Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
The Irishman's Song
The stars may dissolve, and the fountain of light
May sink into ne'er ending chaos and night,
Our mansions must fall, and earth vanish away,
But thy courage O Erin! may never decay.
See! the wide wasting ruin extends all around,
Our ancestors' dwellings lie sunk on the ground,
Our foes ride in triumph throughout our domains,
And our mightiest heroes lie stretched on the plains.
Ah! dead is the harp which was wont to give pleasure,
Ah! sunk is our sweet country's rapturous measure,
But the war note is waked, and the clangour of spears,
The dread yell of Sloghan yet sounds in our ears.
Ah! where are the heroes! triumphant in death,
Convulsed they recline on the blood sprinkled heath,
Or the yelling ghosts ride on the blast that sweeps by,
And 'my countrymen! vengeance!' incessantly cry.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Irishman's Song” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/the-irishmans-song
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Irishman's Song
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Nature, War & Remembrance
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · 4 quatrains
- End rhyme
- AABB in 75% of the stanzas — couplets. The remaining stanzas vary, often through slant rhyme.
- Line length
- Mostly 12-syllable lines (hexameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822
- Source record
- PoetryDBThe Irishman's Song by percy-bysshe-shelley, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 1054eb7a4e982303…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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