September 1913

(album: An Appointment With Mr Yeats - 2011)

What need you being come to sense
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer until.

You've dried the marrow from the bone
For men were born to pray and save, pray and save
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone
It's with O'Leary in the grave, in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind
Those names that stilled your childish play
They have gone about the world like wind
But little time had they to pray.

For whom the hangman's rope was spun
And what, God help us, could they save, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone
It's with O'Leary in the grave, in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread?
The grey wing upon every tide
For this that all that blood was shed
For this Fitzgerald died.

And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone
All that delirium of the brave of the brave
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone
It's with O'Leary in the grave, in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again
And we call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain
You'd cry: 'Some woman's yellow hair..'

'Has maddened every mother's son'
They weighed so lightly what they gave, what they gave
But let them be, they're dead and gone
They're with O'Leary in the grave, in the grave.

But let them be, they're dead and gone
They're with O'Leary in the grave, in the grave.

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone
It's with O'Leary in the grave, in the grave
In the grave, in the grave, in the grave, in the grave, in the grave.

(In the grave, in the grave)
(In the grave, in the grave)
(In the grave, in the grave)
(In the grave, in the grave)