Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Spirit of the nation

THE SPIRIT OF THE NATION.
A thousand links about us wound
To peace and mutual kindness urge us ;
The very seas that gird us round
Speak union in their sleepless surges.
IV.
Remember glorious eighty-two,
And wakening Freedom's voice of thunder ;
That spirit first was roused by you,
Which burst at length my bonds asunder.
How bright, though brief, the halo then
That o'er our common country lighted !
Alas ! the spoiler came again —
He came, and found us disunited I
Our annals stained with blood and tears
Still preach this warning, this example,
The wicked feuds of byegone years
At once beneath our feet to trample.
To have but one distinction known,
One fine from henceforth drawn among us,
The line of false and true alone,
Of those who love and those who wrong us.
VI.
Unite with me, then, brother mine,
Oppressor and oppressed no longer,
A bond of peace we '11 round us twine
Than all the Saxon's fetters stronger.
Be Ireland's good our common creed,
Her sacred cause alone enlist us ;
With gallant hearts and God to speed,
What power on earth will dare resist us ?
Sliab Cuilinn.