Oh, not now for songs of a nation's wrongs
Not the groans of starving labor;
Let the rifle ring and the bullet sing
To the clash of the flashing sabre!
There are Irish ranks on the tented banks
Of Columbia's guarded ocean;
And an iron clank from flank to flank
Tells of armed men in motion
And frank souls there clear true and bare
To all, as the steel beside them
Can love or hate withe the strength of Fate
Till the grave of the valiant hide them
Each seems to be mailed Ard Righ
Whose sword's avenging glory
Must light the fight and smite for Right
Like Brian's in olden story!
With pale affright and panic flight
Shall dastard Yankees base and hollow
Hear a Celtic race, from their battle place
Charge to the shout of "Faugh-a-ballaugh!"
By the sould above, by the land we love
Her tears bleeding patience
The sledge is wrought that shall smash to naught
The brazen liar of nations
The Irish green shall again be seen
As our Irish fathers bore it
A burning wind from the South behind
And the Yankee rout before it!
O'Neill's red hand shall purge the land-
Rain a fire on men and cattle
Till the Lincoln snakes in their own cold lakes
Plunge from the blaze of battle
The knaves that rest on Columbia's breast
And the voice of true men stifle;
We'll exorcise from the rescued prize-
Our talisman, the rifle;
For a tyrant's life a bowie knife!-
Of Union knot dissolvers
The best we ken are stalwart men
Columbiads and revolvers!
Whoe'er shall march by triumphal arch
Whoe'er may swell the slaughter
Our drums shall roll from the Capitol
O'er Potomac's fateful water!
Rise, bleeding ghosts, to the Lord of Hosts
For judgement final and solemn;
Your fanatic horde to the edge of the sword
Is doomed line, square, and column!