Poem: The Dear Old Sod

"Reverend Abram Joseph Ryan, Poet-Priest of the South, was invited to present at the Irish Demonstration in the Academy of Music Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Saint Patrick’s Day, 1884, but being unable to attend, he sent the following verses, expressive of his sentiments. They were read by the President of the Meeting, Reverend James M. Cleary."

Gray waves that bore our fathers away,
O'er the lonesome seas in the exile’s track
Are ye better than tyrants, do you wait the day,
To bring to their homes, thin children back
Do I hear ye singing, “Ah! yea will bring
The children of exiles home again,
Our hearts are better than music we sing
Some day, some day, will soothe your pain”
Our fathers in sorrow went forth and forth
Their eyes in tears but their hope in God.
To the East and West, to the South and North
With a lasting love for the ‘dear old sod”
In grief they went through Grief’s dark door
Gray waves ye are waiting as Celts can wait
For Sorrow is never- forever more.
And we shall come back through Freedom’s gate.
Ah me! meseems that the snowy foam
The shroud of our dead on the morning sea,
Is sad and is singing a “Home, Sweet Home”
To the exiles afar and to you and to me,
Is singing, and this is the tender song,
“I shrouded your fathers so many a day
My heart is in sorrow for all the wrong
Someday, bright day, in the Far Away
I will be brighter than e’er before
And my life shall be glad to kiss the prows,
Of the ships that shall carry to Erin’s shore
The exile’s children with joy-bright brows.”
Oh near or far it is coming fast,
For God is just to the cry of prayer,
In Erin, Freedom shall reign at last
And her flag shall float forever there.