All in the past

When the valleys roared with engines
And cried with hymns of light
Disciples with canaries
Dug dark deeper than the night
Now a fiery cloudy pillar
Hovers over business parks
As the lungs of emphysemic men
Sing as rising larks
But auld lang syne holds little comfort
In history's disarray
The stolen land, the blazing croft
The past won't go away
Boats banished from port william
The pregnant chambermaid
Justice has a memory
Some memories will not fade

From the woods of nova scotia
To vancouver islands waves
A burnt-clan converses
And counts the unmarked graves
Of a nation and a language
Expelled from hill and glen
Meanwhile in the pubs of partick
Their tongue speaks free again
And what to sing of ireland
That doesn't burst the breast
From coleraine down to fermanagh
The fields pray and yearn for rest
Sweet holy land of magic
Still sending out your fleece
And may it come back to you ten fold
With an armistice of peace