While cool winds come to soften sultry sunbeams of July,
A-carting home my loads of turf, a happy man am I.
To kings or presidents, just now, my heart no envy bears;
For I am happier in my cart than they on thrones or chairs.

The rattling of the cart along is music in my ears;
Its jolting rocks to slumber all my worries and my fears.
And in the cart – if nowhere else – I sing a merry song;
The rumbling smothers all the notes that happen to go wrong.

I pass by fields of turnips, grain, potatoes, and of grass;
The perfume of the new mown hay salutes me as I pass,
Though summer’s flag of green is seen o’er forest, field, and fold,
The Autumn’s heralds hasten to unfurl their flag of gold.

While jogging slowly up the winding old bog road I go,
All pure and cool and sweet and kind the mountain breezes blow.
The gorse has lost its gold crown, but the broom has put it on;
The bogland waves its purple flag, and its white ceannabhan.

Now far away below me in the vale I left behind,
I see the turf smoke rising up like banners in the wind;
It seems to wave a welcome, and to bid me hurry back,
And bring my load along the road adown the homeward track.

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

The scent of new-mown hay, the breath of peat
From Foremass fields, from Altamuskin brae!
O Winds, I thank you for the perfume sweet –
The breath of peat, the scent of new-mown hay.

We jog along, my faithful steed and I
(We’re carting home the turf loads from the bog).
We envy not the rich ones passing by
In motors grand, as in our cart we jog.

The ripening cornfields make a rustling sound,
As winds of autumn o’er the “enfield” blow;
The heather bells all beautiful abound
In Altamuskin, where the moor-cocks crow.

The blush of dawn, the sunset’s varied charms,
The skylark’s matin, and the curlew’s call,
The beauty of the boglands and the farms –
This wealth is mine: I am not poor at all.

O! Winds, I thank you for the perfume sweet –
The breath of peat, the scent of new-mown hay;
O! Sun, I thank you for the well-dried peat;
I thank you, God, Whom sun and winds obey.

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

As I jog to the bog for a load of peat,
The August sun goes up.
And the morning’s bracing breeze is sweet
As hither it hastes with a laugh to greet
Me on the mountain top.

‘Tis good to gaze on this purple cloak
Over the mountain flung;
“Tis bliss to escape from the city smoke.
And to live the life of the country folk –
The folk from whom I’ve sproung.

Now we have climbed to the mountain
Now from this old bog road
I, on a beautiful map, look down
Valley and hill and village and town;
A masterpiece of God.

Long sick of the city that cramps the soul
My buoyant spirit runs
From east to west, from pole to pole,
And where undiscovered planets roll
Round yet undreamt of suns.

As I jog to the bog for a load of peat
I wing the world above;
And I feel like a lark that soars to greet
With a glad song of love.

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