divided;
United now, no more we'll bow;
Foul faction, we discard it;
And now, thank God! our native sod
Has Native Swords to guard it.

Like rivers which, o'er valleys rich,
Bring ruin in their water,
Our native land a native hand
Flung foreign fraud and slaughter.
From Dermod's crime to Tudor's time
Our clans were our perdition;
Religion's name, since then, became
Our pretext for division.

But, worse than all! with Limerick's fall
Our valour seemed to perish;
Or, o'er the main, in France and Spain,
For bootless vengeance flourish.
The peasant here grew pale for fear
He'd suffer for our glory,
While France sang joy for Fontenoy,
And Europe hymned our story.

But now no clan nor factions plan
The east and west can sunder -
Why Ulster e'er should Munster fear
Can only wake our wonder.
Religion's crost when Union's lost,
And "royal gifts" retard it;
And now, thank God! our native sod
Has Native Swords to guard it.

By Thomas Davis, punctuation as in "Irish Minstrelsy"

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