The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #61974 Message #3112995
Posted By: Jim Dixon
13-Mar-11 - 02:13 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Felons of Our Land (Forrester)
Subject: Lyr Add: THE FELONS OF OUR LAND (Forrester)
This is certainly public domain, because of the date of publication:
From Songs of the Rising Nation, and Other Poems, by Ellen Forrester and (her son) Arthur M. Forrester (Glasgow: Cameron & Ferguson, 1869), page 156:
THE FELONS OF OUR LAND
Air—Auld Lang Syne.
Fill up once more, we'll drink a toast
To comrades far away—
No nation upon earth can boast
Of braver hearts than they.
And though they sleep in dungeons deep,
Or flee, outlawed and banned,
We love them yet, we can't forget
The felons of our land!
In boyhood's bloom and manhood's pride,
Foredoomed by alien laws,
Some on the scaffold proudly died
For holy Ireland's cause.
And, brothers, say, shall we to-day
Unmoved, like cowards, stand,
Whilst traitors shame, and foes defame
The felons of our land?
Some in the convict's dreary cell
Have found a living tomb,
And some unseen, unfriended, fell
Within the dungeon's gloom!
Yet, what care we, although it be
Trod by a ruffian band—
God bless the clay where rest to-day
The felons of our land!
Let cowards sneer and tyrants frown,
Oh, little do we care—
A felon's cap's the noblest crown
An Irish head can wear!
And every Gael in Innisfail
(Who scorns the serf's vile brand),
From Lee to Boyne, would gladly join
The felons of our land!