The sun is smiling; and the wind is blowing
Across the bog, all sweet and pure and cool;
It is a wild place, wild with heather growing –
And yet magnificent and beautiful.
The man of toil has seldom time for leisure,
For dallying among life’s flowers fair,
If in his toil he cannot find his pleasure,
His hours of pleasure must indeed be rare.
Yet now I’ll snatch one pleasant hour from duty,
And rest my weary limbs upon the heath,
Bask in the sun, and feast upon the beauty
That God has spread above, around, beneath.
O! he would be a poet heavenly-gifted
Who could depict the charms of such a scene;
And the joy thrills with which he is uplifted,
Like you blest lark, the heaven and earth between.
The world has drifted for away behind me,
With all its petty toil and strife and care;
And on the threads which to my spirit bind me
That spirit, kite-like, struggles in the air.
I shut my eyes and listen to bird voices,
To angel voices floating from the sky,
O! sweet, O! sweet, this earthly paradise is,
To a poor bogman on the mountain high.
Michael Mullin ‘The Bard of Foremass’
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone