Brian Boy Magee

I am Brian Boy Magee, my father was Eoghan Ban,

I was wakened from happy dreams by the shouts of my startled Clan.

And I saw through the leaping glare that marked where our homestead stood.

My mother swing by her hair, and my brothers lie in the blood.

In the creeping cold of the night the creeping wolves came down,

Scotch troops from that Castle grim guarding Knockfergus Town.

And they hacked and lashed and hewed, with musket and rope and sword, ‘

Till my murdered kin lay thick in pools by the Slaughter Ford.

I fought by my father’s side, and when we were fighting sore,

We saw a line of their steel with our shrieking women before.

The Redcoats drove them on to the verge of the Gobbins Grey.

Hurried them - God ! the sight, as the sea foamed up for its prey!

O, tall were the Gobbins Cliffs, and sharp were the rocks, my woe

And tender the limbs that met such terrible death below.

Mother and Babe and Maid, they clutched at the empty air,

With eyeballs widened in fright , that hour of despair.

Sleep soft in your heaving bed, 0 little fair love of my heart.

The bitter oath I have sworn, shall be of my life a part.

And for every piteous prayer. you prayed your way to die.

May I hear an enemy plead, while I laugh and deny.

In the dawn that was gold and red, Aye, red as the blood choked stream,

I crept to the perilous brink - Great Christ ! was the night a dream ?

In all the Island of Gloom, I, only had life that day -

Death covered the Green hillsides, and tossed in the Bay.

I have vowed with the pride of my sires - By my mother’s wandering ghost -

By my kinfolks’ shattered bones, hurled on the cruel coast -

By the sweet dead face of my love, and the wound in her gentle breast,

To follow that murderous band, a sleuth-hound knows no rest.

I shall go to Feilim 0’Neill, with my sorrowful tale and crave,

A blue-bright blade of Spain, in the ranks of his soldiers brave.

And God grant me the strength to wield, that shining avenger well.

When the Gad shall sweep his foe, through the yawning gates of Hell

I am Brian Boy Magee, and my creed is the creed of Hate !

Love, Peace, I have cast aside, But Vengeance, Vengeance I wait.

Till I pay back the four fold debt, for the horrors I witnessed there.

When my brothers moaned in their blood, and my mother swung by her hair.