| lyric | By stout Carrigahulla my war vessels ride,
Like Swans they are breasting the swift ebbing tide:
There is wrath for the Saxon and ruth for the Gael
In yon proud Spanish galleys!
said Gráinnu Wile.
Chorus:
Sing Bobar o! Dodaro! Gráinnu Waile -
Sing, galleys and Geals all ready to sail,
To Sweep the salt seas from Cape Clear to Kinsale;
For the Queen of the ocean is Gráinnu Waile!
‘Then Queen Bess, the dear virgin, wrote friendly and fond
For sweet Grace. her kind coz. to go journey beyond;
So I doffed my steel barradh and donned my silk veil,
And I went a cuckooien!’ said Gréinnu Waile.
Mo Full! could you note how she wondered at me,
With my loose yellow mantle and blue bodice free;
She had pilfered, herself, every bone from a whale,
To bind up her long bodyl’said Grainnu Waile.
‘Bess offered me honours — to me, her peer!
Then she offered protection — whom, whom do I fear?
So she offered me peace — sure we’re used to a gale
In stdut Carrig—a-hulla!’ said Grainnu Waile.
‘Then she gave me a spaniel — I smothered a curse;
For I had my own babe for my bosom to nurse -
No shivering pet that slinks down to his tail,
But a wolf—hound of Connacht!’ said Grainnu Waile.
‘Bess parleyed for peace, yet base Bingham is out,
With full many a Sassenach churleen and Iout;
But, dar Dia! if Clann Leeam he dares to assail,
There’ll be blood on my bonnet!’ said Gréinnu Waile. |