Ireland’s Own
or
The Burial of Thomas Moore

In the churchyard of Bromham the yews intertwine

O’er a smooth granite cross of a Celtic design,

Looking quite out of place in surroundings like these

In a corner of Wilts ’twixt the chalk and the cheese.

I can but account you neglected and poor,

Dear bard of my boyhood, mellifluous Moore,

That far from the land which of all you loved best

In a village of England your bones should have rest.

I had rather they lay where the Blackwater glides

When the light of the evening doth burnish its tides

And St. Carthage Cathedral’s meticulous spire

Is tipped like the Castle with sun-setting fire.

I had rather some gate-lodge of plaster and thatch

With slim pointed windows and porches to match

Had last seen your coffin drawn out on the road

From a great Irish house to its final abode.

Or maybe a rath with a round tower near

And the whispering Shannon delighting the ear

And the bog all around and the width of the sky

Is the place where your bones should deservedly lie.

The critics may scorn you and Hazlitt may carp

At the ‘Musical Snuff-box’ you made of the Harp;

The Regency drawing-rooms that thrilled with your song

Are not the true world to which now you belong.

No! the lough and the mountain, the ruins and rain

And purple-blue distances bound your demesne,

For the tunes to the elegant measures you trod

Have chords of deep longing for Ireland and God.