The Stars sang in God’s Garden
by Joseph Mary Plunkett
The stars sang in God’s garden;
The stars are the birds of God;
The night-time is God’s harvest,
Its fruits are the words of God.
God ploughed His fields at morning,
God sowed His seed at noon,
God reaped and gathered in His corn
With the rising of the moon.
The sun rose up at midnight,
The sun rose red as blood,
It showed the Reaper, the dead Christ,
Upon His cross of wood.
For many live that one may die,
And one must die that many live—
The stars are silent in the sky
Lest my poor songs be fugitive.
Joseph Mary Plunkett is perhaps most famous for having been one of the major leaders in the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, although he was sick for much of the actual rebellion. The British executed him on May 4, 1916; he was twenty-eight.
