Our Music Spirit
The music we sow, feed and harvest
From seeds of famine times
When the landlords Shipped our life,
But couldn't alter minds

She watched in tears, the fading
The Winter of her People,
Whispering music to the dying,
Giving soul-life to the feeble,

She haunts us indiscriminately
And casts her spell anon
She can summon the tune to play us with
And tease 'till we succumb

In every smokey corner
She tickles bows and feet,
In the air of every session
She breathes a soothing beat

After work, the old man sits,
With fiddle and compositions,
He conjures up this Spirit friend,
And plays from generations

So salute her when you play tonight
Where groups of us are massed,
You play not the for the ears of one,
But for the souls of Ireland past

Conor McCarthy