I pillow on this mountain’s breast my head.
As a child seeks its mother I have sought
This place of sweet repose; by pathways dread,
By thoroughfares with care and danger fraught.

I thank you, Bog-lark! For that song divine;
It trills me , while it humbles foolish pride
In my own songs. O, what are songs of mine
To songs of bog larks on a mountain side.

Through the deep summer silence breaks the scream
Of curlews, and the cackling of moor-hens,
After the cities’ din, ‘tis sweet to dream
Below that blue sky, and above those fens.

This mountain wind comes odorous and cool,
From distant valleys, over heather brown,
Across vast spaces. This is beautiful
To one long prisoned in a crowded town.

My spirit cramped within its cage of clay,
Soars with yon lark away to heaven above,
Larklike its offering of love to pay
To the Creator and the King of Love.

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

Behind an old turf clamp
I spied my wee peat posy,
Among the mosses damp,
So small and sweet and rosy.
The mist came o’er the bog,
The mist and rain together;
Enveloped in the fog
Were moorland, ling and heather.
The rain-mist drifted by:
The smiling sun came after –
And all the earth and sky
Seemed on the verge of laughter.
A hundred sun-kist tears,
Like precious jewels sparkled
Upon a hundred spears
That this sweet flower encircled.
O, wondrous, winsome gem!
Why art thou here in hiding?
A fairy diadem
Art thou, for fairies biding?
Child of the peat and mist,
So fair and frail and rosy,
Lark-loved, bedewed, sun-kist,
Shine on, my wee peat posy!
 

Michael Mullin ‘The Bard of Foremass’

Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.

In the centre of this city I am choking with the heat,
And I cannot work with dreaming of the  moorwind cool and sweet,
Which blends the scent of meadows with the perfume of the peat.
In the hill winds there is healing for the city’s many woes;
From the city fret and turmoil, I will fly to the repose,
The freedom, and the glory where the purple heather grows.
I am longing to be listening to the curlew’s plaintive cry,
As it cuts across the calmness of the golden August sky –
The warm sun o’er me shining, and the cool winds blowing by.
I will climb and climb through heather; I will drink the mountain air;
I will stand upon the summit; I will gaze away to where
The horizon frames a picture that is glorious and fair.
While the heather waves its purple, and the “white heads” round me nod,
I will let wild fancies buoy me,  and my soul will soar abroad –
With a lark-like burst of rapure to the very throne of God.

When the heather is in blossom it is beautiful to see,
When the heather is in blossom, this is not the place for me –
I am off towards the mountains so  magnificent and free.

 
MICHAEL MULLIN ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS’
FOREMASS LOWER, SIXMILECROSS, CO. TYRONE