ULSTER

The red, redeeming dawn

Kindled in Easter skies,

Falls like God's judgment on

Lawyers, and lords, and lies.

What care these evil things,

Though menaced and perplexed,

While Kipling's banjo strings

Blaspheme a sacred text?

Never did freemen stand,

Never were captains met,

From Dargai to the Rand,

From Parnell to De Wet,

Never, on native sod,

Weak Justice fared the worst,

But Kipling's Cockney “Gawd”

Most impotently cursed.

So now, when Lenten years

Burgeon, at last, to bless

This land of Faith and Tears

With fruitful nobleness,

The poet, for a coin,

Hands to the gabbling rout

A bucketful of Boyne

To put the sunrise out.

“Ulster” is ours, not yours,

Is ours to have and hold,

Our hills and lakes and moors

Have shaped her in our mould.

Derry to Limerick Walls

Fused us in battle flame;

Limerick to Derry calls

One strong-shared Irish name.

We keep the elder faith,

Not slain by Cromwell's sword;

Nor bribed to subtler death

By William's broken word.

Free from those chains, and free

From hate for hate endured,

We share the liberty

Our lavish blood assured.

One place, one dream, one doom,

One task and toil assigned,

Union of plough and loom

Have bound us and shall bind.

The wounds of labour healed,

Life rescued and made fair —

There lies the battlefield

Of Ulster's holy war.