Oh! Breathe Not His Name

by Thomas Moore

Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonoured his relics are laid;
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, tho' in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps,
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

Notes to the poem:

Written to commemorate the historic utterance of the great Irish Patriot, Robert Emmet, who in the course of his famous speech on his trial for high treason in 1803 demanded that his epitaph should not be written until his country had taken her place among the nations of the earth. - Editor