No place for me in the summer weather,
No home, no town, but mountain tops.
I’ve heard the call of hills of heather;
I’ve pulled my stake, I’ve cut the tether
That tied me down to stuffy shops,
No place for me in the summer weather,
No home, no town, but mountain tops.

Here, from the hill-tops of my yearning,
‘Tis good to watch the God of Day
With sunsets grand the west adorning,
Or opening golden gates of morning
On heaven’s hill-tops far away.
Here, from the hill-tops of my yearning
‘Tis good to watch the God of Day.

I love the hills and the wild wide spaces,
Where heather waves and whiteheads nod;
The mountain crowns and bright brae faces –
Earth’s fairest, most forsaken places –
Beloved by saints and blest by God.
I love the hills and the wild wide spaces,
Where heather waves and whiteheads nod.

MICHAEL MULLIN, ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS’
Foremass, Sixmilecross, Tyrone.

Of this office work I weary,
And my yawn becomes a sigh:
And the city grows more dreary
As the summer days go by.

So I snip my business tether,
And I hie me to the hills –
To the land of ling and heather,
To the birthplace of the rills.

I shall linger by the fountains,
‘Neath the shade of leafy trees
I shall scale the lofty mountains
In the footsteps of the breeze.

At my leisure I shall linger
On the curlews’ aerodrome,
And the lark will be my singer;
And the sky will roof my home.

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

The sun is smiling; and the wind is blowing
Across the bog, all sweet and pure and cool;
It is a wild place, wild with heather growing –
And yet magnificent and beautiful.

The man of toil has seldom time for leisure,
For dallying among life’s flowers fair,
If in his toil he cannot find his pleasure,
His hours of pleasure must indeed be rare.

Yet now I’ll snatch one pleasant hour from duty,
And rest my weary limbs upon the heath,
Bask in the sun, and feast upon the beauty
That God has spread above, around, beneath.

O! he would be a poet heavenly-gifted
Who could depict the charms of such a scene;
And the joy thrills with which he is uplifted,
Like you blest lark, the heaven and earth between.

The world has drifted for away behind me,
With all its petty toil and strife and care;
And on the threads which to my spirit bind me
That spirit, kite-like, struggles in the air.

I shut my eyes and listen to bird voices,
To angel voices floating from the sky,
O! sweet, O! sweet, this earthly paradise is,
To a poor bogman on the mountain high.

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