Hidden among the heather, here I am
Upon a moorland mountain. All is calm.
The heather bells are swinging to the song,
The bogwind carols as it trips along

The sun is hot, but the bogwind is cool;
The earth is fair, the sky is beautiful.
The cannabhans are nodding woolly heads,
Like old men dozing ere they seek their beds.

The wonderous calm presiding over all
Seems but intensified, when curlews call –
Displeased that man should have the hardihood
To trespass on their haunts of solitude.

A shower of joy notes falls from out the skies;
The singer’s somewhere close to paradise;
It is a boglark’s voice –although it seems
An angel’s – lulling me to happy dreams.

Lonely and wild, yet lovely and sublime,
There is a pleasure in this place and time –
A sacred joy; for the All-wise, All-good
Makes felt His presence in this solitude.

Michael Mullin ‘The Bard of Foremass’
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone