A Poem Written In Time Of Trouble By An Irish Priest Who Had Taken Orders In France

My thoughts, my grief! are without strength

My spirit is journeying towards death

My eyes are as a frozen sea

My tears my daily food;

There is nothing in life but only misery.

My poor heart is torn

And my thoughts are sharp wounds within me,

Mourning the miserable state of Ireland.

Misfortune has come upon us all together

The poor, the rich, the weak and the strong

The great lord by whom hundreds were maintained

The powerful strong man, and the man that holds the plough;

And the cross laid on the bare shoulder of every man.

Our feasts are without any voice of priests

And none at them but women lamenting

Tearing their hair with troubled minds

Keening miserably after the Fenians.