Charlotte Wilson Archive
Song of Rebellion : A Voice of Ireland
Written: 1888.
Source: Text from RevoltLib.com.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
- Yes-tear down our homes! leave the hearthstone cold
- As the hearts of you who have laid it bare;
- And stone from stone let the walls be rolled,
- And our home be one with the outer air,
- Heap wrong on wrong! We have had to bear
- More wrongs than ever our tongues can tell;
- One right is left us-we still forbear,
- O England, to use it-the right to rebel!
- We have borne so much that a little more,
- You think, may be borne by us unrepaid?
- And our backs must bow as they bowed before,
- While on quivering flesh are the lashes laid?
- O England, are you never afraid
- Of us you have tortured so long and so well?
- Do you never doubt which the Fates would aid-
- Of us or you-if we rose to rebel?
- Do you never dream of a dark, wild hour,
- When, goaded to madness by you, we may
- Turn and repay what your alien power
- Forced on us many a bitter day?
- You sow your seed in your old bad way,
- And the bloody harvest do not foretell;
- Yet, what shall your harvest be, who shall say,
- When our patience withers, and we rebel?
- For all things end. We have patient been;
- And a black, black record behind you lies
- Of moans we have heard, of tears we have seen,
- Of the dumb despair in our children's eyes.
- Our sisters' sobbing, our mothers' sighs--
- These ring our quiescence its funeral knell;
- Our patience is over and gone. Be wise,
- Ere wisdom be vain, and your thralls rebel.