John Mccormack Follow

All night around the thorn tree the little people play.
And men and women passing will turn their heads away
From break of dawn till moonrise alone it stands on high
With twisted sprigs for branhes across the winter sky.
They'll tell you dead men hung there,
It's black and bitter fruit
To guard the buried treasure, round which it twines it roots
They'll tell you Cromwell hung them,
But that could never be.
He'd be in dread, like others, to touch the fairy tree.

But Katie Ryan saw there in some sweet dream she had,
The blessed son of Mary, and all his face was sad.
She dreamt she heard him saying
"Why should they be afraid?"
"Why should they be afraid,
When from a branch of thorn tree, the crown I wore was made?

At moonlight round the thorn tree the little people play
And men and women passing will turn their heads away.
But if your heart's a child's heart
And if your eyes are clean,
You'll never fear the thorn tree that grows beyond Clogheen.