Newspaper History presents media sourced from a United States newspaper dating back 108 years.

  • St. Patrick’s Day Without Shamrocks

    From The Sun, March 17, 1915.

    We sought them ‘neath the snowflakes
        And o’er all the frosty ground,
    But no leaflet like the shamrock
        On St. Patrick’s Day we found.
    And our hearts went back to Erin,
        To her dewy vales and hills,
    Where the shamrock twines and clusters
        O’er the fields and by the rills.

    Oh, no more, no more my country
        Shall thy loving daughter lay
    Her head upon thy bosom
        While she weeps her tears away;
    There the primrose and the daisy
        Bloom as in the days of old,
    And the violet comes in purple
        And the buttercup in gold.

    Kildare’s broad fields are fragrant
        With the shamrock’s breath today.
    Shamrocks bloom from Clare to Antrim,
        From Killarney to Lough Neagh;
    And they speak of Patrick’s preaching
        With a quiet, voiceless lore,
    And they breathe of faith and heaven
        All the trefoiled island o’er.

    Wandering listless by the Liffey,
        Stoop and pluck the shamrock green;
    What an emblem plain and simple
        Of the one true faith is seen;
    Of the Father and the Spirit
        Speaks the mystic triune leaf,
    Of the Son in anguish dying
        On the Cross in love and grief.

    Well humility may choose it
        For an emblem fair and meet,
    Close beside the poorest cabin
        It is pouring fragrance sweet.
    Modest is our darling shamrock,
        Useful, charitable, kind,
    Clothing mean, deserted places
        With its green leaves intertwined.

    Many a lesson thus it teaches,
        Many a wholesome thought recalls,
    Many a teardrop all unbidden
        To its cherished memory falls;
    Nor the green of Erin’s banner
        Still must stir the Irish heart,
    Which in Erin’s many sorrows
        Ever, ever must have part.

    Oh be true, be true to Erin,
        True to faith and true to God,
    To St. Patrick, His apostle,
        Who redeemed our native sod.
    Never more her mystic emblem
        In green Erin may you see,
    Let the faith it symbolizes
        Be the dearer unto thee.