The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

Tho' dark are our sorrows, to-day we'll forget them,
And smile through our tears, like a sunbeam in showers:
There never were hearts, if our rulers would let them,
More form'd to be grateful and blest than ours.
But just when the chain
Has ceas'd to pain,
And hope has enwreath'd it round with flowers,
There comes a new link
Our spirits to sink—
Oh! the joy that we taste, like the light of the poles,
Is a flash amid darkness, too brilliant to stay;
But, though 'twere the last little spark in our souls,
We must light it up now, on our Prince's Day.

286

Contempt on the minion, who calls you disloyal!
Tho' fierce to your foe, to your friends you are true;
And the tribute most high to a head that is royal,
Is love from a heart that loves liberty too.
While cowards, who blight
Your fame, your right,
Would shrink from the blaze of the battle array,
The Standard of Green
In front would be seen,—
Oh, my life on your faith! were you summon'd this minute,
You'd cast every bitter remembrance away,
And show what the arm of old Erin has in it,
When rous'd by the foe, on her Prince's Day.

He loves the Green Isle, and his love is recorded
In hearts, which have suffer'd too much to forget;
And hope shall be crown'd, and attachment rewarded,
And Erin's gay jubilee shine out yet.
The gem may be broke
By many a stroke,
But nothing can cloud its native ray;
Each fragment will cast
A light, to the last,—

287

And thus, Erin, my country tho' broken thou art,
There's a lustre within thee, that ne'er will decay;
A spirit, which beams through each suffering part,
And now smiles at all pain on the Prince's Day.

This song was written for a fête in honour of the Prince of Wales's Birthday, given by my friend, Major Bryan, at his seat in the country of Kilkenny.