Heritage.

My people came from Munster and the cold north Nevis side.
Their hearts were black with ancient wrongs and hate and bitter pride.
Their souls were wild and restless with swift and changing moods;
They knew red border forays and dark unholy feuds.
And first within my cradle on the day that I was born
I heard the songs the rebels sang to give the gallows scorn.

But when the springtime standards march in a great green waving host,
I never dream of Inverness or the rugged Kerry coast.
I never dream of a barren shore where the sea wind keens and shrills;
My dreams are all of Devon downs and the good green southern hills.
I never see the surging Lorne or the sullen Kenmare' flow,
But I have walked through Dartmoor nights with all the winds that blow.

I know the quaint ale houses beneath the oaks whose shade
Was flung when lost Lundinium fell before the Roman raid.
I know the croon of sleepy streams, and the brown time-carven towns,
But best of all the fall of night across the dreaming downs.
I have not walked there waking, but dream roads I have trod,
And Devon is my heritage by tree and hill and sod.

Beyond the years of yearning, and lust and blood and flame,
My people rode in Devon before the Saxon came.
Oh, wattle hut and barley, oh feast and song and tale!
Oh, land of dreamy legend and the good brown British ale.
My heritage is barren, my feet are doomed to roam;
I may not drink from Devon springs or break the Devon loam.

But when the kings are fallen and when the empires pass
And when the gleaming cities are wasted stone and grass;
When the younger peoples totter and break their gods in vain,
They who were first of all the earth may get their home again.
Gods, hurl the haughty deathwards and shake the iron thrones
That my kin shall ride in Devon above the Saxon's bones.


Robert E Howard.