There's a blossom that blows, that scoffs at the snows And it faces root fast the rage of the blast It sweetens the sod, no slave ever trod Six mountains of prayer there altered to God CHORUS: The flower of the free, the heather, the heather The Britons and Scots and Irish together The Manx and the Welsh and Cornish forever Six nations are we, proud Celtic and free A blossom as red as the life's blood we shed And for liberty's cause against alien laws With Lochiel and O'Neill and Llewellyn drew steel For Alba's and Eirn's and Cambria's weal Let the Saxon and Dane bear the rule o'er the plain And the hem of God's robe is their scepter and globe And the lord of all light, revered in his height For heaven and earth blows up in his sight There's a blossom that blows, that scoffs at the snows And it faces root fast the rage of the blast It sweetens the sod, no slave ever trod Six mountains of prayer there altered to God
I believe the second-to-last chorus is "Let the Saxon and Dane bear the reel o'er the plain and the hem of God's robe is our scepter and globe" (reel meaning a limp or disrupted walk presumably from injury in this context) as this is what it sounds more like to me. It would make sense too since the Saxons "stole" England in their eyes and then oppressed them under the British Empire, and Danish Vikings did quite a number on the British Isles and Brittany so it would make sense that the Celts aren't too fond of them.
I adore this song and band so much!! I've been listening to Óró Sé Do Bheatha Bhaile, Cumann Na Mban and come out ye black 'n tans over and over. Some of my ancestors came from Kilkenny to Wales during the famine. I'd love to learn Irish one day, but I promised myself I'd master Welsh first! One day all Celtic nations will be free.
