Francis Carlin

The Grey Ghost

From year to year there walks a Ghost in grey,

  Through misty Connemara in the West;

  And those who seek the cause of his unrest,

Need go but to the Death-dumb in the clay,

To those that fell defiant in the fray,

  Among the boggy wilds of Ireland, blest

  By Cromwell, when his Puritanic jest

Left Hell and Connaught open on their way.

As I have heard so may the stranger hear!

  That he who drove the natives from the lawn,

  Must wander o’er the marsh and foggy fen

Until the Irish gather with a cheer

  In Dublin of the Parliaments at dawn.

  God rest the ghost of Cromwell’s dust, Amen!