Oh! God be with the good old day’s
I spent upon the Foremass braes,
When youth was mine, and bare light feet
Scudded along in cold and heat.

In age our troubles fast approach,
Come pleasures in a slower coach
Fondly the eye of age looks back
O’er childhood’s far receding track.

I long to roam those braes again,
I long to stroll down Caldra glen
Where bossomed gorse, in green and gold
Exhibit beauties manifold.

O! sweet and pure, O pure and sweet
With scent of hay and breath of peat
On Carrickascapple soft winds blew –
When joys were rife and cares were few.

Cracrawee’s crown, lone ‘Sceog Bush’
Drumshambo graveyard  – how they rush
Back to my mind with memories dear
That claim a smile, or crave a tear.

In Foremass, happy homes I knew,
And bouchails brave and cailins true
But many a sad heart now is there,
And lonely hearth and vacant chair.

I wish to see old Foremass braes,
And tread them as in former days –
Oh, futile wishes, wishes vain!
I’ll ne’er see Foremass  braes again.

Michael Mullin

‘The Bard of Foremass’

Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.