In Bodenstown churchyard, there is a green grave,
And wildly around it the winter winds rave,
Small shelter I ween are the ruined walls there,
When the storm sweeps down from the plains of Kildare.

Once I lay on that sod, it lies over Wolfe Tone,
And I thought how he perished in prison alone,
His friends unavenged and his country unfreed,
"Oh, bitter," I thought, "Is the patriot's mead."

For in him the heart of a woman combined,
With a heroic life and a governing mind,
A martyr for Ireland, his grave has no stone,
His name seldom mentioned, and his virtues unknown.

I was woke from my dream by the voice and tread,
Of a band who came into the home of the dead,
They carried no corpse, and they carried no stone,
And they stopped when they came to the grave of Wolfe Tone.

There were students and peasants, the wise and the brave,
And an old man who knew him from cradle to grave,
And some children who thought me hard hearted for they,
On that sanctified sod were forbidden to play.

But the old man who saw I was mourning there said,
"We come sir to weep where young Wolfe Tone is laid,
And we're going to raise him a monument too,
A plain one yet fit for the simple and true."

My heart overflowed and I grasped his old hand,
I blessed him and blessed every one of his band,
"Sweet, sweet tis to find that such faith can remain,
To the cause and the man so long vanquished and slain."

In Bodenstown churchyard there is a green grave,
And freely around it let winter winds rave,
Far better they suit him, the ruin and the gloom,
Till Ireland, a nation, can build him a tomb.