Wolfsschanze: The Wind That Shakes The Barley

This is a poem I came across recently while listening to The Dead Can Dance album Towrd The Within. The poem was penned by Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830-1883), and focuses on the rebellion of the United Irishhmen. Robert Dwyer Joyce was a Limerick born poet and physician. He produced various pieces of literature and ballads, before and after his emigration to America. T'is a stirring poem alright, anti-war or rallying...

WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY


I sat within a valley green
Sat there with my true love
And my fond heart strove to choose between
The old love and the new love
The old for her, the new that made
Me think on Ireland dearly
While soft the wind blew down the glade
And shook the golden barley

Twas hard the mournful words to frame
To break the ties that bound us
Ah, but harder still to bear the shame
Of foreign chains around us
And so I said, "The mountain glen
I'll seek at morning early
And join the brave united men"
While soft wind shook the barley

Twas sad I kissed away her tears
Her arms around me clinging
When to my ears that fateful shot
Come out the wildwood ringing
The bullet pierced my true love's breast
In life's young spring so early
And there upon my breast she died
While soft wind shook the barley

I bore her to some mountain stream
And many's the summer blossom
I placed with branches soft and green
About her gore-stained bosom
I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse
Then rushed o'er vale and valley
My vengeance on the foe to wreak
While soft wind shook the barley

Twas blood for blood without remorse
I took at Oulart Hollow
I placed my true love's clay-cold corpse
Where mine full soon may follow
Around her grave I wondered drear
Noon, night and morning early
With aching heart when e'er I hear
The wind that shakes the barley.

				Robert D. Joyce