September 1913 Lyrics

(W.B.Yeats)

Em C
What need you, being come to sence,
G D
But fumble in a greasy till
Em C
And add the halfpence to the pence
G D
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
Em F# Hm(?) G
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
D A
For men were born to pray and save:
C D Am
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, | C D G
C D Em |
It's with O'Leary in the grave. | C D Em
Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
The 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 thay save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wind upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Yet could we turn the years again,
And call these 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.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.