Hurrah for Liberty
AROUSE ye from your slumbering,
Awake to life once more,
The time for idle pleadings
And for vain regrets is o’er;
We’ll bend and crouch no more like hounds,
But in a fight like men,
With men’s brave hearts and men’s stout arms
We’ll win our own again.
Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for liberty!
Till death we stand,
To make our land
A nation proud and free.
We bent unto the tyrant,
And we prayed in vain for years,
But now we’re going to try, boys,
Rifle-balls instead of tears.
Our sighs shall be the trumpet’s call,
The rolling of the drum,
And in future our petitions
From the cannon’s mouth shall come.—Hurrah!
From Galway right to Wicklow,
And from Cork to Donegal,
We’ll march once more for liberty
To win it or to fall.
We’ll flaunt our flag from cliff and crag,
And guard it with our steel;
We’ll show our foes what deadly blows
Each Irish arm can deal.—Hurrah!
In ages past the redcoats quailed
Before our fathers’ might;
Have we not still the courage left
To battle for the right?
Though cowards dread the troops in red,
We’ll cross their steel with joy,
And show that Irish valor was
Not spent at Fontenoy.
The wily knave, the coward slave,
To home and life may cling,
But there’s no place for falsehood’s face
Where gleaming sabres ring!
We’ve thrown our gage, our lives we wage
For Freedom and for Right;
Appeals we’ve tried; now, God decide,
Our last appeal is fight!