The Poems of Thomas Davis

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 the storm sweeps down on the plains of Kildare.

II

Once I lay on that sod—it lies over Wolfe Tone—
And thought how he perished in prison alone,
His friends unavenged, and his country unfreed—
“Oh, bitter,” I said, “is the patriot's meed;

III

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.

IV

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.

163

V

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 hard-hearted; for they,
On that sanctified sod, were forbidden to play.

VI

But the old man, who saw I 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.”

VII

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.”

VIII

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.

University of Virginia Library

TONE'S GRAVE.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII