From lonely green Donegal on the Shamrock shore
my family so long ago came,
to walk in that beautiful homeland no more
nor to speak of its magical name,
Deep ties of blood were then left far behind
to slumber across long generations -
to flicker in dreams ‘neath a son’s restless mind,
the bond to that far-distant nation.
‘Cross the high winds of history and the fathomless sea
‘to the far Pennsylvania coast -
to the south and the west, past the fierce Cherokee,
at the head of a great Celtic host -
to Carolina's highlands my forefathers came,
then pushed on toward wild Tennessee:
the legacy left to me: my family name
And an Ulster-Scot’s need to be free.
From the battle-scarred lowlands of bonny Scotland
to the north of the great Emerald Isle,
through the Valley Forge winter to sweet Dixie land,
Celts have struggled for every mile.
Let me never forget that I stand on this ground
because Ulster-Scots could not abide
the yoke of injustice half the world ’round
and would die before a life without pride.
Though long years have passed, with those blood ties near-lost
in the centuries’ amnesiac flood
I remember my freedom was gained at great cost
and that our homelands are stained with one blood,
And that circile unbroken still binds us this hour,
growing stronger with each passing year;
in the fiddles and bagpipes still travels this power;
‘tis the memory of kinship we hear.

Robert Ashley Logue
Sumner County
Tennessee, 1997