Mother Ireland / Arthur Stringer

Mother Ireland

A true and dark-eyed Mother Land, ye've mourned thim day be day,
The childer' av your achin' breast who've fared a world away!
Be moorland and be lough and whin, ye've mourned for all your lost,
But still ye've smiled and still ye've watched and counted not the cost!

And dark, in faith, the ould hours fell and cold the ashes grew,
But Ireland, Mother Ireland, still ye've waited fond and thrue;
And now the Night has vanished, wid the sorrows it has known,
We'll hear the call av Ireland, lads, av Ireland to her own!

~~
Arthur Stringer (1874-1950)
from Irish poems, 1911

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Arthur Stringer biography

Peter Benton, Ireland from Northern Ireland, 2004. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.