The Kinship Of The Celt

It's the flag of France! the flag of France, I see!
Life to it! Health to it! fold on fold,
With the silken glint on its colors three.
Yet if it was white with lilies of gold
The flag of a king but the banner of France,
With the flag of stars our love twould share,
And, my soul, I m for either with sword or lance.
It is men we love, not the colors they wear.
Let the seas divide; let the green earth hide,
And the long years come and go.
When love has once dwelt in the heart of the Celt,
It is there while the waters now.
The love of old Ireland for France? It has been
In the first low lilt of our cradle croon;
Has twined with our longing for Wearing the Green;
Has been wet with the tears of our Shule Aroon.
No new love can bid it to wither and fail;
Its roots have sunk deep in the past, and are strong
As the long, long mem'ry that marks out the Gael
For loving old love and for hating old wrong.
Where the strong hands clasp in the true man's grasp,
And the stout soul finds its mate,
Let the great doors swing and the great bells ring
For the love that laughs at fate.
To France for a hundred sad years we turned
As our only friend and our hope-lit star.
And never our banished ones pray rs she spurned,
But mustered for Ireland her lords of war.
Oh, the French on the sea, and the pikes on the plain,
The battle-joy strong in the eyes and breast,
And if in our Ireland their valor was vain,
God prospered their arms in the land of the West.
Man strikes and prays, but God's dim ways
Direct the red bolt that s hurled,
And the staggering blow of Rochambeau
Broke fetters all round the world.
They flung wide their halls to our priests and our
youth,
When our schools were razed and our faith was banned;
They sent us the swords of De Tesse and St. Ruth,
And Humbert and Hoche to strike for our land,
And we, poor in all but our lives and our blades,
Sent Sarsfield and Dillon, O Brien, O Neill,
And the passionate stream of the Irish brigades,
The sire of MacMahon went there with his steel.
With the years as they go may its glory groiv,
Fair France of the generous hand.
As for freedom it stood with its gold and its blood,
Still free and superb may it stand.
From the loins of the grand old Celtic race,
Our fathers and theirs came stalwart and twin.
Wherever we ve met on the round world s face,
Our souls knew their souls for clansman and kin.
And by us, who on many a blood-red field
Poured out of our best by the best of France,
The compact of kinship again shall be sealed
Whenever for freedom her colors advance.
Health, power and grace to the Celtic race,
The Gaul and Gael on sea and shore!
May the green banner ride the wide heavens beside
The starry nag and the tricolor.