TO CHARLES COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT,
WITH A COPY OF ‘INISFAIL.’
Your spirit walks in halls of light:
On earth you breathe its sunnier climes:
How can an Irish muse invite
Your fancy thus to sorrowing rhymes?
But you have fought the Church's fight!
My Country's Cause and hers are one:
And every Cause that rests on Right
Invokes Religion's bravest son.
Scotland reveres her great Montrose,
Scotland bewails her brave Dundee!
With Alfred's memory England glows:—
What lethal hemlock freezes thee
My country, that thy trophies rise
To noteless men, or men ill-famed,
While they thy manlier destinies
Who shaped, so long remain unnamed?
The Dutchman strides his steed new-gilt
In thy chief city's stateliest way;
The Kings thy monarchy who built
Or died to save it, where are they?
Clontarf! That King who smote the Dane
That King who raised a realm laid low—
On thee what hath he? Benburb's plain
No record bears of Owen Roe!
Forgotten now as Nial and Conn
Are those twin stars of Yellow-Ford
Who freed Tyrconnell and Tyrone
Their country's altars who restored.
Ireland awake! For thine own weal
Yield thy great Dead their honours late:
Those only understand who feel
How self-disfranchised are the ingrate!
