We nailed the hands long ago,
Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted
For excitement's sake, we stood at the dusty edge
Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain.

But one or two prayed, one or two
Were silent, shocked, stood back
And remembered remnants of words, a new vision,
The cross is up with its crying victim, the clouds
Cover the sun, we learn a new way to lose
What we did not know we had
Until this bleak and sacrificial day,
Until we turned from our bad
Past and knelt and cried out our dismay,
The dice still clicking, the voices dying away.

We have an Irish kind of love
Her and I
Myself and herself
Old and young
Young and old
But which is which
Sometimes
I know.............

We have an Irish kind of love
In how we talk
In riddle and rhyme
Singing and crying
At the same time
Sometimes
I know.....................

We have an Irish kind of love
When we walk
The hills of our county
Herself does be scolding me
For not keeping up
What can I do
So busy watching
Watching my step
And the heathers blue

We have an Irish kind of love
Forged in an ancient ring
But of stone, not gold
Ageless and timed
She sooths me
And my troubled mind
For she is as new as the dawn
But as wise as sea

We have an Irish kind of love
Herself, and me.

Over the surging tides and the mountain kingdoms,
Over the pastoral valleys and the meadows,
Over the cities with their factory darkness,
Over the lands where peace is still a power,
Over all these and all this planet carries
A power broods, invisible monarch, a stranger
To some, but by many trusted. Man's a believer
Until corrupted. This huge trusted power
Is spirit. He moves in the muscle of the world,
In continual creation. He burns the tides, he shines
From the matchless skies. He is the day's surrender.
Recognize him in the eye of the angry tiger,
In the sign of a child stepping at last into sleep,
In whatever touches, graces and confesses,
In hopes fulfilled or forgotten, in promises

Kept, in the resignation of old men -
This spirit, this power, this holder together of space
Is about, is aware, is working in your breathing.
But most he is the need that shows in hunger
And in the tears shed in the lonely fastness.
And in sorrow after anger.