Across the Grey Atlantic: Creative Platypus

Across the grey Atlantic,

Across Saint Brendan’s sea,

Is the land where the lairds wear sackcloth

And all the serfs are free.

Across the grey Atlantic,

Across the spume and foam,

Lies the land of the Imram’s castles

Where a Gael can find a home.

In the green fields of Elysium,

Every blade of grass is a sword

To pierce the feet of trespassers

In the Garden of the Lord.

Just so the Emerald Isle,
Though enslaved and conquered be,

Will never lack for weapons

To set her people free.

But wars go on forever

And the killing's never done

Though the smoke rise up to heaven

And strike from the sky the Sun.

So many Gaels went wandering

Across the Earth’s expanse,

To find fair fields in foreign lands

Where peaceful feet could dance.

They flooded into Boston,

Found safe harbor in New York,

And others flew to southern climes

As surely as the stork.

They raked the bogs for cranberries

While old Thoreau explained

That if they'd just be Englishmen

They needn't take such pains.

They built the mighty railroads

With thundering tracks of steel

And made the lonely prairies groan

Beneath the iron wheel.

In Savannah and in Charleston

They fought for blue and grey

And turned the earth to Ireland

Where’er their bodies lay.

They saved their pennies one by one

And carved in wood and stone

Till up they raised Saint Patrick’s spires

And made this land their own.

So now we dye the rivers green

On old Saint Patty’s Day.

But other things are quite forgot

We’ve been so long away.

What does it mean to be a Celt,

A Norman, or a Dane,

When here in Teddy’s melting pot

We’re pretty much the same?

I speak the language of my foes,

Pass with an English name,

And I’d raise a cry of righteous wrath

If someone were to blame.

But still the blades of Irish grass

Wave like a press of swords

Held high by arch-angelic hands

In the Hour of the Lord.

Oh God on high, You heard our cry

And set this people free.

Stretch out Your hand, raise from this land

A single sword to Thee.

Across the grey Atlantic,

Across Saint Brendan’s sea,

Is the land where the lairds wear sackcloth

And all the serfs are free.

Across the grey Atlantic,

Across the spume and foam,

Lies the land of the Imram’s castles

Where a Gael can find a home.