139. A Song of Freedom

IN CAVAN of little lakes,

As I was walking with the wind,

And no one seen beside me there,

There came a song into my mind;

It came as if the whispered voice

Of one, but none of human kind,

Who walked with me in Cavan then,

And he invisible as wind.

On Urris of Inish-Owen,

As I went up the mountain side,

The brook that came leaping down

Cried to me—for joy it cried;

And when from off the summit far

I looked o’er land and water wide,

I was more joyous than the brook

That met me on the mountain side.

To Ara of Connacht’s isles,

As I went sailing o’er the sea,

The wind’s word, the brook’s word,

The wave’s word, was plain to me—

As we are, though she is not,

As we are, shall Banba be—

There is no king can rule the wind,

There is no fetter for the sea.