• Michael Mullins
  • Michael "The Bard" Mullin
  • "The Bard of Foremass"
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    O, Foremass mine! my native home!
    With heart deep-rooted in thy soil,
    I’ll never wish from thee to roam,
    I’ll never tire for thee to toil.

    Its is not that thy loveliness
    Surpasses Nature’s charms elsewhere;
    Nor is it for thy vernal dress,
    Romantic scenes, nor rural air.

    But as I grew thy scenes among,
    Gazing on them with childish eye,
    My heart received their impress strong,
    Which stronger grew as years went by.

    ‘Tis true, my peaceful inland home!
    Thou canst not hear the ocean’s roar,
    Nor feel the billows ‘bossed with foam
    That lash and wash our Irish shore.

    Yet through thee silv’ry streamlets flow,
    And music make down shady dells;
    And o’er thy pleasant places blow
    Breezes that kissed the heather bells.

    Hard work is here the toiler’s lot;
    No luxuries – yet little dearth,
    No mansions grand – but every cot
    Enshrines an humble homely hearth.

    What boys and girls from farm and hearth
    (From mother’s hearth and father’s farm)
    Have flown from thee to roam the earth,
    Lured on by some Hy Brazil charm!

     

    Yet Foremass mine! My native home!
    With heart deep-rooted in thy soil,
    I’ll never wish from thee to roam,
    I’ll never tire for thee to toil.

     

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

     

     

    This poem ‘O Foremass Mine’ was published in 1971 .  There is another version of this poem ‘Foremass in Tyrone’ which was published in 1911 – 60 years before this publication.  His son P.D. has a copy of this publication.  An earlier version ‘My Native Home’ was published 20.1.06 in the Ulster Herald. It was 18 verses long.