University of Virginia Library

THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO IRELAND

49
Each good and perfect gift man's heart to move

Each good and perfect gift man's heart to move
Comes from the heart before it leaves the hand,
At once inspired and exquisitely plann'd.
Kings learn this piece of kingcraft from above;
Men call it tact, the angels know 'tis love!—
Ours is a tragic past, a fatal land,
Which all would heal, but few can understand.
What offering, Lady, bringest thou to prove
Such souls? The sacrifice of hours, by thee
Well-won, exchanged for the continuous strain,—
Renunciation of the Italian morn,
Of the blue Mediterranean sea,
For our grey waves and April fields forlorn,—
Gift such as this will not be made in vain.

50
Writ in a fair charáctery of flowers

Writ in a fair charáctery of flowers
Full oft are queenly names. Some bud that blows
Dreams itself on superbly to a rose,
Wears odorous purple through the passing hours,
And breathes a tale of queenship to its bowers.
What finds our Queen in yonder plant that grows
No iridescent colours to disclose,
No waft of scent wherewith to endow the showers—
That little feeble frond trifoliate,
The symbol of a nation's passionate heart—
In every Irish glen belovèd much?
Lo! with a tender and a subtle art,
As an old Saint with types, a Queen of late
Colour'd it with the summer of her touch.

51
The young alone are fair, the old are great

The young alone are fair, the old are great,
The young have fire made visible to sight;
Young eyes have fire, the old alone have light,—
The light which all earth's weary ones await,
The light that waxes as the day grows late.
Deem not she thinks that now 'tis sunset quite,
That a pathetic majesty of night
Falls grey upon the grandeur of her state.
She thinks of the young valours who went down,
Marching across the battle-zone of fire
In the red baptism of war's martyrdom,
Her glorious Irish soldiers. Her desire
Is quick to see the green land of their home,
And fill the nations with their high renown.

52
So let a ‘favourable speed’ assist

So let a ‘favourable speed’ assist
The keel that bears her yacht across the sea,
Let there no spindrift of the salt spray be,
Let night sleep sweetly, let wild waves be whist,
The calm unstain'd by any wreath of mist.
On land be kindred influence, that we,
From our old panics of suspicion free,
May meet each other in a happy tryst.
Hark! on my ears what sounds are these that strike?
Not of old fierce extremes, but of one cause
Seen now through all variety of form.
Lo! one great people rising oceanlike
By regularity of tidal laws,
Not with the undisciplined passion of the storm.

53
O that a fortnight's Truce of God might sound!

O that a fortnight's Truce of God might sound!
O that this land of eloquence and wit
In the rich tones that almost treble it,
Order more order'd being so lightly bound,
Freedom more free in being so fair encrown'd
And law's stern wrath, unpassionately writ
(Safeguard of homes) by this great presence lit,
Might mutely hear. So on this fateful ground
All sweet consideration; love that starts
At nought as alien in the soul of man;
Not less pathetic, less revengeful, songs;
Might make one right majestic from two wrongs,
And one fair century from a fortnight's span.
So let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.