O many a time it hath been told

O many a time it hath been told, The story of those men of old: For this fair poetry hath wreathed Her sweetest, purest flower; For this proud eloquence hath breathed His strain of loftiest power; Devotion, too, hath lingered round Each spot of consecrated ground, And hill and valley blessed; There, where our banished Fathers strayed, There, where they loved and wept and prayed, There, where their ashes rest.