O little River! running
‘Twixt Foremass and Cloghfin;
Thy voice is sad, though sweeter
Than harp or violin.
Thou that wert aye so cheerful,
Why art thou now forlorn?
What cause hast thou for grieving?
O Friend! why dost thou mourn?”

Sadly the river answered:-
“Comrade! my joy has fled:
The work of legislators
Has filled my soul with dread.
If I’m the river chosen
To cleave my land in twain,
I’ll mourn my lot for ever –
I’ll never laugh again.

Yon Foremass hills are daily
Their tribute pouring in:
Mingling their waters gaily
With waters of Cloghfin.
The Irish shamrock blooming
To left and right I find:
The North and South are treated
By the same sun and wind.

By neither mount nor river
Should Ireland severed be;
For Ireland all is Ireland –
Surrounded by the sea”
Thus sang a wise wee river
‘Twixt Foremass and Cloghfin,
With a sad voice, but sweeter
Than harp or violin.

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

Anear My home a stream flows past;
And on its banks young willows grow;
The willows bow to every blast,
And almost hide the stream below.

Where’er it can, the sun steals through
To kiss the river’s winsome face –
Like a bold lover come to woe,
A maiden full of bashful grace.

The river winds its way along
By grassy holms, and meadows green;
Fair flowers to its margin throng,
And over towards the mirror lean.

The magic music which the breeze
Draws from the willow harp, accords
Harmoniously with melodies
Of singing stream, and happy birds.

‘Tis more to me, this little stream,
Than lordly rivers far away;
‘Tis the quintessence of a dream
Of love, and innocence, and May.

This stream my childhood learned to prize;
And often since at Eventide
Found, with the sunset in his eyes,
A dreamer by the riverside.

And when the dreamer dreams no more
Beside his well beloved stream,
Haply  his son may ponder o’er
This verse, and learn to love its theme.

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.

My youth is o’er; the years more swiftly go,
While toil and time make my steps staid and slow;
Yet still it gladdens me to wander back
Along the green banks of the Owenbrack.

The Owenbrack flows near my native home;
Along the Owenbrack I used to roam
When childhood’s glamour gilded everything,
And I was happy as the birds of Spring.

Here, from my schoolbooks in those happy times,
I learned by heart the unforgotten rhymes
Than haunt me still, and often call me back
To walk the green banks of the Owenbrack.

It used to sing to me of hopes and joys
That thrill the hearts of dreamy, sanguine boys;
Then angel voices sang in every tree,
And harping winds drew heav’n down to me.

Now from the halls of Memory it brings
The songs of other days, lone echoings;
And voices of the friends who can’t come back
To walk with me along the Owenbrack.

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