In Bodenstown Churchyard
There is a green grave,
And wildly along it
The winter winds rave;
Small shelter, I ween,
Are the ruined walls there,
When a storm sweeps down
On the plains of Kildare.
2. Once I lay on that sod--
It lies over Wolfe Tone--
And I thought how
He perished in prison alone,
His friends unavenged,
And his country unfreed--
"Oh, bitter," I said,
"Is the patriot's meed."
3. "For in him the heart
Of a woman combined
With a heroic life,
And a governing mind--
A martyr for Ireland--
His grave has no stone--
His name seldom named,
And his virtues unknown."
4. I was woke from my dream
By the voices and tread
Of a band, who came into
The home of the dead;
They carried no corpse,
And they carried no stone,
And they stopped when they came
To the grave of Wolfe Tone.
| 5. There were students and peasants,
The wise and the brave,
And an old man who knew him
From cradle to grave,
And children who thought me
Heard-hearted; for they,
On the sanctified sod
Were forbidden to play.
6. But the old man, who I saw
Was mourning there, said:
"We come sir, to weep
Where young Wolfe Tone is laid;
And we're going to raise him
A monument, too--
A plain one, yet fit
For the simple and true."
7. My heart overflowed,
And I clasped his old hand,
And I blessed him,
And blessed every one of his band;
"Sweet! Sweet! 'tis to find
That such faith can remain
To the cause, and the man
So long vanquished and slain."
8. In Bodenstown Churchyard
There is a green grave,
And freely around it
Let winter winds rave--
Far better they suit him--
The ruin and gloom,--
Till Ireland, a Nation,
Can build him a tomb.
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