James Clarence Mangan Was His Name

The National Bard of Ireland he penned Dark Rosaleen
A poem that is destined to live as long as Ireland's fields are green
But he is almost forgotten which seems an awful shame
The great poet of his Country James Clarence Mangan was his name.

A Woman of three cows, A Vision of Connaught and Twenty golden years ago
Just three of the poems of Mangan that go some way to show
The genius of their author who died at forty six years old
Of consumption and in poverty a more tragic life story seldom told.

A self educated fellow foreign and Gaelic poets into English he did translate
There is little doubt that Mangan was a true literary great
He died in 1849 in the post famine days in Ireland's tragic time
At an age when many writers are only in their writing prime.

His poems in his lifetime never published out of Ireland he was a true Irish poet
And he was often seen on the streets of Dublin in a tattered pants and coat
A tall gaunt looking fellow with holes in his old shoes
Yet he was one of the chosen of the nine goddesses of the Muse.

The National Bard of Ireland but memories of him in decay
Though Dark Rosaleen his best known poem alive and read today
He was his Country's greatest poet though having said that yet
Perhaps his sad life reminds the Irish of their tragic past something they wish to forget.