William Allingham

In Laurence Bloomfield In Ireland lives the genius of the poet
About the hardships and the evictions he wrote
That took place in the Ireland of his time
When to be poor was punishable crime.

He lived when famine ravaged his homeland
You know of history you might understand
Why Ireland once was land of death and tears
The sufferings of the poor in famine years.

His poem on the fairies is a gem of joy
I learned it by heart as a school going boy
In all his verse the human feelings there
The laughter, joy, the sorrow and despair.

A bard the critics tend to under rate
But William Allingham a poetic great
More than a century dead but his verses still survive
And that part of him still very much alive.

And since he left poems to be remembered by
The bard lives on and his fame will never die
And the Erne through Ballyshannon flows along
And the bard still living in his gift of song.