Poems by Speranza (Lady Wilde) [i.e. Jane Francesca Elgee] ::

My country, wounded to the heart,
Could I but flash along thy soul
Electric power to rive apart
The thunder-clouds that round thee roll,
And, by my burning words, uplift
Thy life from out Death's icy drift,
Till the full splendours of our age
Shone round thee for thy heritage—
As Miriam's, by the Red Sea strand
Clashing proud cymbals, so my hand
Would strike thy harp,
Loved Ireland!

II

She flung her triumphs to the stars
In glorious chants for freedom won,
While over Pharaoh's gilded cars
The fierce, death-bearing waves rolled on;
I can but look in God's great face,
And pray Him for our fated race,
To come in Sinai thunders down,
And, with His mystic radiance, crown
Some Prophet-Leader, with command
To break the strength of Egypt's band,
And set thee free,
Loved Ireland!

III

New energies, from higher source,
Must make the strong life-currents flow,
As Alpine glaciers in their course
Stir the deep torrents 'neath the snow.
The woman's voice dies in the strife
Of Liberty's awakening life;
We wait the hero heart to lead,
The hero, who can guide at need,
And strike with bolder, stronger hand,
Though towering hosts his path withstand
Thy golden harp,
Loved Ireland!

IV

For I can breathe no trumpet call,
To make the slumb'ring Soul arise;
I only lift the funeral-pall,
That so God's light might touch thine eyes,
And ring the silver prayer-bell clear,
To rouse thee from thy trance of fear;
Yet, if thy mighty heart has stirred,
Even with one pulse-throb at my word,
Then not in vain my woman's hand
Has struck thy gold harp while I stand,
Waiting thy rise
Loved Ireland!

THE BROTHERS.

A SCENE FROM '98.

------ “Oh! give me truths,
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition.”
—Emerson.

I

'Tis midnight, falls the lamp-light dull and sickly,
On a pale and anxious crowd,
Through the court, and round the judges, thronging thickly,
With prayers none dare to speak aloud.
Two youths, two noble youths, stand prisoners at the bar—
You can see them through the gloom—
In pride of life and manhood's beauty, there they are
Awaiting their death doom.

II

All eyes an earnest watch on them are keeping,
Some, sobbing, turn away,
And the strongest men can hardly see for weeping,
So noble and so loved were they.
Their hands are locked together, those young brothers,
As before the judge they stand—
They feel not the deep grief that moves the others,
For they die for Fatherland.

III

They are pale, but it is not fear that whitens
On each proud, high brow,
For the triumph of the martyr's glory brightens
Around them even now.
They sought to free their land from thrall of stranger;
Was it treason? Let them die;
But their blood will cry to Heaven—the Avenger
Yet will hearken from on high.

IV

Before them, shrinking, cowering, scarcely human,
The base informer bends,
Who, Judas-like, could sell the blood of true men,
While he clasped their hands as friends.
Aye, could fondle the young children of his victim,
Break bread with his young wife,
At the moment that for gold his perjured dictum
Sold the husband and the father's life.

V

There is silence in the midnight—eyes are keeping
Troubled watch till forth the jury come;
There is silence in the midnight—eyes are weeping—
“Guilty!”—is the fatal uttered doom.
For a moment o'er the brothers' noble faces
Came a shadow sad to see;
Then silently they rose up in their places,
And embraced each other fervently.

VI

Oh! the rudest heart might tremble at such sorrow,
The rudest cheek might blanch at such a scene:
Twice the judge essayed to speak the word—to-morrow—
Twice faltered, as a woman he had been.
To-morrow!—Fain the elder would have spoken,
Prayed for respite, tho' it is not death he fears;
But thoughts of home and wife his heart hath broken,
And his words are stopped by tears.

VII

But the youngest—oh, he spake out bold and clearly:—
“I have no ties of children or of wife;
Let me die—but spare the brother who more dearly
Is loved by me than life.”
Pale martyrs, ye may cease, your days are numbered;
Next noon your sun of life goes down;
One day between the sentence and the scaffold—
One day between the torture and the crown!

VIII

A hymn of joy is rising from creation;
Bright the azure of the glorious summer sky;
But human hearts weep sore in lamentation,
For the Brothers are led forth to die.
Aye, guard them with your cannon and your lances—
So of old came martyrs to the stake;
Aye, guard them—see the people's flashing glances,
For those noble two are dying for their sake.

IX

Yet none spring forth their bonds to sever
Ah! methinks, had I been there,
I'd have dared a thousand deaths ere ever
The sword should touch their hair.
It falls!—there is a shriek of lamentation
From the weeping crowd around;
They're stilled—the noblest hearts within the nation—
The noblest heads lie bleeding on the ground.

X

Years have passed since that fatal scene of dying,
Yet, lifelike to this day,
In their coffins still those severed heads are lying,
Kept by angels from decay.
Oh! they preach to us, those still and pallid features—
Those pale lips yet implore us, from their graves,
To strive for our birthright as God's creatures,
Or die, if we can but live as slaves.

THE FAMINE YEAR.

I

Weary men, what reap ye?—Golden corn for the stranger.
What sow ye?—Human corses that wait for the avenger.
Fainting forms, hunger-stricken, what see you in the offing?
Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffing.
There's a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door?
They guard our masters' granaries from the thin hands of the poor.
Pale mothers, wherefore weeping?—Would to God that we were dead—
Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread.

II

Little children, tears are strange upon your infant faces,
God meant you but to smile within your mother's soft embraces.
Oh! we know not what is smiling, and we know not what is dying;
But we're hungry, very hungry, and we cannot stop our crying.
And some of us grow cold and white—we know not what it means;
But, as they lie beside us, we tremble in our dreams.
There's a gaunt crowd on the highway—are ye come to pray to man,
With hollow eyes that cannot weep, and for words your faces wan?

III

No; the blood is dead within our veins—we care not now for life;
Let us die hid in the ditches, far from children and from wife;

We cannot stay and listen to their raving, famished cries—
Bread! Bread! Bread! and none to still their agonies.
We left our infants playing with their dead mother's hand:
We left our maidens maddened by the fever's scorching brand:
Better, maiden, thou were strangled in thy own dark-twisted tresses—
Better, infant, thou wert smothered in thy mother's first caresses.

IV

We are fainting in our misery, but God will hear our groan;
Yet, if fellow-men desert us, will He hearken from His Throne?
Accursed are we in our own land, yet toil we still and toil;
But the stranger reaps our harvest—the alien owns our soil.
O Christ! how have we sinned, that on our native plains
We perish houseless, naked, starved, with branded brow, like Cain's?
Dying, dying wearily, with a torture sure and slow—
Dying, as a dog would die, by the wayside as we go.

V

One by one they're falling round us, their pale faces to the sky;
We've no strength left to dig them graves—there let them lie.
The wild bird, if he's stricken, is mourned by the others,
But we—we die in Christian land—we die amid our brothers,
In the land which God has given, like a wild beast in his cave,
Without a tear, a prayer, a shroud, a coffin, or a grave.
Ha! but think ye the contortions on each livid face ye see,
Will not be read on judgment-day by eyes of Deity?

VI

We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,
But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.
Now is your hour of pleasure—bask ye in the world's caress;
But our whitening bones against ye will rise as witnesses,
From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffin'd masses,
For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.
A ghastly, spectral army, before the great God we'll stand,
And arraign ye as our murderers, the spoilers of our land.

THE ENIGMA.

Pale victims, where is your Fatherland?
Where oppression is law from age to age,
Where the death-plague, and hunger, and misery rage,
And tyrants a godless warfare wage
'Gainst the holiest rights of an ancient land

Where the corn waves green on the fair hillside,
But each sheaf by the serfs and slavelings tied
Is taken to pamper a foreigner's pride—
There is our suffering Fatherland.

Where broad rivers flow 'neath a glorious sky,
And the valleys like gems of emerald lie;
Yet, the young men, and strong men, starve and die,
For want of bread in their own rich land.

And we pile up their corses, heap on heap,
While the pale mothers faint, and the children weep;
Yet, the living might envy the dead their sleep,
So bitter is life in that mourning land.

Oh! Heaven ne'er looked on a sadder scene;
Earth shuddered to hear that such woe had been;
Then we prayed, in despair, to a foreign queen,
For leave to live on our own fair land.

We have wept till our faces are pale and wan;
We have knelt to a throne till our strength is gone;
We prayed to our masters, but, one by one,
They laughed to scorn our suffering land;

And sent forth their minions, with cannon and steel,
Swearing with fierce, unholy zeal,
To trample us down with an iron heel,
If we dared but to murmur our just demand.—
Know ye not now our Fatherland?

What! are there no men in your Fatherland,
To confront the tyrant's stormy glare,
With a scorn as deep as the wrongs ye bear,
With defiance as fierce as the oaths they sware,
With vengeance as wild as the cries of despair,
That rise from your suffering Fatherland?

Are there no swords in your Fatherland,
To smite down the proud, insulting foe,
With the strength of dispair give blow for blow
Till the blood of the baffled murderers flow
On the trampled soil of your outraged land?

Are your right arms weak in that land of slaves,
That ye stand by your murdered brothers' graves,
Yet tremble like coward and crouching knaves,
To strike for freedom and Fatherland?

Oh! had ye faith in your Fatherland,
In God, your Cause, and your own right hand,
Ye would go forth as saints to the holy fight,
Go in the strength of eternal right,
Go in the conquering Godhead's might—
And save or avenge your Fatherland!

THE VOICE OF THE POOR.

I

Was sorrow ever like to our sorrow?
Oh, God above!
Will our night never change into a morrow
Of joy and love?
A deadly goom is on us waking, sleeping,
Like the darkness at noontide,
That fell upon the pallid mother, weeping
By the Crucified.

II

Before us die our brothers of starvation:
Around are cries of famine and despair
Where is hope for us, or comfort, or salvation—
Where—oh! where?
If the angels ever hearken, downward bending
They are weeping, we are sure,
At the litanies of human groans ascending
From the crushed hearts of the poor.

III

When the human rests in love upon the human,
All grief is light;
But who bends one kind glance to illumine
Our life-long night?
The air around is ringing with their laughter—
God has only made the rich to smile;
But we—in our rags, and want, and woe—we follow after,
Weeping the while.

IV

And the laughter seems but uttered to deride us.
When—oh! when
Will fall the frozen barriers that divide us
From other men?
Will ignorance for ever thus enslave us?
Will misery for ever lay us low?
All are eager with their insults, but to save us,
None, none, we know.

V

We never knew a childhood's mirth and gladness,
Nor the proud heart of youth, free and brave;
Oh! a deathlike dream of wretchedness and sadness,
Is life's weary journey to the grave.
Day by day we lower sink and lower,
Till the Godlike soul within,
Falls crushed, beneath the fearful demon power
Of poverty and sin.

VI

So we toil on, on with fever burning
In heart and brain;
So we toil on, on through bitter scorning,
Want, woe, and pain:
We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heaven,
Or the toil must cease—
We dare not breathe the fresh air God has given
One hour in peace.

VII

We must toil, though the light of life is burning,
Oh, how dim!
We must toil on our sick bed, feebly turning
Our eyes to Him,
Who alone can hear the pale lip faintly saying,
With scarce moved breath
While the paler hands, uplifted, aid the praying—
“Lord, grant us Death!”

A SUPPLICATION.

“DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI AD TE DOMINE.”

By our looks of mute despair,
By the sighs that rend the air,
From lips too faint to utter prayer,
Kyrie Eleison.

By the last groans of our dying,
Echoed by the cold wind's sighing
On the wayside as they're lying,
Kyrie Eleison.

By our fever-stricken bands
Lifting up their wasted hands
For bread throughout the far-off lands,
Kyrie Eleison.

Miserable outcasts we,
Pariahs of humanity,
Shunned by all where'er we flee,
Kyrie Eleison.

For our dead no bell is ringing,
Round their forms no shroud is clinging,
Save the rank grass newly springing,
Kyrie Eleison.

Golden harvests we are reaping,
With golden grain our barns heaping,
But for us our bread is weeping,
Kyrie Eleison.

Death-devoted in our home,
Sad we cross the salt sea's foam,
But death we bring where'er we roam,
Kyrie Eleison.

Whereso'er our steps are led,
They can track us by our dead,
Lying on their cold earth bed,
Kyrie Eleison.

We have sinned—in vain each warning—
Brother lived his brother scorning,
Now in ashes see us mourning,
Kyrie Eleison.

Heeding not our country's state,
Trodden down and desolate,
While we strove in senseless hate,
Kyrie Eleison.

We have sinned, but holier zeal
May we Christian patriots feel,
Oh! for our dear country's weal,
Kyrie Eleison.

Let us lift our streaming eyes
To God's throne above the skies,
He will hear our anguish cries,
Kyrie Eleison.

Kneel beside me, oh! my brother,
Let us pray each with the other,
For Ireland, our mourning mother,
Kyrie Eleison.

FORESHADOWINGS.

I

Oremus! Oremus! Look down on us, Father!
Like visions of Patmos Thy last judgments gather
The angels of doom, in bright, terrible beauty,
Rise up from their thrones to fulfil their stern duty.
Woe to us, woe! the thunders have spoken,
The first of the mystical seals hath been broken.

II

Through the cleft thunder-cloud the wierd coursers are rushing—
Their hoofs will strike deep in the hearts they are crushing;
And the crown'd and the proud of the old kingly races
Fall down at the vision, like stars from their places:
Oremus! Oremus! The pale earth is heark'ning;
Already the spirit-steeds round us are dark'ning.

III

With crown and with bow, on his white steed immortal,
The Angel of Wrath passes first through the portal;
But faces grow paler, and hush'd is earth's laughter,
When on his pale steed comes the Plague Spirit after.

Oremus! Oremus! His poison-breath slayeth;
The red will soon fade from each bright lip that prayeth.

IV

Now, with nostrils dilated and thunder hoofs crashing,
On rushes the war-steed, his lurid eyes flashing;
There is blood on the track where his long mane is streaming,
There is death where the sword of his rider is gleaming.
Woe to the lands where that red steed is flying!
There tyrants are warring, and heroes are dying.

V

Oh! the golden-hair'd children reck nought but their playing,
Thro' the rich fields of corn with their young mothers straying;
And the strong-hearted men, with their muscles of iron,
What reck they of ills that their pathway environ?
There's a tramp like a knell—a cold shadow gloometh—
Woe! 'tis the black steed of Famine that cometh

VI

At the breath of its rider the green earth is blasted,
And childhood's frail form droops down pallid, and wasted;
The soft sunny hair falleth dank on the arm
Of the mother, whose love shields no longer from harm:
For strength is scarce left her to weep o'er the dying,
Ere dead by the loved one the mother is lying.

VII

But can we only weep, when above us thus lour
The death-bearing wings of the angels of power;
When around are the arrows of pestilence flying—
Around, the pale heaps of the famine-struck lying
—No, brother of sorrow, when life's light is weakest,
Look up, it is nigh the redemption thou seekest.

VIII

Still work, though the tramp of the weird spirit-horses,
Fall dull on the ear, like the clay upon corses;

Still Freedom must send forth her young heroes glowing,
Though her standard be red with their life-current flowing;
Still the preacher must cast forth the seed, as God's sower.
Though he perish like grass at the scythe of the mower.

IX

Still do the Lord's work through life's tragical drama,
Though weeping goes upward like weeping at Rama;
The path may be thorny, but Spirit eyes see us;
The cross may be heavy, but Death will soon free us:
Still, strong in Christ's power we'll chant the Hosanna,
Fling down Christ's defiance—Υπαγε Σατανα.

X

I see in a vision the shadowy portal,
That leadeth to regions of glory immortal;
I see the pale forms from the seven wounds bleeding,
Which up to God's Throne the bright angels are leading;
I see the crown placed on each saint bending lowly,
While sounds the Trisagion—Holy, thrice Holy!

XI

I have Paradise dreams of a band with palm-branches,
Whose wavings give back their gold harps' resonances,
And a jewelled-walled city, where walketh in splendour
Each one who his life for God's truth did surrender.
Who would weep their death-doom, if such bliss we inherit,
When the veil of the human falls off from the spirit?

XII

The Christian may shrink from the last scenes of trial,
And the woes yet unknown of each mystical vial;
But the hosts of Jehovah will gather beside him,
The rainbow-crowned angel stoop downward to guide him;
And to him, who as hero and martyr hath striven,
Will the Crown, and the Throne, and the Palm-branch be given.

TO A DESPONDENT NATIONALIST.

I

Wherefore wail you for the harp? Is it broken?
Have the bold hands that once struck it weaker grown?
Can false words, by false traitors spoken,
Blight a cause which we know is God's own?
No coward hearts are with us that would falter,
Tho' a thousand tyrants strove to crush us low;
No coward pen the daring words to alter,
That we fling in haughty scorn 'gainst the foe.

II

Who has doomed, or can dare “doom us to silence?”
In the conscious pride of truth and right we stand;
Let them rave like the ocean round the islands,
Firm as they we stand unmoved for Fatherland.
Ay, we'll “till,” spite of banded foes who hate us—
But to rear the tree of Freedom God hath given;
Ay, we'll toil—but for triumphs that await us,
If not leading to the Capitol—to Heaven.

III

Shall we mourn if we're martyrs for the truth?
God has ever tried His noblest by the cross—
Let us bless Him that we're worthy in our youth,
For Country, truth, and right to suffer loss.
So the word that we have spoken be immortal,
Little reck we tho' no glory may be won;
If of God, it will scorn ban of mortal—
Standing ever as the archetypal sun.

IV

True, the path is dark, but ever sunward,
In faith, and love, and hope we journey on;
We may pause in the desert passing onward,
Lay our weary heads to rest upon the stone;

But ever in our visions, low and faintly,
Come the voices of the far-off angel band,
To earnest souls, in prophecy all saintly,
That the good cause will yet triumph in the land.

V

Fear not, oh! my brother, then, that any
Will hush Ierne's harp at man's command;
For phylacteries of misery too many,
Are bound upon all foreheads in the land.
Let others bow in abject genuflexion—
Sue from Pity what they ought to claim as right;
By God's grace we'll stand by our election—
Freedom, Knowledge, Independence, Truth, and Light!

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

I

When mighty passions, surging, heave the depth of life's great ocean—
When the people sway, like forest trees, to and fro in wild commotion—
When the world-old kingdoms, rent and riven, quiver in their place,
As the human central fire is upheaving at their base,
And throbbing hearts, and flashing eyes, speak a language deep and cryptic;
Yet he who runs may read aright these signs apocalyptic:
Then rise, ye crownéd Elohim —rise trembling from your thrones;
Soon shall cease the eternal rhythm betwixt them and human groans.

II

Ah! ye thought the nations, faint and weary, lay for ever bound;
They were sleeping like Orestes, with the Furies watching round;

Soon they'll spring to vengeance, maddened by the whisperings divine,
That breathed of human freedom, as they knelt before God's shrine.
See you not a form advancing, as the shadow of the Gnomon,
Step by step, in darkness, onward—can ye read the fatal omen!
Coarse the hand, and rude the raiment, and the brow is dark to see,
But flashes fierce the eye as those of vengeful Zincali.

III

On its brow a name is written—France read it once before,
And like a demon's compact, it was written in her gore—
A fearful name—thrones trembled as the murmur passed along—
Retribution, proud oppressors, for your centuries of wrong.
From the orient to the ocean, from the palm-tree to the pine,
From Innisfail, by Tagus, to the lordly Appenine—
From Indus to the river by which pale Warsaw bleeds—
Souls are wakening—hands are arming—God is blessing noble deeds.

IV

Bravely done, ye Roman Eagles, ye are fluttering at last;
Spread your broad wings brave and proudly, as in old times, to the blast;
Never furl them—never flag, till with the Austrian's slaughter,
Ye crimson the full tide of the Danube's rolling water.
Who will falter now? Who'll stand like a trembling coward dumb!
Plaudite! Freedom stands again on the Janiculum!
From the Tiber to the Adige her vatic words are waking,
Italy! fair Italy! arise the dawn is breaking!

V

The Russian breathed on Poland, and she changed to a Zahara;
The jewels of her ancient crown adorn the Czar's tiara.
Her princes, and her nobles, tread the land with footsteps weary,
And her people cry to Heaven with ceaseless Miserere.
On her pale brow, thorn crownéd, ye may read her shame and loss;
See, foreign rule has branded there the fatal Thanatos.
But her agony and bloody sweat the Lord from Heaven will see,
And a resurrection morn heal the wounds of Calvary.

VI

By our prophets God is speaking, in Sinai's awful thunders,
By pestilence and famine, in fearful signs and wonders;
By our great poet-priesthood, the sacred race immortal,
Whose words go forth triumphant, as through a golden portal;
By our patriots and martyrs, who, for Freedom's holy law,
Have hearts to dare, a hand to burn, like Mutius Scævola.
Then, courage, Brothers! lock your shields, like the old Spartan band,
Advance! and be your watchword ever—God for Ireland!

“Kings—The Earthly Elohim.” —Sir Thomas Browne.

THE OLD MAN'S BLESSING.

Mine eye is dull, my hair is white,
This arm is powerless for the fight,
Alas! alas! the battle's van
Suits not a weak and aged man.
Thine eye is bright, thine arm is strong—
'Tis Youth must right our country's wrong.
Arise, my son, and proudly bear
This sword that I was wont to wear;
Firm grasp the hilt, fling down the sheath—
A thousand vears their wrongs bequeath

To thy young heart, thy hot revenge—
Kneel down, and swear thou wilt avenge.

May thy hand be fierce as Até's,
Fighting for our old Penates;
May thy glance be lightning flashes,
May thy words be thunder crashes,
May that earnest, haughty frown,
Like weapon, strike the foeman down.
May thy smile of scorn be
Blasting as the Upas tree;
Boldly like Olympian God,
Hurl the tyrants from our sod,
Let their wail be Ichabod!

Be to them destruction glooming—
Be to them a vengeance looming,
Hair-suspended o'er their race,
Like the sword of Damoclés,
Let thy daring right hand free us,
Like that son of old Ægeus,
Who purged his land for evermore
From the blood-stained Minotaur.
Fear not death, but fear dishonour;
Yield thy country all but honour.
What more fitting warrior's shroud
Than the foeman's standard proud?
Heed ye not their glozing words;
Fear ye not their myriad swords;
Never make ye peace with them
'Till ye chant their requiem.
Ha! I hear thy heart's pulsation
Throbbing vengeance for our nation;
Ha! I see thy dark eyes shine
With a fury leonine—
Burning brow and clenchéd hand—
Quivering lip and naked brand—
Arise! arise! my patriot son,
By hearts like thine is Freedom won!

MAN'S MISSION.

I

Human lives are silent teaching,
Be they earnest, mild, and true—
Noble deeds are noblest preaching
From the consecrated Few.
Poet-Priests their anthems singing,
Hero-sword on corslet ringing,
When Truth's banner is unfurled;
Youthful preachers, genius-gifted,
Pouring forth their souls uplifted,
Till their preaching stirs the world;

II

Each must work as God has given
Hero hand or poet soul;
Work is duty while we live in
This weird world of sin and dole.
Gentle spirits, lowly kneeling,
Lift their white hands up appealing
To the Throne of Heaven's King—
Stronger natures, culminating,
In great actions incarnating
What another can but sing.

III

Pure and meek-eyed as an angel,
We must strive—must agonise;
We must preach the saints' evangel
Ere we claim the saintly prize.
Work for all, for work is holy,
We fulfil our mission solely
When, like Heaven's arch above,
Blend our souls in one emblazon,
And the social diapason
Sounds the perfect chord of love.

IV

Life is combat, life is striving,
Such our destiny below;
Like a scythéd chariot driving
Through an onward pressing foe.
Deepest sorrow, scorn, and trial
Will but teach us self-denial;
Like the alchymists of old,
Pass the ore through cleansing fire
If our spirits would aspire
To be God's refinéd gold.

V

We are struggling in the morning
With the spirit of the night;
But we trample on it scorning—
Lo! the eastern sky is bright.
We must watch. The day is breaking;
Soon, like Memnon's statue waking
With the sunrise into sound,
We shall raise our voice to Heaven,
Chant a hymn for conquest given,
Seize the palm, nor heed the wound.

VI

We must bend our thoughts to earnest,
Would we strike the idols down;
With a purpose of the sternest
Take the Cross, and wait the Crown.
Sufferings human life can hallow,
Sufferings lead to God's Valhalla;
Meekly bear, but nobly try,
Like a man with soft tears flowing,
Like a God with conquest glowing
So to love, and work, and die!

A LAMENT.

I

Gone from us—dead to us—he whom we worshipped so!
Low lies the altar we raised to his name;
Madly his own hand hath shattered and laid it low—
Madly his own breath hath blasted his fame.
He whose proud bosom once raged with humanity,
He whose broad forehead was circled with might,
Sunk to a time-serving, driv'lling inanity—
God! why not spare our loved country the sight?

II

Was it the gold of the stranger that tempted him?
Ah! we'd have pledged to him body and soul;
Toiled for him—fought for him—starved for him—died for him—
Smiled, tho' our graves were the steps to his goal.
Breathed he one word in his deep, earnest whispering,
Wealth, crown, and kingdom, were laid at his feet;
Raised he his right hand, the millions would round him cling—
Hush! 'tis the Sassenach ally you greet.

III

Leaders have fallen—we wept, but we triumphed, too—
Patriot blood never sinks in the sod;
He falls, and the jeers of the nation he bent to sue
Rise like accusing weird spirits to God.
Weep for him—weep for him—deep is the tragedy—
Angels themselves now might doubt of God's truth;
Souls from their bloody graves, shuddering, rise to see
How he avenges their lost, murdered youth.

IV

Tone, and Fitzgerald, and the pale-brow'd enthusiast—
He whose heart broke, but shrank not from the strife;
Davis, the latest loved—he who in glory passed,
Kindling Hope's lamp with the chrism of life.

Well may they wail for him—power and might were his—
Loved as no mortal was loved in the land—
What has he sold them for? Sorrow and shame it is,
Fair words and false from a recreant band.

V

Time's shade was on him; what matter? we loved him yet;
Aye, would have torn the veins with our teeth,
Made him a bath of our young blood to pay the debt—
Purchased his life, tho' we brough it by death.
Pray for him—pray: an archangel has fallen low;
There's a throne less in Heaven, there is sorrow on earth.
Weep, angels—laugh, demons! When his hand could strike the blow,
Where shall we seek for truth, honour, or worth?

THE YOUNG PATRIOT LEADER.

Oh! he stands beneath the sun, that glorious Fated One
Like a martyr or conqueror, wearing
On his brow a mighty doom, be it glory, be it gloom,
The shadow of a crown it is bearing.

At his Cyclopean stroke the proud heart of man awoke,
Like a king from his lordly down-lying;
And whereso'er he trod, like the footstep of a God,
Was a trail of light the gloom outvying.

In his beauty and his youth, the Apostle of the Truth,
Goes he forth with the words of salvation,
And a noble madness falls on each spirit he enthralls,
As he chants his wild Pæans to the nation.

As a tempest in its force, as a torrent in its course,
So his words fiercely sweep all before them,

And they smite like two-edged swords, those undaunted thunder-words,
On all hearts, as tho' angels did implore them.

See our pale cheeks how they flush, as the noble visions rush
On our soul's most dark desolation,
And the glorious lyric words, Right, Freedom, and our Swords!
Wake the strong chords of life to vibration.

Aye; right noble, in good sooth, seemed he battling for the truth,
When he poured the full tide of his scorn
Down upon the tyrant's track, like an Alpine cataract:
Ah! such men wait an Æon to be born.

So he stood before us then, one of God's eternal men,
Flashing eye, and hero mould of stature,
With a glory and a light circling round his brow of might,
That revealed his right royal kingly nature.

Lo! he leadeth on our bands, Freedom's banner in his hands,
Let us aid him, not with words, but doing;
With the marches of the brave, prayers of might that strike and save,
Not a slaving spirit's abject suing.

Thus in glory is he seen, tho' his years are yet but green,
The anointed as head of our nation;
For high Heaven hath decreed that a soul like his must lead,
Let us kneel, then, in deep adoration.

Oh! his mission is divine; dash down the Lotus wine—
Too long is your trancéd sleep abiding;
For by Him who gave us life, we shall conquer in the strife,
So we follow but that Young Chief's guiding.

ATTENDITE POPULE.

Oh! that I stood upon some lofty tower,
Before the gathered people, face to face,
That, like God's thunder, might my words of power
Roll down the cry of Freedom to its base!
Oh! that my voice, a storm above all storms,
Could cleave earth, air, and ocean, rend the sky
With the fierce earthquake shout: “To arms! to arms!
For Truth, Fame, Freedom, Vengeance, Victory!”

The mountains, could they speak, would cry in thunder,
“Too long we've borne the tyrant's trampling hoof;”
The stars would fight from Heaven with signs of wonder;
The tempest waves dash back a stern reproof:
But ye, writhing like worms beneath the tyrant's spurning,
Dragged in the dust behind his chariot-wheel,
Is there no vengeance in your strong hearts burning,
Tho' God, and man, and earth, and heaven appeal?
Oh! for some prophet's voice to rouse and warn—
Some angel's hand to strike them branch and root!
Oh! for Christ's strength to bid, in Godlike scorn,
The very stones cry out, should ye be mute!

FORWARD!

I

What though Freedom's hosts are parted,
Yet, beneath one banner fighting,
Strong in love and hero-hearted,
All, their Country's wrongs are righting
With the weapon that each deemeth best to strike oppression down.

II

And one battle-cry resoundeth
From your ranks, success presaging;
And one heart within you boundeth
With a martyr's faith, engaging
Each to bind upon his forehead cypress wreath or laurel crown.

III

For a power without you urges
That can brook no more delaying,
And the heaving myriad surges,
To and fro in tumult swaying,
Threaten death to all who vainly would oppose them in their might.

IV

Thrilling words, that burn like fire,
Ye have preached to hut and hovel,
Till they leap up in their ire
From the death-dust where they grovel,
These men of many sufferings, to die or win their right.

V

Pass the word that bands together—
Word of mystic conjuration—
And, as fire consumes the heather,
So the young hearts of the nation
Fierce will blaze up, quick and scathing, 'gainst the stranger and the foe.

VI

Hand to hand with them confronted,
Looking death and danger gravely
In the face, with brow undaunted;
Doing nobly, dying bravely,
Stern as men resolved to conquer or to perish in their woe.

VII

For the God-breath speaketh in you,
Dare ye not belie your mission;

And the beck'ning angels win you
On with many a radiant vision,
Up the thorny path of glory, where the hero gains his crown.

VIII

Fling abroad our Country's banner,
Foremost march to Freedom leading,
Let the breath of millions fan her,
Not alone the wine-press treading,
For a Nation is arising from her long and ghastly swoon.

IX

Go with lips that dare not falter,
Offer up, with exaltations,
On your country's holy altar,
Youth, with all its fervid passions,
And your life, if she demands it—Can a patriot fear to die?

X

What is life that ye should love it
More than manlike deeds of duty?
There's a glory far above it
Crowns your brow with nobler beauty—
'Tis to die, with cheers heroic, lifting Freedom's standard high.

XI

Through the darkness and the dunlight,
Of this sorrow-night of weeping,
Ye shall trail the radiant sunlight,
And, like strong men armed, leaping
Forth to wondrous deeds of glory, make Humanity sublime.

XII

Rising higher still, and higher,
Till the Angel who stands nighest
To the Throne shall tune his lyre
To your praise before the Highest,
And the Crown of Fame Immortal shall be yours throughout all time.

HAVE YE COUNTED THE COST?

I

Will our Leaders faint and falter
At the foes they have to bind—
The Ignorance and Prejudice,
Bigot heart and shallow mind?
Do they tremble at the ordeal
That is looming from afar—
The battle, and the hero-death,
And vict'ry's fiery car?

II

Ah! the brave ones! Lion-hearted!
They whose prophet-accents rung,
As if pentecostal fires
Had been kindled on their tongue;
Some with words of soft persuasion,
Melting hearts of stern and strong,
Like the minor chord that waketh
All our tears in Irish song.

III

Some with glance, like eagles, fearless,
And great thoughts that kindle deeds,
Bowing souls of men before them
As the storm-wind sweeps the reeds.
Will they sink down, pale and weary?
Vain is preaching to the wind,
Burning words and supplications—
Slavish souls are deaf and blind.

IV

Never! Like the protomartyr,
Ages since on Judah's plains,
While around him, furious raging,
Stood the fierce, unbranded Cains;
So, sublime in holy daring,
Stand our Leaders calmly there,
Though such grief their spirit's clouding
As might quickly fade young hair.

V

Grief for the idiot people,
Who, with suicidal hand,
Strive to the bind the fetters closer
On their prostrate, bleeding land.
But a silver cord of gladness
Is inwoven in the gloom—
Through the midnight of our sadness,
Brightest stars from heaven loom.

VI

Morning comes when night is darkest,
Near to evil good will spring,
As the Indian serpent resteth
On the leaf that heals its sting.
Braver spirits will enkindle,
To redeem our abject race;
Noble hearts will beat yet nobler,
To retrieve our past disgrace.

VII

Brighter still, and brighter shining,
Seems the glory of the few,
Who, in face of earth and heaven,
Swear to God they dare be true.
Let the masses pass on scorning,
Seek not courage in their mind;
Self-devotion, patriot fervour,
Spring not from the craven kind.

VIII

Abject tears, and prayers submissive—
Have they eyes, and cannot see?
Never country gained her freedom
When she sued on bended knee.
Be our Leaders, then, still daring,
Bold in word, and brave in fight;
And when comes the day of trial,
Then, may God defend the Right!

THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS.

I

Lift up your pale faces, ye children of sorrow,
The night passes on to a glorious to-morrow!
Hark! hear you not sounding glad Liberty's pæan,
From the Alps to the Isles of the tideless Ægean?
And the rhythmical march of the gathering nations,
And the crashing of thrones 'neath their fierce exultations,
And the cry of Humanity cleaving the ether,
With hymns of the conquering rising together—
God, Liberty, Truth! How they burn heart and brain—
These words shall they burn—shall they waken in vain?

II

No! soul answers soul, steel flashes on steel,
And land wakens land with a grand thunder-peal.
Shall we, oh! my Brothers, but weep, pray, and groan,
When France reads her rights by the flames of a Throne?
Shall we fear and falter to join the grand chorus,
When Europe has trod the dark pathway before us?
Oh, courage! and we, too, will trample them down,
The minions of power, the serfs of a crown.
Oh, courage! but courage, if once to the winds
Ye fling Freedom's banner, no tyranny binds.

III

At the voice of the people the weak symbols fall,
And Humanity marches o'er purple and pall,
O'er sceptre and crown, with a glorious disdain,
For the symbol must fall and Humanity reign.
Onward! then onward! ye brave to the vanguard,
Gather in glory round Liberty's standard!
Like France, lordly France, we shall sweep from their station
All, all who oppose the stern will of a nation;
Like Prussia's brave children will stoop to no lord,
But demand our just rights at the point of the sword.

IV

We'll conquer! we'll conquer! No tears for the dying,
The portal to Heaven be the field where they're lying.
We'll conquer! we'll conquer! No tears for the slain,
God's angels will smile on their death-hour of pain.
On, on in your masses dense, resolute, strong
To war against treason, oppression, and wrong;
On, on with your chieftains, and Him we adore most,
Who strikes with the bravest and leads with the foremost,
Who brings the proud light of a name great in story,
To guide us through danger unconquered to glory.

V

With faith like the Hebrew's we'll stem the Red Sea—
God! smite down the Pharaohs—our trust is in Thee;
Be it blood of the tyrant or blood of the slave,
We'll cross it to Freedom, or find there a grave.
Lo! a throne for each worker, a crown for each brow,
The palm for each martyr that dies for us now;
Spite the flash of their muskets, the roar of their cannon,
The assassins of Freedom shall lower their pennon;
For the will of a Nation what foe dare withstand?
Then Patriots, Heroes, strike! God for our Land!

RUINS.

I

Shall we tread the dust of ages,
Musing, dreamlike, on the past,
Seeking on the broad earth's pages
For the shadows Time hath cast;
Waking up some ancient story,
From each prostrate shrine or hall,
Old traditions of a glory
Earth may never more recall?

II

Poet thoughts of sadness breathing,
For the temples overthrown;
Where no incense now is wreathing,
And the gods are turned to stone.
Wandering by the graves of heroes,
Shrouded deep in classic gloom,
Or the tombs where Egypt's Pharaohs
Wait the trumpet and the doom.

III

By the city, desert-hidden,
Which Judea's mighty king
Made the Genii, at his bidding,
Raise by magic of his ring;
By the Lake Asphaltian wander,
While the crimson sunset glow
Flings its radiance, as we ponder
On the buried towns below.

IV

By the Cromleach, sloping downward,
Where the Druid's victim bled;
By those Towers, pointing sunward,
Hieroglyphics none have read:
In their mystic symbols seeking,
Of past creeds and rites o'erthrown,
If the truths they shrined are speaking
Yet in Litanies of Stone.

V

By the Temple of the Muses,
Where the climbers of the mount
Learned the soul's diviner uses
From the Heliconian fount.
By the banks of dark Illyssus,
Where the Parcæ walked of old,
In their crowns of white narcissus,
And their garments starred with gold.

VI

By the tomb of queenly Isis,
Where her fallen prophets wail,
Yet no hand has dared the crisis
Of the lifting of the vail.
By the altar which the Grecian
Raised to God without a name;
By the stately shrine Ephesian,
Erostratus burned for fame.

VII

By the Libyan shrine of Ammon,
Where the sands are trod with care,
Lest we, bending to examine,
Start the lion from his lair.
Shall we tread the halls Assyrian,
Where the Arab tents are set;
Trace the glory of the Tyrian,
Where the fisher speads his net?

VIII

Shall we seek the “Mene, mene,”
Wrote by God upon the wall,
While the proud son of Mandane
Strode across the fated hall?
Shall we mourn the Loxian's lyre,
Or the Pythian priestess mute?
Shall we seek the Delphic fire,
Though we've lost Apollo's lute?

IX

Ah! the world has sadder ruins
Than these wrecks of things sublime;
For the touch of man's misdoings
Leaves more blighted tracks than Time
Ancient lore gives no examples
Of the ruins here we find—
Prostrate souls for fallen temples,
Mighty ruins of the mind.

X

We had hopes that rose as proudly
As each sculptured marble shrine;
And our prophets spake as loudly
As their oracles divine.
Grand resolves of giant daring,
Such as Titans breathed of old;
Brilliant aims their front uprearing,
Like a temple roofed with gold.

XI

Souls of fire, like columns pointing,
Flamelike, upward to the skies;
Glorious brows, which God's anointing
Consecrated altar-wise.
Stainless hearts, like temples olden,
None but priest hath ever trod;
Hands as pure as were the golden
Staves which bore the ark of God.

XII

Oh! they built up radiant visions,
Like an iris after rain;
How all Paradise traditions
Might be made to live again.
Of Humanity's sad story,
How their hand should turn the page,
And the ancient primal glory,
Fling upon this latter age.

XIII

How with Godlike aspirations,
Up the souls of men would climb,
Till the fallen, enslavéd nations
Trod in rhythmic march sublime;
Reaching heights the people knew not,
Till their Prophet Leaders led—
Bathed in light that mortals view not,
While the spirit life lies dead.

XIV

How the pallid sons of labour,
They should toil, and toil to raise,
Till a glory, like to Tabor,
Once again should meet earth's gaze.
How the poor, no longer keeping
Count of life alone by groans,
With the strong cry of their weeping,
Start the angels on their thrones.

XV

Ah! that vision's bright ideal,
Must it fade and perish thus?
Must its fall alone be real?
Are its ruins trod by us?
Ah! they dreamed an Eldorado,
Given not to mortal sight;
Yet the souls that walk in shadow,
Still bend forward to its light.

XVI

Earnest dreamers, sooth we blame not
If ye failed to reach the goal—
If the glorious Real came not
At the strong prayer of each soul.
By the path ye've trod to duty,
Blessings yet to man may flow,
Though the proud and stately beauty
Of your structure lieth low.

XVII

Low as that which Salem mourneth,
On Moriah's holy hill;
While the heathen proudly scorneth,
Yet the wrecks are glorious still:
Like the seven columns frowning,
On the desert city down;
Or the seven cedars crowning
Lofty Lebanon.

XVIII

Poet wanderer, hast thou bent thee
O'er such ruins of the soul?
Pray to God that some Nepenthe
May efface that hour of dole.
We may lift the shrine and column,
From the dust which Time hath cast;
Choral chants may mingle solemn,
Once again where silence passed;

XIX

But the stately, radiant palace,
We had built up in our dreams,
With Hope's rainbow-woven trellis,
And Truth's glorious sunrise beams;
Our aims of towering stature,
Our aspirations vain,
And our prostrate human nature—
Who will raise them up again?

Palmyra, or Tadmor.

DISCIPLINE.

I

Close the starry dream-portal,
We must tread earth again,
Flashes no light immortal
Now on life's dreary plain.
We must wait, like the Stoic,
Brave, enduring, and strong,
Till the soul's strength heroic
Bends the fetters of wrong.

II

By the lore life has brought us,
We shall fathom man's soul;
By the tears sorrow taught us,
We shall measure their dole.
Guide them on through affliction,
All earth's Saviours have trod,

Till from life's crucifixion
They can soar up to God.

III

From the heart of man weeding
Up each rough brier and thorn,
With a hero-pride treading
Down the world's shallow scorn;
With a saint's self-denying
Toiling still for our land;
With a Christ-strength defying
Earth and Hell's gathered band.

IV

In the soul's earnest travail
Must the God-work be wrought;
By the world's woe and cavil,
Must the deep heart be taught.
Blighted youth, crushed ambition,
On the altar must lie;
'Tis the world-old tradition,
Thus the Prophet must die.

V

But this deep lore can only
Be learnéd in the gloom,
Where the gifted tread, lonely,
The Prophet-path of doom:
For by life-blood, and brain-sweat,
Is the altar-flame fed;
And from hearts crushed by pain, yet
Must the incense be shed.

VI

Still, 'tis grand this wild warring,
Upon life's battle-field;
Fear not the heart's marring
If the soul never yield.
Fight for God's Truth yet longer,
'Gainst the fierce storms of life,
For the strong soul grows stronger
By the combat and strife.

THE EXODUS.

I

“A million a decade!” Calmly and cold
The units are read by our statesmen sage;
Little they think of a Nation old,
Fading away from History's page;
Outcast weeds by a desolate sea—
Fallen leaves of Humanity.

II

“A million a decade!”—of human wrecks,
Corpses lying in fever sheds—
Corpses huddled on foundering decks,
And shroudless dead on their rocky beds;
Nerve and muscle, and heart and brain,
Lost to Ireland—lost in vain.

III

“A million a decade!” Count ten by ten,
Column and line of the record fair;
Each unit stands for ten thousand men,
Staring with blank, dead eye-balls there;
Strewn like blasted trees on the sod,
Men that were made in the image of God.

IV

“A million a decade!”—and nothing done;
The Cæsars had less to conquer a world;
And the war for the Right not yet begun,
The banner of Freedom not yet unfurled:
The soil is fed by the weed that dies;
If forest leaves fall, yet they fertilise.

V

But ye—dead, dead, not climbing the height,
Not clearing a path for the future to tread;
Not opening the golden portals of light,
Ere the gate was choked by your piled-up dead:
Martyrs ye, yet never a name
Shines on the golden roll of Fame.

VI

Had ye rent one gyve of the festering chain,
Strangling the life of the Nation's soul;
Poured your life-blood by river and plain,
Yet touched with your dead hand Freedom's goal;
Left of heroes one footprint more
On our soil, tho' stamped in your gore—

VII

We could triumph while mourning the brave,
Dead for all that was holy and just,
And write, through our tears, on the grave,
As we flung down the dust to dust—
“They died for their country, but led
Her up from the sleep of the dead.”

VIII

“A million a decade!” What does it mean?
A Nation dying of inner decay—
A churchyard silence where life has been—
The base of the pyramid crumbling away:
A drift of men gone over the sea,
A drift of the dead where men should be.

IX

Was it for this ye plighted your word,
Crowned and crownless rulers of men?
Have ye kept faith with your crucified Lord,
And fed His sheep till He comes again?
Or fled like hireling shepherds away,
Leaving the fold the gaunt wolf's prey?

X

Have ye given of your purple to cover,
Have ye given of your gold to cheer,
Have ye given of your love, as a lover
Might cherish the bride he held dear,
Broken the Sacrament-bread to feed
Souls and bodies in uttermost need?

XI

Ye stand at the Judgment-bar to-day—
The Angels are counting the dead-roll, too;
Have ye trod in the pure and perfect way,
And ruled for God as the crowned should do?
Count our dead—before Angels and Men,
Ye're judged and doomed by the Statist's pen.

THE FAITHLESS SHEPHERDS.

“Os habent, et non loquuntur:
Oculos habent, et non vident.”

Dead!—dead! Ye are dead while ye live;
Ye've a name that ye live—but are dead.
Neither counsel nor love did ye give,
And your lips never uttered a word
While swift ruin downward sped,
And the plague raged on undisturbed.
Not a throb of true life in your veins,
Not a pulse in your passionless heart,
Not a thought in the dull, cold brains,
Of how ye should bear your part,
When summoned the strife to brave,
For our Country, with Death and the Grave.

Ye have gold for the follies of fashion,
And gold for its tinsel glare,
But none for the wild, sobbing passion
Wrung from the lips of despair.
False Shepherds and Guides are ye,
For the heart in each bosom is cold
As the ice on a frozen sea;
And your trappings of velvet and gold

Lie heavy and close as a pall,
When the steps of the bearers fall
On a grave, with measured tread;
For ye seem to live—but are dead.

Ye are dead!—ye are dead! stone by stone
The temple is crumbling down;
It will fall with a crash of doom,
For the night deepens dark in its gloom.
But ye look on with vacant stare,
Like men lying still in the tomb.
Stand forth! face the sun, if ye dare,
With your cold eyes unwet by a tear,
For your Country laid low on your bier,
And say—have ye stretched forth a hand
To raise up our desolate Land?

She dies—but ye flourish and grow
In the midst of the deadly maze:
Like the palm springing heavenward?—No,
But like weeds in the churchyard fed
By the vapours of death below,
Breathing round you a poisonous haze.
Go!—go! True life is not so—
For decay lies beneath your tread,
And the staff in your hand is a reed—
Too weak for your Country's need;
For you seem to live—but are dead.

Ye are dead!—ye are dead! Fling the clay
On the noble names—noble no more;
Leave the sword in the sheath to rust;
Let the banners be trailed in the dust;
And the memory perish away
Of the dead, who are dead evermore;
Blot them out from the book writ in gold.
Noble neither in deed nor in soul,
Are ye worthy to stand in the roll
Of the glorified heroes of old?

Has Ireland need of such sons?
Floating down with a silken sail,
On the crimson tide of her life, that runs
With a mournful, ceaseless wail,
Like rain pouring down from the eaves.
And ye laugh when the strangers deride
Her trials, the saddest and sorest,
And plunge the sword deep in her side;
And no kindly heart sighs or grieves
For her branches, all bare as a forest,
When the autumn wind scatters the leaves.

Laugh low with your perfumed breath,
For the air is heavy with death.
But ye hear not the gliding feet
Of the Future, that stands at your door;
For the roses lie heavy and sweet,
And too thick on your marble floor,
And the dead soul is dead to his call.
And your eyes are heavy with wine;
Ye see not the letters of flame,
Traced by a hand divine—
The writing of God on the wall—
“Ye are weighed, and found wanting”—Oh, shame!
Your life is a gilded lie;
And the wide world that doom has read,
With a shudder and chill of dread;
For the judgment of God is nigh,
And the universe echoes the cry—
You've a name that ye live—but are dead.

WORK WHILE IT IS CALLED TO-DAY.

No man hath hired us”—strong hands drooping,
Listless, falling in idleness down;
Men in the silent market-place grouping
Round Christ's cross of silent stone.

“No man hath hired us”—pale hands twining,
Stalwart forms bowed down to sue.
‘The red dawn is passed, the noon is shining,
But no man hath given us work to do.”

Then a voice pealed down from the heights of Heaven:
Men, it said, of the Irish soil!
I gave you a land as a Garden of Eden,
Where you and your sons should till and toil;
I set your throne by the glorious waters,
Where ocean flung round you her mighty bands,
That your sails, like those of your Tyrian fathers,
Might sweep the shores of a hundred lands.

Power I gave to the hands of your leaders,
Wisdom I gave to the lips of the wise,
And your children grew as the stately cedars,
That shadowed the rivers of Paradise.
What have ye done with my land of beauty—
Has the spoiler bereft her of robe and crown?
Have my people failed in a people's duty?
Has the wild boar trampled my vineyard down?

True, they answered, faint in replying—
Our vines are rent by the wild boar's tusks;
The corn on our golden slopes is lying,
But our children feed on the remnant husks.
Our strong men lavish their blood for others;
Our prophets and wise men are heard no more;
Our young men give a last kiss to their mothers,
Then sail away for a foreign shore.

From wooded valleys and mountain gorges,
Emerald meadow and purple glen,
Across the foam of the wild sea surges,
They flee away like exiled men.
Yet, the chant we hear of the new Evangels,
Rising like incense from earth's green sod;

We—we alone, before worshipping Angels,
Idly stand in the Garden of God.

Then the Lord came down from the heights of Heaven,
Came down that garden fair to view,
Where the weary men waited from morn till even,
For some one to give them work to do.
Ye have sinned, He said, and the angel lustre
Darkened slowly as summer clouds may;
Weeds are growing where fruit should cluster,
Yet, ye stand idle all the day.

Have ye trod in the furrows, and worked as truly
As men who knew they should reap as they sow?
Have ye flung in the seed and watched it duly,
Day and night, lest the tares should grow?
Have ye tended the vine my hand hath planted,
Pruned and guided its tendrils fair;
Ready with life-blood, if it were wanted,
To strengthen the fruit its branches bear?

Have ye striven in earnest, working solely
To guard my flock in their native fold?
Are your hands as pure, and your hearts as holy,
As the saints who walk in the City of Gold?
Go! work in my vineyard, let none deceive ye,
Each for himself his work must do;
And whatever is right shall my Angels give ye,
The work and the workman shall have their due.—

Who knoweth the times of the new dispensations?
Go on in faith, and the light will come;
The last may yet be the first amongst nations,
Wait till the end for the final doom.
The last may be first! Shall our Country's glory
Ever flash light on the path we have trod?
Who knows?—who knows?—for our future story
Lies hid in the great sealed Book of God.

TO-DAY!

I

Has the line of the Patriots ended,
The race of the heroes failed,
That the bow of the mighty, unbended,
Falls slack from the hands of the quailed?
Or do graves lie too thick in the grass
For the chariot of Progress to pass?

II

Did the men of the past ever falter?
The stainless in name and fame.
They flung life's best gifts on the altar
To kindle the sacrifice flame,
Till it rose like a pillar of light
Leading up from Egyptian night.

III

Oh! hearts all aflame, with the daring
Of youth leaping forth into life!
Have ye courage to lift up, unfearing,
The banner fallen low in the strife,
From hands faint through life's deepest loss,
And bleeding from nails of the cross?

IV

Can ye work on as they worked—unaided,
When all but honour seemed lost?
And give to your Country, as they did,
All, without counting the cost?
For the children have risen since then
Up to the height of men.

V

Now, swear by those pale martyr-faces,
All worn by the furrows of tears,
By the lost youth no morrow replaces,
By all their long-wasted years,
By the fires trod out on each hearth,
When the Exiles were driven forth;

VI

By the young lives so vainly given,
By the raven hair blanched to grey,
By the strong spirits crushed and riven,
By the noble aims faded away,
By their brows, as the brows of a king,
Crowned by the circlet of suffering—

VII

To strive as they strove, yet retrieving
The cause from all shadow of blame,
In the Congress of Peoples achieving
A place for our nation and name;
Not by war between brothers in blood,
But by glory made perfect through good.

VIII

We are blind, not discerning the promise,
'Tis the sword of the Spirit that kills;
Give us Light, and the fetters fall from us,
For the strong soul is free when it wills.
Not our wrongs but our sins make the cloud
That darkens the land like a shroud.

IX

With this sword like an Archangel's gleaming,
Go war against Evil and Sin,
'Gainst the falsehood, and meanness, and seeming
That stifle the true life within.
Your bonds are the bonds of the soul,
Strike them off, and you spring to the goal!

X

O men who have passed through the furnace,
Assayed like the gold, and as pure!
By your strength can the weakest gain firmness
The strongest may learn to endure,
When once they have chosen their part,
Though the sword may drive home to each heart.

XI

O Martyrs! The scorners may trample
On the broken hearts strewed in their path;
But the young race, all flushed by example,
Will awake to the duties it hath,
And re-kindle your own torch of Truth
With the passionate splendours of youth!

A REMONSTRANCE,

ADDRESSED TO D. FLORENCE M'CARTHY, M.R.I.A.

Stand on the heights, O Poet! nor come down
Amid the wise old serpents, coiled around
The Tree of Knowledge in Academies.
The Poet's place is by the Tree of Life,
Whose fruit turns men to Gods, and makes them live,
Not seeking buried treasure in the tombs.
Leave the dim records of a by-gone age
To those great Archivists, who flash the torch
Of Truth along Time's mouldering records,
Illuminating all the fading Past,
Like golden letters on an ancient scroll.
The Poet soars with eagles, breathes pure ether,
Basks in the light that suns the mountain peak,
And sings, from spirit altitudes, such strains,
That all the toilers in life's rugged furrows
Are forced, for once, to lift the bow'd-down head,
And look on Heaven. Flashes from Poet's words
Electric light, strong, swift, and sudden, like
The clash of thunder-clouds, by which men read
God's writing legibly on human hearts.

O Poet-Prophets! God hath sent ye forth
With lips made consecrate by altar fire,
To guide the Future, not to tread the Past;
To chaunt, in glorious music, man's great hymn,
The watchword of humanity—Advance!
Advance in Wisdom, Nobleness, and Truth,
High aims, high purposes, and self-control,
Which is self-reverence, knowing we shall stand
With crownéd angels before God's great throne
The Poet nerves the arm to do great deeds,
Inspires great thoughts, flings o'er the tears of life
The rainbow arch, to save us from despair;
Quickens the stagnant energies to act,
Bears the advancing banner of the age,
Full in the van of all Humanity;
And, with a strength, God-given, rolls the stone,
As angels may, from off the Sepulchre
Where souls lie bound, bidding them rise and live.

O Poet! preach this Gospel once again—
True Life, true Liberty, God's gifts to man;
Freedom from servile aims and selfish ends,
That swathe and bind the kingly spirit down,
Like Egypt's grave-clothes on the royal dead;
Scatter the golden grain of lofty thoughts
From which spring hero-deeds—that so, in truth,
Our Future may be nobler than our Past,
In all that makes a nation's life divine—
This is the Poet's mission, therefore—Thine.

On reading his Essay on the Collation of Certain Ancient Spanish Manuscripts, printed from the proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

FRANCE IN '93.

I.

Hark! the onward heavy tread—
Hark! the voices rude—
'Tis the famished cry for Bread
From a wildered multitude.

They come! They come!
Point the cannon—roll the drum;
Thousands wail and weep with hunger—
Faster let your soldiers number.
Sword, and gun, and bayonet
A famished people's cries have met.

II.

Hark! the onward heavy tread—
Hark! the voices rude—
'Tis the famished cry for Bread
From an armed multitude.
They come! They come!
Not with meek submission's hum.
Bloody trophy they have won,
Ghastly glares it in the sun—
Gory head on lifted pike.
Ha! they weep not now, but strike.

III.

Ye, the deaf ones to their cries—
Ye, who scorned their agonies—
'Tis no longer prayers for bread
Shriek in your ears the famishéd;
But wildly, fiercely, peal on peal,
Resoundeth—Down with the Bastile!
Can ye tame a people now?
Try them—flatter, promise, vow,
Swear their wrongs shall be redressed—
But patience—time will do the rest;
Swear they shall one day be fed—
Hark! the People—Dead for Dead!

IV.

Calculating statesmen, quail;
Proud aristocrat, grow pale;
Savage sounds that deathly song:
Down with tyrants! Down with wrong!
Blindly now they wreak revenge—
How rudely do a mob avenge!

What! coronetted Prince or Peer,
Will not the base-born slavelings fear
Sooth, their cry is somewhat stern:
Aristocrats, à la Lanterne!
Ghastly fruit their lances bear—
Noble heads with streaming hair;
Diadem and kingly crown
Strike the famine-stricken down.
Now, the People's work is done—
On they stride o'er prostrate throne;
Royal blood of King and Queen
Streameth from the guillotine;
Wildly on the people goeth,
Reaping what the noble soweth.
Little dreamed he, prince or peer,
Of who should be his heritor.
Hunger now, at last, is sated
In halls where once it wailed and waited;
Wild Justice fiercely rives the laws
Which failed to right a people's cause.
On that human ocean floweth,
Whither stops it no one knoweth—
Surge the wild waves in their strength
Against all chartered rights at length—
Throne, and King, and Noble fall;
But the People—they hold Carnival!

THE FALL OF THE TYRANTS.

A Spanish Ballad, 1492.

I

Ho! Spaniards! rise for Liberty—your country on ye calls,
To fight to-day, in proud array, before Granáda's walls;
A proud array is here to-day, full fifty thousand strong,
Of Fantassins and Cavaliers Gonzalo leads along.

II

From Leon to Granáda—from Corunna to Sevílle,
Gather, Spaniards, gather, by the banks of the Xenil!
Eight hundred years of blood and tears beneath a foreign sway—
Eight hundred years of blood and tears must be avenged to-day.

III

Think of your ancient glory, Oh ye lions of León!
And how in ancient story your great lion name was won;
Think of Zamora's conquest field, and royal Douro's flood—
How ye bridged with Moslem corses, and swam it in their blood.

IV

And, mountaineers, have ye no tears to be avenged today—
Asturians, and Gallicians, and wild dwellers by Vizcày?
Ye, the unconquered remnant of the brave old Celtic race—
For ne'er could Roman, Goth, or Moor, your nationhood efface.

V

Ye, too, proud Gothic nobles! by your memories as men,
Will never fail, or shrink, or quail to meet the Saracen;
Ye, 'fore whose conquering arm were the bravest forced to yield,
Who smote the Suevi in their tent—the Romans in the field.

VI

Now, now, oh, shame and misery! a stranger rules your lands!—
A stranger's spoil is your native soil—a stranger's voice commands;
Ye, princes once and chieftains, ere the false foe crossed the flood,
Now, drawers of their water and base hewers of their wood!

VII

And, Adalusian Brothers, of the old Vandalic race,
Will ye alone 'midst Spaniards, be proud of your disgrace?
They flatter, fawn, but hate you, these proud foes to whom you've sold
Your Liberty for mocking smiles—your country for their gold.

VIII

They own your stately palaces, they desecrate your shrines,
They trample on your vineyards, yet ye stoop to drink their wines;
Ye wear their silk, their gold, their gems, and to their feasts ye run;
Now shame for ye, my brothers, is it thus that Freedom's won?

IX

Back to your wild sierras, better die there in your homes
Than cringingly bow low beneath your masters' haughty domes;
Their Syrian silks, their Indiam gems, go—fling them to the sea,
But keep their Syrian steel, for it will help to set us free.

X

Oh! by your ancient memories, rise Prince, and Peer, and Chief—
Smite down the foe that wrought our woe at Gebel el Taríf.
The robber horde awaits your sword—draw, Spaniards! for your land!
The crown ye lost by Roderic, regain it by Fernand!

XI

No coward fears—eight hundred years ye've lived as slaves, not men;
But swords makes bright each chartered right—ye'll have your own again.

Brave hearts and leal of proud Castile—Revenge, on Mauritania!
Rend earth and sky with your gathering cry: Charge! Cierra Espana!

XII

As tempests sweep the surging deep, thus on the Moorish ranks
Dashes the Spanish chivalry; they charge on van and flanks.
From Calpe's rock the thunder-shock re-echoes o'er the main—
Now, God and Santiago, for our Liberty and Spain!

XIII

Little they think of mercy, these slaves of eight hundred years;
Never they spare a foeman, these bold true Iberian spears.
Crescènted hosts your taunting boasts this day find answer meet,
For the light of Heaven is darkened by the dust of your flying feet.

XIV

Granàda falls! From the Castle walls tear down the Alien's rag—
On turret and Alcàzar, comrades, up with our ancient flag!
It floats from the proud Alhambra! Thank God, we've lived to see
Our ancient standard waving once again above the Free!

XV

Pass out, ye weeping people; aye, weep—for never more
Shall ye gather in Granàda by the sound of Atambór;
For, by the rood, ye Moslem brood, we swore it in Castile,
Never again should Spain be ruled by foreign Alquazil.

XVI

O Moorish King! by suffering thou has earned a name to-day —
But we give thee life, Abdallah; pass onwards on thy way.

Accursed race, the foul disgrace thy rule hath brought on Spain,
Is cleansed away in blood to-day—we drive thee 'cross the main.

XVII

By Elvira's gate he goeth, all solemnly and slow—
One last look at Granàda, ere they pass that gate of woe.
“Oh, better far thy scimitar had laid thee with the dead,
Than weep for what thou could'st not keep”—the proud Zoràya said.

XVIII

Allah, Allah Hu Akbar! what sorrow like my sorrows?
Thus he goeth weeping by the way of Alpujarras;
Allah, Allah Hu Akbar! on his tomb is written down—
The King who lost a Kingdom when great Spain regained her Crown.

Abdallah is known in history as “El triste Rey.”

This taunt of the Sultana mother is related by Condé.

WHO WILL SHOW US ANY GOOD?

I.

Beautiful Ireland! Who will preach to thee?
Souls are waiting for lips to vow;
And outstretched hands, that fain would reach to thee,
Yearn to help, if they knew but how,
To lift the thorn-wreath off thy brow.

II.

Passionate dreamers have fought and died for thee,
Poets poured forth their lava song;
But dreamer and poet have failed as a guide for thee—
Still are unriven the chains of wrong.

III.

Suffering Ireland! Martyr-Nation!
Blind with tears thick as mountain mist;
Can none amidst all the new generation
Change them to glory, as hills sun-kissed
Flash lights of opal and amethyst?

IV.

Welcome a Hero! A man to lead for us,
Sifting true men from chaff and weeds;
Daring and doing as those who, indeed, for us
Proved their zeal by their life and deeds.

V.

Desolate Ireland! Saddest of mothers,
Waits and weeps in her island home;
But the Western Land—has she help for others
Who feeds her eagles on blood of brothers?
Not with cannon or roll of drum,
Or foreign flag can our triumph come.

VI.

Why seek aid from the arm of a stranger?
Trust thy sons, O Mother! for good;
Braver can none be in hours of danger,
Proudly claiming thy rights withstood.

VII.

Then, Ireland! wake from thy vain despairing!
Grand the uses of life may be;
Heights can be reached by heroic daring,
Crowns are won by the brave and free,
And Nations create their own destiny.

VIII.

But, Time and the hour fleet fast unbidden,
A turbid stream over golden sands;
And too often the gold is scattered or hidden,
While we stand by with listless hands.

IX.

Then seize the least grain as it glistens and passes,
Swift and sure is that river's flight:
The glory of morning the bright wave glasses,
But the gold and glory soon fade from sight,
And noon-tide splendours will change to night.

X.

Ah! life is too brief for languor or quarrel,
Second by second the dead drop down;
And souls, all eager to strive for the laurel,
Faint and fall ere they win the crown.

XI.

Ireland rests mid the rush of progression,
As a frozen ship in a frozen sea;
And the changeless stillness of life's stagnation,
Is worse than the wildest waves could be,
Rending the rocks eternally.

XII.

Then, trumpet-tongued, to a people sleeping,
Who will speak with magic command,
Bidding them rise—these dead men, keeping
Watch by the dead in a silent land?

XIII.

Grandly, solemnly, earnestly preaching,
Man's great gospel of Truth and light;
With lips like saints' in their love beseeching,
Hands as strong as a prophet's to smite
The foes to Humanity's sacred right.

XIV.

Earth is thrilling with new aspirations,
Rending the fetters that bar and ban;
But we alone of the Christian nations
Fall to the rear in the march of Man.

XV.

Alas! can I help? but a nameless singer—
Weak the words of a woman to save;
We wait the advent of some light-bringer,
Strong to roll the stone from the grave,
And summon to life the death-bound slave.

XVI.

Down from heights of the Infinite drifting,
Raising the prisoned soul from gloom;
Like the white angels of God uplifting
Seal and stone from the Saviour's tomb.

XVII.

Yet, hear me now, for a Nation pleading;
Strike! but with swords yet keener than steel;
Flash on the path the new Age is treading,
As sparks from grooves of the iron wheel,
In star-flames its onward march reveal.

XVIII.

Work by the shore where our broad ocean rages,
Bridging it over by wraiths of steam;
Linking two worlds by a chain that sages
Forged in the heat of a science dream.

XIX.

For Nature has stamped us with brand immortal,
Highway of nations our Land must be:
We hold the keys of the Old-world portal,
We guard the pass of the Western Sea—
Ireland, sole in her majesty!

XX.

Work! there is work for the thinker and doer,
And glory for all when the goal is won;
So we are true to our Country, or truer
Than Planets are to the central Sun.

XXI.

Call from the hills our own Irish Eagle,
Spread its plumes on the “The Green” of old;
With a sunrise blaze, as a mantle regal,
Turning the dusk-brown wings to gold—
Symbol and flag be it then unrolled!

XXII.

Face Heaven's light with as proud a daring,
Tread the heights with a step as grand,
Breast the wild storm with brave hearts unfearing
As kings might do for their rightful land.

XXIII.

Irish daring by land and by river,
Irish wealth from mountain and mine,
Irish courage so strong to deliver,
Irish love as strong to combine
Separate chords in one strain divine;

XXIV.

These are the forces of conquering power,
Chains to sever, if slaves we be;
Then strike in your might, O Men of the hour!
And Ireland springs on the path of the free!

HAVE WE DONE WELL FOR IRELAND?

O country, writhing in thy chain
With fierce, wild efforts to be free,
Not seeing that with every strain
The bonds close firmer over thee;
Or grasping blindly in thy hate
The temple pillars of the State,
To hurl them down on friend and foe,
Crushed in one common overthrow—
Can none of all thy Poet band
Preach nobler aims, loved Ireland?

As David drove with magic chords
The Evil Spirit back to night;
As Moses by his mighty words
Led Egypt's bondmen up to light;
Hast thou no Poet, strong to calm
Thy troubled soul with holy psalm?
Or trusted Chief, who, safely on
Across the fatal Rubicon,
Could lead thee with pure heart and hand
To Freedom—my own Ireland?

By those doomed men, in dull despair
Slow wasting in a dungeon's gloom;
By all youth's fiery heart can dare
Quenched in the prison's living tomb—
By the corroding felon chain,
That tortures with Promethean pain
Of vultures gnawing at the core
Of their lost lives for evermore—
I ask you, People of our Land,
Have ye done well for Ireland?

By History traced on dungeon walls,
By scaffolds, chains, and exiles' tears,
Slow marking, as the shadow falls,
The mournful sequence of the years;

By genius crushed and progress barred,
By noble aspirations marred,
Till with a smouldering fire's life
They burn in deadly hate and strife—
I ask you, Rulers of our Land,
Have ye done well for Ireland?

O Men! these men are brothers too,
Tho' frenzied by a fatal dream,
Their living souls were meant to do
Some noble work in God's great scheme,
Perchance to hew down, branch and root,
The tree that bore such bitter fruit;
But, left unguided in the Right,
They grope out blindly in the night
Of their dark passions; striking down
Their Country's proud hopes with their own.

But now, ye say, the Land hath rest—
Aye, with the death weights on her eyes;
And fettered arms across her breast,
And mail'd hands stifling down her cries.
So rests a corpse within the grave
O'er which the charnal grasses wave.
Oh, better far some kindly word
To stay the vengeance-lifted sword,
Or Love, with queenly, outstretched hand,
To soothe thee—fated Ireland!

WILLIAM CARLETON.

[_]

died, January 30th, 1869.

Our land has lost a glory! Never more,
Tho' years roll on, can Ireland hope to see
Another Carleton, cradled in the lore
Of our loved Country's rich humanity.

The weird traditions, the old, plaintive strain,
The murmured legends of a vengeful past,
When a down-trodden people strove in vain
To rend the fetters centuries made fast;

These, with the song and dance and tender tale,
Linked to our ancient music, have swept on
And died in far-off echoes, like the wail
Of Israel's broken Harps in Babylon.
No hand like his can wake them now, for he
Sprang from amidst the people: bathed his soul
In their strong passions, stormy as the sea,
And wild as skies before the thunder-roll.

Yet, was he gentle; with divinest art
And tears that shook his nature over much,
He struck the key-note of a people's heart,
And all the nation answered to his touch,
Even as he swayed them, giving smiles for gloom,
And childlike tenderness for hate that kills—
As rain clouds threat'ning with a weight of doom
Flash sudden, silver light upon the hills.

But, he had faults—men said. Oh, fling them back,
These cold deductions, marring praise with blame;
When earthquakes rend the rocks they leave a track
For central fires issuing forth in flame;
And by the passionate heat of gifted minds
The ruddest stones are crystallised to gems
Of glorious worth, such as a poet binds
Upon his brow, right royal diadems!

Like the great image of the Monarch's dream,
Genius lifts up on high the head of gold,
And cleaves with iron limbs Time's mighty stream,
Tho' all too deep the feet may press earth's mould.
Yet, by his gifts made dedicate to God
In noblest teachings of each gentle grace,
Through every land that Irishmen have trod
We claim for him the homage of our race.

With pen of light he drew great pictures when
Nothing but scorn was ours; and without fear
He flung them down before the face of men,
Saying, in words the whole world paused to hear:
So brave, so pure, so noble, grand, and true
Is this, our Irish People. Thus he gave
His fame to build our glory, and undo
The taunts of ages,—strong to lift and save

So, with a nation's gratitude we vow
In every Irish heart a shrine shall be
To The Great Peasant, on whose deathless brow
Rests the star-crown of immortality.
The kings of mind, unlike the kings of earth,
Can bear their honours with them to illume
The grave's dark vault; so Carleton passes forth,
As through triumpal arches, to the tomb!

THE NEW PATH.

I

We stand in the light of a dawning day,
With its glory creation flushing;
And the life-currents up from the pris'ning clay
Through the world's great heart are rushing.
While from peak to peak of the spirit land
A voice unto voice is calling:
The night is over, the day is at hand,
And the fetters of earth are falling!

II

Yet, faces are pale with a mystic fear
Of the strife and trouble looming;
And we feel that mighty changes are near,
Tho' the Lord delayeth his coming.

For the rent flags hang from each broken mast,
And down in the ocean's surges
The shattered wreck of a foundering Past
Sinks mid the night wind's dirges.

III

But the world goes thundering on to the light,
Unheeding our vain presages;
And nations are cleaving a path to Right
Through the mouldering dust of ages.
Are we, then, to rest in a chill despair,
Unmoved by these new elations;
Nor carry the flag of our Island fair
In the onward march of nations?

IV

Shall our hands be folded in slumber, when
The bonds and the chains are shattered;
As stony and still as enchanted men,
In a cave of darkness fettered?
The cave may be dark, but we'll flash bright gleams
Of the morning's radiance on it,
And tread the New Path, tho' the noontide beams,
As yet, fall faintly upon it.

V

For souls are around us, with gifts divine,
Unknown and neglected dying;
Like the precious ore in a hidden mine,
Unworked and as useless lying.
We summon them forth to the banded war,
The sword of the Spirit using,
To come with their forces from near and far,
New strength with our strength infusing.

VI

Let each bear a torch with the foremost bands,
Through the Future's dark outgoing;
Or stand by the helm, mid the shoals and sands
Of the river of life fast flowing.

Or as guides on the hills, with a bugle note,
Let us warn the mountain ranger
Of the chasms that cross and the mists that float
O'er his upward path of danger.

VII

For the chasms are deep, and the river is strong,
And the tempest is wildly waking;
We have need of brave hands to guide us along
The path which the Age is taking.
With our gold and pearls let us build the State;
Faith, courage, and tender pity
Are the gems that shine on the golden gate
Of the Angels' Heavenly city.

VIII

O People! so richly endowed with all
The splendours of spirit power,
With the poet's gift and the minstrel-soul,
And the orator's glorious dower;
Are hearts not amongst us, or lips to vow,
With patriot fervour breathing,
To crown with their lustre no alien brow
While the thorn our own is wreathing.

IX

Ev'n lovelier gifts on our lowly poor,
Kind Nature lavishly showers,
As the gold rain falls on the cottage door,
Of the glowing laburnam flowers;
The deathless love for their Country and God
Undimmed through the ages keeping,
Tho' the fairest harvests that grew on our sod
Were left for the strangers' reaping.

X

The gentle grace that to commonest words
Gives a rare and tender beauty;
With the zeal that would face a thousand swords
For their Country, home and duty.

Still breathing the prayer for their Motherland
Her wrongs and her sorrows taught them;
Tho' the scaffold's doom, or the felon-brand,
Were the only gifts she brought them.

XI

But we, let us bring her—as eastern kings,
At the foot of Christ low kneeling—
The gold that symbols our costliest things,
And myrrh for the spirit's healing
Oh, Brothers! be with us, our aim is high,
The highest of man's vocation:
With these priceless jewels, that round us lie,
To build up a noble Nation.

O'CONNELL,

HIBERNIÆ LIBERATOR AD LIMINA APOSTOLORUM PERGENS GENOÆ OBDORMIVIT.

Crowned with a liberated people's love,
Crowned by the Nations with eternal fame,
His great heart burning still with patriot-fire,
Tho' Death's pale shadow rested on his brow,
Forth went the mighty Chief from his loved Land,
'Mid the hushed reverence paid to dying Kings,
On his last pilgrimage; yearning to find rest
For the o'erwearied hero-heart and brain,
After great trials pass'd and triumphs won,
Within the Temple-City of the World.
But, faint with combats of a glorious life,
Tho' Freedom's hymns still murmured on his lips,
And his dim eyes still tracked the western Sun
Would rise on Ireland, but no more for him,
Seeking the gates of God's great Church on earth,
He found the gates of Heaven, and entered in

There Angels met him with the conqueror's Palm,
And passing from the portal to the Throne,
Circled with golden glitter of their wings,
God crowned him Victor for his work well done!

ASPIRATIONS.

Oh! for pinions to bear me sunward,
Ever and ever higher and onward;
With a glance of pride, and a wing of might,
Cleaving a path through the starry skies,
As the soul of a poet that heavenward flies,
Daring the depths of the Infinite.
Soaring and singing, still upward aspire,
Trailing a path through the crimson fire,
Bathing in oceans of purple and gold,
Treading the glory that men behold,
Like far-off fields of Elysian light,
Where angels walk in radiance bright;
And never to rest till the goal is won,
And I furl my wings at the blazing sun—
I alone, the Conquering One!

Then, said Love, I will lend thee mine;
And with strange enchantments, and many a sign,
He bound on me the wings divine.
Onward, onward—higher, higher,
Seemed to bear me those wings of fire;
Over the earth, the clouds, the moon,
Till the portals of Heaven glittered soon.
But, ah! too near the Sun of Truth
I passed, in the vain, proud spirit of youth;
And Love's cement could not, tho' strong,
Retain the glowing pinions on;
And they fell from my heart, and left it bare;
And so I sank down weeping there,
Into the fathomless sea of despair.

Long I lay in depth of dole,
Till a Voice like a trumpet stirred my soul:
My wings, it said, will bear thee far,
Over yon highest glittering star.
Glorious thoughts of high emprize,
These will lift thee to the skies,
Where the goal of glory lies.
Trust thy own undaunted will,
Let ambition's spirit fill
All thy being, till no height
Seems too distant or too bright,
Through the stars of upper air,
For a soul like thine to dare.

Then upon my spirit came
Flooding glory, like a flame;
And I soared away from the mountain height,
Filled with a strange and mad delight:
Away, away, over march and fen,
Over the heads of my fellow-men;
Hearing their choral praises rise,
As I soared away through the pathless skies,
In ever-echoing symphonies.
But never a rest till I reached the star
Ambition had pointed out afar;
Alas! I knew not the dazzling ray
Of its glory was made for no mortal sight—
And I sank back dazed with excess of light.

Still the proud wings bore me on,
I knew not whether, my sight was gone;
But I heard the tempest raging round,
And the rolling thunder's terrible sound,
As if all fierce passions were unbound.
And the wings Ambition had tied so fast,
Were rent from my soul by the tempest blast;
And down I sank to earth again,
Like the dead eagle on the plain,
By the blasting lightning slain.

Then I heard a low Voice near,
Murmuring softly in my ear:—
Shall I give thee wings of power,
Wings that will thy spirit dower,
With a strength that, angel-wise,
Up will waft thee to the skies?
Passing, unscathed, the Sun of Truth,
Fatal to wings of Love in sooth;
Past the false but glittering light,
Whose glory dimm'd thy mortal sight;
On, through the trackless firmament,
Where the wings Ambition lent,
By the stormy winds were rent.

Onward still, and ever higher,
Past the solar central fire,
Past the hymning angel choir;
Till thou standest at the Throne
Of the great Eternal One.
Ever more to dwell on high,
Breathing like a harmony,
Through the unnumber'd worlds that lie
Far in yon blue Infinity—
Wilt thou have these wings of mine?
Murmured that low Voice divine.

Yet my touch is cold and chill,
Horror through thy heart would thrill,
Pale dismay thy bosom fill,
Could'st thou see me face to face.
Never one of human race
Could that dreadful sight behold;
Mortal lips have never told,
All the terrors that abide,
All the gloom, yet kingly pride,
In the pale form at thy side.
Ha! the cold sweat on thy brow,
As I bind them on thee now:

Canst thou bear the touch of pain,
For the glory thou shalt gain?
Then I asked, with faltering breath
Thy name, dread Spirit? and he saith—
I who give these wings am Death!

THE PARABLE OF LIFE.

I

He treads alone the burning sand
Of the fiery desert plain;
No human heart is near to love,
No human hands sustain.
There are spirits dread in that region wild,
And they howl in the desert blast;
There are spirits lost, who wail and weep
As viewless they hurry past.

II

There are forms that man never looked upon,
Nor mortal eye could bear—
The terrible sight of an angel's brow,
On which is stamped despair.
No lofty palm-tree casts a shade,
Gusheth no silvery well,
Where the stately Giraffe stoops down to drink,
Or cometh the soft Gazelle.

III

For the desert islands of waving green
Are far, oh! far away;
And never a spot can the wanderer find
To rest from the noontide ray.
Oh! weary, weary, the changeless, waste,
Of that burning desert sand;
Oh! weary, weary, the changless sky,
Of that blasted fiery land!

IV

Weary to listen, with straining sense,
For the step or the voice of man;
To watch in despair, till the sun goes down,
For the wandering caravan.
But the sun goes down, and the white stars rise,
And never a sound is heard,
Save the roar of the Lion, the Panther's howl,
Or the scream of the carrion bird.

V

Still on the pale young wanderer goes—
On, without fear or dread,
The hot sand burning beneath his feet,
The hot sun above his head:
On, tho' never his fevered lips
Have been cooled in the desert springs;
For the soul that is filled with the Spirit of God,
Recks little of earthly things.

VI

On, tho' never the bending fruit
Of the palm-tree meets his hand;
No food, no rest, no shelter for him
In all that terrible land.
And the powers of Hell seem gathering round
That frail and gentle form,
But, sublime in the strength of faith, he stands
Unmoved, amid the storm.

VII

The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak,
He hath borne what a mortal can;
And down on the desolate waste he sinks,
A fainting, dying man.
Now the hot samiri approaches fast
The desert wind of dread;
Glaring upon the horizon's verge,
Like a pillar fiery red.

VIII

Onward it comes in its lurid light,
Like a giant form of death,
Blasting the earth, and air, and sky,
With its scorching, deadly breath.
The sands rise high as the billows at sea,
Raging when tempest-tossed:
Ah! the fiery column has reached him now—
Pale wanderer—thou art lost!

IX

It drinks the blood from his youthful cheek,
It burns up the life within;
And fiercely around him it dashes and whirls,
With a wild, unearthly din
Then he seems to hear a silvery flow,
Soft gushing, like Paradise streams;
For of such whom the desert kills, it is said,
These are the dying dreams.

X

And he lifts his head from the burning waste;
But in place of the silvery fall,
He sees but that lurid, fiery cloud
Encircling him as a pall.
Nearer and nearer it gathers round,
Stifling the half-breathed prayer,
And the fainting hands drop weary down,
That were lifted in mute despair.

XI

There's an hour of dread for human souls,
When help there seemeth none,
And the powers of Hell rage fierce around
The God-forsaken one;
'Tis the hour of dread, when souls are tired,
And angels are bending down,
Watching each one that resisteth to death,
To weave for him the crown,

XII

But an hour more dark, a trial more dread,
That Weary-one hath known;
For now he must fight the Lord of Hell,
In the desolate waste alone.
Oh! the burning breath of the fiery wind,
Hunger, and thirst, and woe—
What are they all to that strange, lone strife
With man's dark Demon-foe?

XIII

What terrible form the Tempter chose
Saw never a mortal eye—
Did he come in the flame, or the thunder-cloud,
Or flash as the lightning by?
Was his blasted brow as the midnight black,
Or wreathed with a lurid light,
Like the livid rays that play on the ice
In the gloom of a polar night?

XIV

None can tell; but the subtle words
He poured in the wanderer's ears,
Are echoed to us from that desert wild,
Through the long, long course of years.
And ages many have shadowed the earth
Since human woes began,
Yet still, with the self-same words and lures,
He tempteth the sons of man.

XV

Woe, woe to the suffering soul, unless
Sustained, O God, by Thee,
Who hears in its anguish the Tempter's words—
“Fall down, and worship me.”
Woe to the soul that ascends the mount
Of pomp, and power, and pride,
With the glories of earth within his reach,
And the Demon at his side.

XVI

But Christ, with His meek and holy brow,
Shuns not the deadly strife;
For His soul is strong in the armour of faith,
And His sword is the Word of Life.
The soul is strong, tho' the human frame
May faint 'neath the chastening rod;
And the Demon-foe recognises there
The mortal and the God.

XVII

With the radiant light of a stainless soul,
As a crown upon His brow,
How He forces the trembling Chief of Hell
To bend in homage low.
Thus, with His foot on the serpent's head,
He stands a triumphant king;
But the serpent fangs that have pierced His heel,
Sorrow and Death must bring.

XVIII

How glorious now is that frail, weak form,
Strong in the spirit within,
Standing alone in the desert of life,
Conquering Hell and Sin.
And we must tread the desert too,
Where want and woe assail;
We must war, like Christ, with the Prince of Hell,
We—human, weak, and frail.

XIX

The Tempter will come in those moments of life,
When the soul is dark with fears,
And we sit by the empty urn of joy,
Filling it with our tears;
When those we love, as shadows pass,
And we tread life's desert lone,
Without hope in heaven, or love upon earth,
Wearily ever on.

XX

It is then he will lead us to doubt upon God,
Doubt in His love for us;
And the murmuring soul he will tempt to ask—
“Why must I suffer thus?”
And pleasure and power will seem so near,
If we but kneel to him—
O God, keep from us the Tempter far,
When faith is burning dim!

XXI

O Christ, who hast known the Tempter's strength,
Bend from Thy throne of light;
Aid in the terrible strife with Hell,
Aid with Thy power and might.
Teach us to fight as Thou hast fought;
To conquer as Thou hast done;
That angels may bring from the starry skies
The plan for the conquering one.

XXII

For never yet was the Tempter foiled
By the might of Jehovah's name,
But holy joys in the sufferer's heart.
Like blessed angels came.
And the terrible strife, and the desert drear,
Will pass like earthly things;
But the soul that has conquered will rest in peace,
'Neath angels' shadowing wings.

VANITAS.

The glory of Life is fleeting;
Its splendour passeth away,
With tints and odours meeting
The flowers we twined to-day.

How brightly, in varied light,
They reflected the morning sun;
But the chilling dews of the night
Withered them one by one.

So the stream of Existence floweth
O'er the golden sands of youth,
In the light of a joy that gloweth
From the depths of its love and truth.

But heavy, and cold, and fast,
The gathering clouds uprise,
Eclipsing the light, which cast
On the waters a thousand dyes.

And onward, in sullen endeavour,
Like a stream in a sunless cave,
It floweth in darkness ever:
Yet—could we thus reach the grave!

But we wake to a sorrow deeper—
The knowledge of all we have lost;
And the light grows fainter and weaker
As we're borne from youth's sunny coast.

Yet onward with drifting motion,
Still farther from life and light;
Around us a desert Ocean—
Above us eternal Night.

DESTINY.

I

There was a star that lit my life—
It hath set to rise no more,
For Heaven, in mercy, withdrew the light
I fain would have knelt before.

II

There was a flower I pluck'd in my dreams,
Fragrant and fair to see;
Oh, would I had never awoke and found
Such bloom not here for me.

III

There was a harp, whose magic tone,
Echoed my faintest words—
But Destiny's hand, with a ruthless touch,
Hath rent the golden chords.

IV

There was a path like Eden's vale,
In which I was spell'd to stray,
But Destiny rose with a flaming sword
To guard that path alway.

V

I've looked on eyes were like the star—
Their light is quench'd for me;
And a soul I have known like the golden harp
That breath'd but melody.

VI

And moments bright as that dream-land
Where bloomed the radiant flower.
Oh! would I had died ere I felt the gloom
Of this dark, joyless hour.

VII

Fatal the time I rais'd mine eyes
To eyes whose light hath blasted—
Yet ere I could turn from their glance away,
Life had with gazing wasted.

VIII

Bitter the thought that years may pass—
Yet thus it must be ever,
To look on thy form, to hear thy voice—
But nearer—never, never.

IX

Could I but love as I love the stars,
Or the gush of the twilight breeze,
Or the pale light of the wandering moon
Glancing through forest trees;

X

With a sinless, calm, untroubled love,
Look upwards and adore—
Could I but thus gaze life away,
Without the wish to soar.

XI

In vain! in vain! I hope, I weep,
I kneel the long nights in prayer—
Oh! better to die in the noon of life,
Than love, and yet despair.

MEMORY.

“Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.”
—Dante.

When the gloom the light appalleth—
When no tear-dew ever falleth
Downward silently—
When the tired heart, from languor
Of Life's poor unmeaning clangour,
Droopeth wearily—
When the day, in its uprising,
Bringeth nought that's worth the prizing,
And the night, all dark and lonely,
No star showeth, but clouds only—
I think of thee.

Pleasures past, a ghastly vision—
Words and looks but now tradition
That thought brings;
Holy Kalends of past meetings
Rise again, with quick heart-beatings,
On spirit wings.
For a moment seems the vision
A reality Elysian
As the joy before the Fall;
While I gaze the brightness waneth,
Passeth, fadeth—what remaineth?
Ashes all!

CORINNE'S LAST LOVE-SONG.

I

How beautiful, how beautiful you streamed upon my sight,
In glory and in grandeur, as a gorgeous sunset-light!
How softly, soul-subduing, fell your words upon mine ear,
Like low aerial music when some angel hovers near!
What tremulous, faint ecstacy to clasp your hand in mine,
Till the darkness fell upon me of a glory too divine!
The air around grew languid with our intermingled breath,
And in your beauty's shadow I sank motionless as death.
I saw you not, I heard not, for a mist was on my brain—
I only felt that life could give no joy like that again.

II

And this was Love—I knew it not, but blindly floated on,
And now I'm on the ocean waste, dark, desolate, alone;
The waves are raging round me—I'm reckless where they guide;
No hope is left to light me, no strength to stem the tide.
As a leaf along the torrent, a cloud across the sky,
As dust upon the whirlwind, so my life is drifting by.
The dream that drank the meteor's light—the form from Heav'n has flown—
The vision and the glory, they are passing—they are gone.
Oh! love is frantic agony, and life one throb of pain;
Yet I would bear its darkest woes to dream that dream again.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN.

By the streams of living water,
Rest, my daughter.
Soul, I would not stay thy flight;

Jesus waiteth at the portal—
See, poor mortal,
Open stand the doors of light.

Let me go, life's tempest braven,
To the haven;
There, beside the Saviour's throne,
Where the choir of seraph voices
Now rejoices
In eternal jubal-tone.

By thy earthly Virgin Mother—
Saviour, Brother,
Thou hast known the gloom of death;
Through its shadows now I wander,
Angels yonder,
Keep me even as Jesus saith!

Now I see the distant glory—
Life's poor story
Ends, as it began, in pain.
Earthly form, doth it grieve me
Thus to leave thee?
No, for Christians die to reign.

What availeth life's brief sorrow?
Ere the morrow
Christ will change to smiles my sighs;
Dreaming, pass we through death's portal—
Then, immortal,
Waken up in Paradise.

Soul-Redeemer, by Thy power,
In this hour,
Keep faith's light from burning dim;
I am strong when Thou art near me—
Saviour, hear me!
Guard me with Thy Cherubim.

Thou the martyr's crown hath borne,
Shame and scorn,
All to save my soul from sin;

Thou the hosts of death assailest,
Sinner frailest
Through Thee rises conquering.

Prince of Life! my soul's endeavour,
Now and ever,
Be to sing Thy glorious love;
Death is conquered! Thou hast given
Peace from heaven—
Soon I'll chant Thy praise above!

SYMPATHIES WITH THE UNIVERSAL.

The Angel of the Universe, for ever stands he there
Within the planet circle, the grand Hierophant of prayer;
His altar is the eternal sun, his light its flames of gold,
And the stars are his rosary, through the hands of angels rolled.

Down, down, throughout the Infinite, they're falling, world on world;
Like coral beads from praying hands, the planet beads are hurled.
Thus, for unnumbered ages on their diamond string they run,
The circling planet rosary from Uranus to the Sun.

A rythmic music rises from that stately choral band,
Like a vibrant-chorded lyre when struck by angel hand;
Pealing down the deep abysses, soaring up the infinite,
The grand hymn of the Universe is sounding day and night.

The grand cathedral chanting from the choir of the spheres,
Within the star-roofed temple, tho' unheard by mortal ears.

Never prayer from lip ascendeth, or from spirit never groan,
But the flooding planet music bears it up before God's throne.

Thus, ages after ages, will the cherub, earnest eyed,
Within the starry temple of the Universe abide,
Till hymns of spheral litanies, till solemn chants are done,
Then he'll rise up from the altar within the glowing sun.

By his mighty pinions shaken, star falleth after star,
And he flings the planet rosary down from him afar;
As by an earthquake riven, temple, altar, falleth crush'd,
And the wailing planet music of the choral band is hush'd.

But he leads the praying spirits up from each burning world,
Till before the Throne in Heaven his radiant wings are furled.
There he resteth calm in glory, his holy mission done,
For within the Golden City, Altar, Temple, needeth none.

LA VIA DOLOROSA.

I wander here, I wander there,
Through the desert of life, all wearily;
No joy on earth for the pilgrim soul—
On, on for ever drearily;
O'er the mountain height,
In the tempest night,
Through the mist and the gloom,
We press on to the tomb,
While the death-like pall of a midnight sky
Hangs over past and futurity.

And the echo of wandering feet I hear,
And human voices and hearts are near;

But lonely, lonely each one goeth
On his dark path, and little knoweth
Of love, kind words, or sympathy.
Oh! fain would I lay me down and die;
For the upward glance of a tearful eye,
Is all I have known of humanity.
Yet must I on, tho' darker and drearer
And lonelier ever the pathway seems,
And the spectral shadow of death draws nearer,
And rare and faint are the sun-light gleams;
An unseen power impelleth us on—
No pause, no rest for the weary one,
Till we reach the shores of that fathomless sea
Where Time poureth down to Eternity.

SHADOWS FROM LIFE.

“Che bella es el sognar aunque es mentira!”

I

Vain the love that looketh upward; we may worship, may adore;
From the heart's o'erflowing chalice all the tide of feeling pour;
Dash our souls against the barriers that divide us from the shrine;
Fling the incense; pour libations—aye, of life's own ruddy wine;
But, the angel we gaze up to, calm as form of pictured saint,
From its golden mist of glory bendeth never to our plant;
Heedeth not if crushed the temple where the altar fires burned,
For the doom runs through the ages—Love was never yet returned.

II

Thus it was he loved a lady: never priest in Ispahàn
So adored when mount and ocean morning's flashing glories span.
Never sun-god in its glory, marching stately from the east,
Crimson-robed and cloud-attended, heeded less the praying priest,
Than the lady that pale lover, while her lonely path she took
O'er the spirit's glittering summits, with her proud and queenly look;
Like that Roman Sybil bearing in her hands the mystic scroll,
And her large eyes looking onward where the future ages roll.

III

So, in lone and lofty beauty, she stood high above the world,
Never heeding, dashing neathward, how life's stormy billows curled;
As a pine upon the mountain, warring tempests raging round,
As an island peak of ocean, with the starry midnight crowned.
How could she who trod the pathway of the spirit's starry zones
Stoop to listen, bending earthward, to a lover's murmuring tones?—
While her ear was gathering music from Creation's golden chords,
List the human tears low falling, with the pleading human words?

IV

And could he, who tracked the eagle borne on through cloud and light,
With her glorious regnant beauty filling soul and sense and sight,

Stoop to gaze on me, half-blasted by fierce Passion's fiery skies,
Only Love, the love of woman, burning strangely in my eyes?
Oh! I've watched his glance dilating, as it rested where afar
Rose her lofty brow, as riseth the pale glory of a star;
Heard the world's praise hymning round her, saw his cheek of flushing pride,
Whilst I, writhing in heart-agony, all calmly sat beside.

V

No rays of genius crowning, such as brows like hers enrol,
With no flashing thoughts, like North-lights, rushing up my darkned soul;
Waking but his earnest feelings with, perchance, my graver words,
While her spirit, like a tempest, swept the range of Passion's chords.
Oh, Woman! calmest sufferer! what deep agony oft lies
In thy low, false-hearted laughter, glancing bright through tearless eyes!
And how little deemed he truly that the calmest eyes he met
Were but Joy's funereal torches, on Life's ruined altar set.

VI

How could I light up his nature, with no glory in my own?
Soul like his, that throbbed and glittered in the radiance of her throne.
Bitter came the words of plaining:—Why should fate to me deny
All the beauty of the mortal, all the soul to deify?
What had she done, then, for Heaven, so that Heaven should confer
Every gift, to make man prostrate at her feet as worshipper?

Raised her high enough to scorn him—aye, to trample in disdain
On the heart flung down before her—heart that I had died to gain!

VII

Trod his love down calmly, queenly, like a mantle 'neath her feet,
While with lordly spirit-monarchs she moved proudly to her seat,
Grand as eagle in the zenith, with the noonday radiance crowned—
Lone and icy as an Alp-peak, with the circling glaciers round.
But an echo of all beauty through her fine-toned spirit rang,
As a golden harp re-echoes to each passing music clang,
Till in thrilling, clear vibrations rang her poet-words in air,
Summoning souls to lofty duties, as an Angelus to prayer.

VIII

Oh! she flung abroad her fancies, free as waves dash off the foam—
As the palm-tree flings its branches on the blue of Heaven's dome,
With a genius-shadow dark'ning in the stillness of her eyes—
With her rainbow-spirit arching half the circle of the skies,
Like a dark-browed Miriam chanting songs of triumph on the foe,
As the rushing waters bore them to the Hades halls below,
Till up through the startled ether, down the far horizon's rim,
Clashed the swords of men in music to her lofty prophet-hymn.

IX

But no beauty thrill'd my nature, noon, or night or sunset skies;
For the only heaven I gazed on was the heaven of his eyes—

I'd have bartered Freedom, Justice, People's rights, or native Land,
All the island homes of Ocean, for one pressure of his hand;
Trembling, weak, a coward spirit, only wishing low to lie,
As a flower beneath his footstep, breathe my life out, and so die.
Yet he liked me—aye, he liked me—'twas the phrase—O saints above!
Cold and cruel sounds this liking from the lips of one we love.

X

They said that he was dying; could I longer silence keeping,
Only pour forth my deep passion in my chamber lonely weeping?
I reck'd not if 'twere womanly, cold convention little heeding,
But in mine his hand enfolding, said, with tearful raised eyes pleading—
“She hath left you, left you lonely—sorrow's harvest death may reap;
I say not—love me; let me only watch here by you and weep!”
Then he said, his pale brow raising, with a faint, unquiet smile,
And with saddest eyes upgazing upon mine for all the while—

XI

“Sweetest friend, this sorrow-blighted, faded form, and searéd heart,
To pale death, I fear, are plighted, yet 'twere bitter now to part;
For the chords of life are shaken by a sympathy so true,
And they tremble, in vibration, with a pleasure strange and new.

Still, no love-dream may be cherished—ah! the time of love is o'er—
Youthful heart, by passion blighted, can be kindled never more;
But if sympathy thou darest with a heart so wrecked as mine,
I will give thee back the rarest kindred souls can inter twine.”

XII

And so bending coldly, gently, on my brow he placed his lips;
While, I trembling in the shadow of that faint and brief eclipse,
Murmur'd:—“Tell me, tell me truly, do you love her then so well?”
And the hot tears, all unruly, through my twinèd fingers fell,
And I sank down there unheeding so of maidenhood or wrong,
While I told him, weeping, pleading, how I'd loved him, loved him long;
Seen my hopes all faded, perished, spread around in pale dismay,
Wept their pallid corses over—I alone, like Niobe!

XIII

Thank God, that no cruel scorning dimm'd his starry eyes divine,
Softly, tender, earnest gazing down the tearful depths of mine—
But with warmest splendours resting on the paleness of his cheek,
As the roseate tinted sunset on a snowy Alpine peak,
Bent he down upon my shoulder, murmuring loverlike and low,
While his breathing softly trembled on my pale lips lying so:—

“Ah! such deep and tender loving hath recall'd me from the grave—
And this heart with soft approving bids you keep the life you gave;

XIV

“Woman's soothing grief to lighten hath a mystic healing power,
And their sympathy can brighten man's most dark and destined hour.
Let the holy words be spoken that bind soul to soul for life;
Let me place the symbol token on this hand—my wedded wife!”
Oh! never yet did an angel breathe diviner words of bliss,
Never mortal heard evangel of a joy like unto this;
In my gladness, smiling, weeping, knelt I down before him there,
Blessing God with wild words leaping from my full heart's inward prayer;

XV

And a glory, ruddy, golden-hued, streamed down on me from high,
As with lifted hands enfolden gazed I up into the sky—
Ever brighter, flashing downward, till my pained eyes ached with light,
And I turned from gazing sunward back to earth's more calm delight.
But—was it spell, or was it charm?—when I turned me to the room,
Fading seem'd the loved one's form, half in light and half in gloom—
Throbb'd my brain in wild confusion, slowly died his words in air,
All around me seemed illusion, save that streaming golden glare.

XVI

On my fevered eyelids aching, madly press'd my hands I keep—
Then arose like one awaking from a strange and magic sleep;
Round I gazed in wild amazement for the glorious light that shone,
Was morn streaming through my casement, but it shone on me alone!
The last cold words he had written still lay there beside my bed;
The last flowers he had given lay beside them, faded, dead;
Life's lonely bitter desolation was true, for aye, I deem,
But, joy's blessed revelations, that—oh, that—was but a dream!

Wanderings through European Literature.

LE RÉVEILLE.

It was the lark—not the nightingale—
Poured forth her notes of warning;
Upwards she flew from the sun-lit vale,
Awoke by the light of the morning.
The day, the day is bright!
The night
Hath fled that in darkness bound ye;
Fling ye the myrtle of love aside,
And grasp the sword whate'er may betide—
For the Foemen are gathering round ye!

It was the lark—not the nightingale—
Arouse ye from apathy's slumber!
Few and dull do your watchfires pale,
But they soon shall the stars outnumber.
Awake, awake to life!
The strife
For God and your right advances;
Leave the white arms of weeping beauty,
The van of the battle's your post of duty,
Where glitter the Foeman's lances!

It was the lark—not the nightingale—
The gate of the morning uncloses;
She sings of the thundering cannon's hail—
She sings of the battle's roses;
On the warrior's breast
They rest—

The crimson roses that free the world!
Up, then, in Liberty's cause ye are sent—
Let the wide heavens be but one warrior's tent
When the banner of Freedom's unfurled.

It was the lark—not the nightingale—
Leave, then, O youth, thy dreaming!
As dashes the torrent adown the vale,
O'er all barriers wildly streaming,
So of thy young heart's blood,
The flood
Pour down on the thirsty land;
And Liberty's cause, that would else have died,
Will bloom afresh from that crimson tide;
So pledge ye your heart and hand.

It was the lark—not the nightingale—
Who chanted a Nation's rise;
Borne on the wings of the morning gale,
It peals through the azure skies.
Liberty's torch is bright!
The light
May mock our tyrant's scorning,
For millions of hearts will be kindled ere noon;
And the freedom we dream'd of in darkness, full soon
We'll achieve in the light of the morning!

OUR FATHERLAND.

I

Why pour the ruby wine,
For glad carousal, brothers mine,
In the sparkling glass that flashes
In your hand,
When, mourning, sits in dust and ashes
Our Fatherland?

II

What means the joyous song
Of the festive bridal throng?
Oh! let music no more waken
The echoes of our strand,
For the bridegroom hath forsaken
Our Fatherland!

III

No more your masses falter,
Trembling priests, before the altar.
Can prayer avail the dead or dying?
Oh! vain demand!
Prostrate, trodden on the ground, is lying
Our Fatherland!

IV

Ye princes, fling ye down
Your blood-bought jewelled crown—
Bear the circlet on your brow no more,
Nor signet on your hand;
For, shivering, stands before your door
Our Fatherland!

V

Woe to ye rich; in gloom
Hath toll'd your hour of doom—
There, reck'ning up your gold, ye sit in state
In palace grand,
While Lazarus is dying at your gate,
Our Fatherland!

VI

And woe to you, ye poor—
Want and scorn ye must endure;
Yet before ye many noble jewels shine
In the sand.
Ah! they are patriots' tears—even mine—
For Fatherland!

100

VII

But the Poet's mission
Is but prophetic vision;
To him the daring heart is granted—
Not the hand.
He may cease—the death-song has been chanted
For Fatherland!

THE KNIGHT'S PLEDGE.

The tedious night at length hath pass'd;
To horse! to horse! we'll ride as fast
As ever bird did fly.
Ha! but the morning air is chill;
Frau Wirthin, one last goblet fill,
We'll drain it ere we die!

Thou youthful grass, why look'st so green?
Soon dyed in blood of mine I ween,
With damask rose thou'lt vie.
The goblet here! with sword in hand
I pledge thee first, my Fatherland,
Oh! blessed for thee to die!

Again our mailed hands raise the cup:
Freedom, to thee we drink it up.
Low may that coward lie
Who fails to pledge, with heart and hand,
The freedom of our glorious Land—
Her Freedom, ere we die!

Our wives—but, ah! the glass is clear,
The cannon thunders—grasp the spear,
We'll pledge them in a sigh.
Now, on the Foe like thunder crash!
We'll scathe them as a lightning flash,
And conquer, though we die!

102

KING ERICK'S FAITH.

I

In Upsal's stately Minster, before the altar, stands
The Swedish King, brave Erick, with high uplifted hands—
His royal robes are round him, the crown upon his head,
And thus, before his people, right sovranly he said:—

II

“God! whoso trusteth in Thee will never rue his trust;
If God the Lord be with us, our foes shall flee like dust.”
He spake—from priests and people rose up the answering cry—
“If God the Lord be with us, all danger we defy!”

II

Scarce through the aisles is dying their mingled voices' din,
A pallid slave, disordered, comes rushing wildly in.
“Now God us aid!—Skalater, the Dane, has come agen,
Fast pouring down the mountains with seven hundred men!”

IV

King Erick heard him calmly, then strong in faith replied—
“What man can fight against us, with God upon our side?”
A second slave comes rushing all breathless as the first—
“The gate is down—Skalater each bar and bolt hath burst!”

V

King Erick's brow grew paler, but still he looked on high—
“If God the Lord be with us, no danger need we fly!”
In comes another, trembling, but ere he uttered sound
The Danish axes glisten—they cleave him to the ground.

103

VI

Then rose a fearful tumult—then rose a wildered cry—
Skalater comes in fury—defenceless we must die—
Skalater comes in fury, with all his pagan hordes,
And Priest, and King, and Altar must fall beneath their swords.

VII

King Erick's glance grew prouder; he grasp'd the golden rood—
He held it high to Heaven, as on Skalater strode:
Lo! from each wound, the seven, pours forth a thousand rays,
And down to earth Skalater sinks dazzled by the blaze.

VIII

They're prostrate on their foreheads, the seven hundred Danes,
Praying the God to spare them who guards the Christian fanes;
But Erick and his people lift up the joyful cry—
Our God, the Lord, has conquered; all praise to Him on high!

108

SALVATION.

When the gloom is deepest round thee;
When the bands of grief have bound thee,
And in loneliness and sorrow,
By the poisoned springs of life
Thou sittest, yearning for a morrow,
That will free thee from the strife;

109

Look not upwards, for above thee
Never sun or star is gleaming;
Look not round for one to love thee;
Put not faith in mortal seeming;
Lightly would they scorn, then leave thee.
Trust not man—he will deceive thee.

But in the depths of thy own soul
Descend; mysterious powers unroll—
Energies that long had slumbered
In its mystic depths unnumbered.
Speak the word!—the power divinest
Will awake, if thou inclinest.

Thou art lord in thine own kingdom;
Rule thyself—thou rulest all!
Smile, when from its proud dominion
Earthly joy will rudely fall.
Be true unto thyself and hear not
Evil thoughts, that would enslave thee.
God is in thee! Mortal, fear not;
Trust in Him, and He will save thee!

MISERY IS MYSTERY.

I

Misery his heart hath broken—
Misery is mystery!
Let the sad one lonely be;
As the Ancients shunned the token
Of a lightning-blasted tree.

II

Breathe no word, his doom is spoken—
Misery is mistery!
By its scathing lightning fated,
Human hearts are consecrated,
For a higher destiny.

110

FAREWELL!

Let mine eyes the parting take,
Which my faint lips never can;
Moments such as these might break
Even the sternest heart of man.

Mournfully doth Joy's eclipse,
Shroud in grief Love's sweetest sign;
Cold the pressure of thy lips,
Cold the hand that rests in mine.

Once the slightest stolen kiss—
O, what rapture did it bring!
Like a violet's loveliness,
Found and plucked in early spring.

Now, no more my hand shall twine,
Rose wreaths, sweetest love, for thee;
Without, is summer's glorious prime,
Within, weird autumn's misery.

111

THE POET AT COURT.

I

He stands alone in the lordly hall—
He, with the high, pale brow;
But never a one at the festival
Was half so great, I trow.
They kiss the hand, and they bend the knee,
Slaves to an earthly king!
But the heir of a loftier dynasty
May scorn that courtly ring.

II

They press, with false and flattering words,
Around the blood-bought throne;
But the homage never yet won by swords
Is his—the Anointed One!
His sway over every nation
Extendeth from zone to zone:
He reigns as a god o'er creation—
The universe is his own.

112

III

No star on his breast is beaming,
But the light of his flashing eye
Reveals, in its haughtier gleaming,
The conscious majesty.
For the Poet's crown is the godlike brow—
Away with that golden thing!
Your fealty was never yet due till now—
Kneel to the God-made King!

113

'TIS NOT UPON EARTH.

Why comest thou here, so pale and clear,
Thou lone and shadowy child?
“I come from a clime of eternal sun,
Tho' my mother's home is a dreary one;
But Love hath stolen my heart away,
And to seek it through the world I stray.”

114

Oh, turn thee back to thy native land—
Turn, ere thy heart is blighted;
For, alas! upon this desert strand
True love has never alighted.

“My native land is beyond the skies,
Where the perfumed bowers of Eden rise.
But my mother's home is the spectral tomb;
Yet I'll back and rest in its shadowy gloom,
For the grave is still and Heaven is fair,
And the myrtle of love fadeth never there!”

136

THE PAST.

From the far off time of my youthful prime
A light comes evermore;
Oh! it seems so bright in its far-off light,
The glory I had of yore.

137

What the swallow sang with its silvery clang,
When autumn and spring were near;
What the church bells rung and the choristers sung,
The chant and the song I hear.

Oh! that parting day when I went away,
How my heart to joy awoke!
And again I came, but ah! not the same,
For the trusting heart was broke.

Since that parting day—that parting day—
Through the fair bright world I've ranged,
And the world is there still as bright and fair—
But I—'tis I have changed.

Oh! childhood's truth, with its words of sooth
And its lips as pure as gold,
Like a bird it sung, and its untaught tongue
Was wise as the prophets of old.

Bright home and hearth, in this joyless dearth,
Could thy holy vision gleam
But once, once more from the far-off shore
Of the past, as a heavenly dream!

Oh! the swallow may come from her southern home,
The spendthrift regain his gold,
The church bells ring, and the choristers sing
Again as they did of old;

But the hopes of youth and its trusting truth,
And bright sunny laughter gleams,
Once passed and o'er, can return no more,
Except in the land of dreams.

138

THE FISHERMAN.

I

The water rushes—the water foams—
A fisherman sat on the bank,
And calmly gazed on his flowing line,
As it down in the deep wave sank,
The water rushes—the water foams—
The bright waves part asunder,
And with wondering eyes he sees arise
A nymph from the caverns under.

II

She sprang to him—she sang to him—
Ah! wherefore dost thou tempt
With thy deadly food, my bright-scaled brood
From out their crystal element?
Could'st thou but know our joy below,
Thou would'st leave the harsh, cold land,
And dwell in our caves 'neath the glittering waves,
As lord of our sparkling band.

III

See you not now the bright sun bow
To gaze on his form here;
And the pale moon's face wears a softer grace
In the depths of our silver sphere.
See the fleecy shroud of the azure cloud
In the heaven beneath the sea;
And look at thine eyes, what a glory lies
In their lustre. Come, look with me.

IV

The water rushes—the water foams—
The cool wave kiss'd his feet.
The maiden's eyes were like azure skies,
And her voice was low and sweet.

139

She sung to him—she clung to him—
O'er the glittering stream they lean;
Half drew she him, half sunk he in,
And never more was seen.

142

THE EXILE.

I

Spring's sweet odours from the meadow
Fling their fragrance far and wide,
And the tall trees cast the shadow
Of the winter's gloom aside;
But for me no spring is bearing
Gladness to my heart despairing;
Comes no more with soothing power
Kindly voice, or friendly hand,
Song of home, or breath of flower,
From my own dear native land.

II

High in Heaven, circling nightly,
Moon and stars shine overhead;
Mighty rivers rush on brightly
To the ocean's distant bed;
But for me, in sorrow pining,
Star and stream in vain are shining,

143

Foreign skies are drear above me,
By a foreign shore I stand,
Thinking of the friends that love me,
In my own dear far-off land

DEATH WISHES.

Oh! might I pass as the evening ray
Melts in the deep'ning twilight away;
Calmly and gently thus would I die,
Untainted by ills of mortality.

Oh! might I pass as the silver star
That glitters in radiant light afar.
Thus silent and sorrowless fade from sight,
Lost in the deep blue ether of night.

Oh! might I pass as the fragrant breath
Springing from violets crushed to death,
And rise from the dull, cold earthly sod,
As an incense-cloud to the throne of God.

Oh! might I pass as the morning showers
Drank by the sun from the cups of flowers:
Would that the fire of eternal love
Thus exhaled my life-weary soul above!

Oh! might I pass as Æolian notes,
When over the chords the soft wind floats:
But ere the silver strings are at rest,
Find an echo within the Creator's breast.

“Thou wilt not pass in music or light,
Nor silently sink in the ether of night,
Nor die the gentle death of the flower,
Nor be drank by the sun like a morning shower.

“Thou wilt pass, but not till thy beauty is withered,
Not till thy powers and hopes lie shivered:
Silence and beauty are Nature's death-token;
But the poor human heart, ere it die—must be broken!”

146

TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.

THE LOVE SIN.

None, unless the saints above,
Knew the secret of their love;
For with calm and stately grace
Isolde held her queenly place,
Tho' the courtiers' hundred eyes
Sought the lovers to surprise,
Or to read the mysteries
Of a love—so rumour said—
By a magic philtre fed,
Which for ever in their veins
Burn'd with love's consuming pains.

Yet their hands would twine unseen,
In a clasp 'twere hard to sever;
And whoso watched their glances meet,
Gazing as they'd gaze for ever,

147

Might have marked the sudden heat
Crims'ning on each flushing cheek,
As the tell-tale blood would speak
Of love that never should have been—
The love of Tristan and his Queen.

But, what hinders that the two,
In the spring of their young life,
Love each other as they do?
Thus the tempting thoughts begin—
Little recked they of the sin;
Nature joined them hand in hand,
Is not that a truer band
Than the formal name of wife?

Ah! what happy hours were theirs!
One might note them at the feast
Laughing low to loving airs,
Loving airs that pleased them best;
Or interchanging the swift glance
In the mazes of the dance.
So the sunny moments rolled,
And they wove bright threads of gold
Through the common web of life;
Never dreaming of annoy,
Or the wild world's wicked strife;
Painting earth and heaven above
In the light of their own joy,
In the purple light of love.

Happy moments, which again
Brought sweet torments in their train:
All love's petulance and fears,
Wayward doubts and tender tears;
Little jealousies and pride,
That can loving hearts divide:
Murmured vow and clinging kiss,
Working often bane as bliss;
All the wild, capricious changes
Through which lovers' passion ranges.

168

WHY WEEPEST THOU?

Why weepest thou?
A few more hours dreary,
And thy spirit, the world weary
Beneath the icy hand of death must bow;
But the fetters then will fall,
And the soul redeemed from thrall,
Will upwards mount in joy, tho' chainéd now—
Why weepest thou?

The great Eternal One,
Round whom the planets roll,
Beholds each suffering soul
Prostrate in mortal grief before His Throne;
He numbers every tear,
He stills the throb of fear,
He guides us to our heavenly native zone—
The great Eternal One.

169

Then still thy fears!
Behold thy glorious home,
Yon star-roofed azure dome—
How infinite thy Father's house appears!
There, ah! there we'll rest,
Poor weak ones, on His breast;
Then, mourner, let thy frail heart break in tears,
But still thy fears!

171

THE FATE OF THE LYRIST.

The soul is ever clinging unto form;
Action, not abstract thought, alone can warm
The great heart of humanity—in life's fierce storm
Pass they the Lyrist by.

The Dramatist may wear triumphant bays;
And see the wondering people's tranc'd amaze,
The while unrolls great Homer to their gaze,
His gorgeous, many-coloured tapestry.

But lofty Pindar's heaven-directed flight,
Petrarca's song, mystic and sad as night,
Fall dull upon the common ear—their might
Is to the world a mystery.

Such spirits dwell but with the spiritual—
Their godlike souls disdaining to enthrall;
Within the limits of the actual,
Men pass, unheeding the divinity.

Their name, indeed, is echoed by the crowd;
But from amidst the masses earthward bowed,
Few lift the head, with kindred soul endowed,
To list their Orphic melody.

172

THE POET'S DESTINY.

The Priest of Beauty, the Anointed One,
Through the wide world passes the Poet on.
All that is noble by his word is crown'd,
But on his brow th' Acanthus wreath is bound.
Eternal temples rise beneath his hand,
While his own griefs are written in the sand;
He plants the blooming gardens, trails the vine—
But others wear the flowers, drink the wine;
He plunges in the depths of life to seek
Rich joys for other hearts—his own may break.
Like the poor diver beneath Indian skies,
He flings the pearl upon the shore—and dies;

DÉSILLUSION.

Too soon, alas! too soon I plunged into the world with tone and clang,
And they scarcely comprehended what the Poet wildly sang.
Not the spirit-glance deep gazing into nature's inmost soul,
Not the mystic aspirations that the Poet's words unroll.
Cold and spiritless and silent—yea, with scorn received they me,
Whilst on meaner brows around me wreath'd the laurel crown I see.
And I, who in my bosom felt the godlike nature glow,
I wore the mask of folly while I sang of deepest woe.
But, courage! years may pass—this mortal frame be laid in earth,
But my spirit reign triumphant in the country of my birth!

173

THE PRISONERS.

CHRISTMAS, 1869.

I

Has not vengeance been sated at last?
Will the holy and beautiful chimes
Ring out the old wrongs of the past,
Ring in the new glories and times?
Will the eyes of the pale prisoners rest
Once again on their loved mountain scenes,
When the crimson of East or of West
Falls o'er them as mantles on Queens?
Will they muse once again by the sea,
List the thunder of waves on the strand,
As exultant, as fearless and free
As the foam-flakes that dash on the land?
Will they lift their wan faces to God
In the radiant, bright, infinite air,
Press their lips to the old native sod
In a rapture of praise and of prayer?

II

Ah, the years of their young lives pass over,
Still wept out in dungeons alone,
Where the lips of a wife, child, or mother
Were never yet pressed to their own;
Years of torture and sorrow and trials,
In the gloom of the desolate cell,
Where the wrath of the sevenfold vials
Seem poured to turn Earth to a Hell;
Where strong brains are seared into madness,
And burning hearts frozen to stone,
And despair surges over life's gladness,
And young life goes out with a moan,

174

Go, kneel as at graves, weeping woman—
When the last fatal sentence was said,
All ties that are tender and human
Were rent as from those that are dead.

III

They were young then, in youth's glorious fashion
With a pulse-throb of fire in each vein,
And the glow and the splendours of passion
Flashing up from the heart to the brain.
Sharp as falchions their keen words reproving—
Great words moved by no coward breath—
And no crime on their souls save of loving
Their Country with love strong as death.
Oh, their hearts, how they leaped to the surface,
As a sword from the scabbard unsheathed,
Their pale faces stern with a purpose,
Their brows with Fate's cypress enwreathed,
Grave, earnest, the judgment unheeding,
Or the wreck of their lives lying prone,
From these doomed lips the strong spirits' pleading
Soared up from man's bar to God's Throne.

IV

“We but taught men,” they said, “from the pages,
Graven deep in our history and soil,
From the Litanies poured through the ages
Of sorrow, and torture, and toil;
By the insults, the mockings, the scornings,
The bondage on body and soul;
By the ruin, the slaughters, the burnings,
When death was the patriot's goal;
By the falsehood enthroned in high places,
By the feeble hearts cowering within,
By the slave-brand read plain on their faces,
Though the ermine might cover the sin.
We were broken and sundered and shattered,
Made thrall by the tyrant's strong arm,
To the wild waves and fierce winds were scattered
As dead leaves swept on by the storm.

175

For each age gave a traitor or tyrant
To build up the wrongs that we see,
But each age, too, gives heroes aspirant
Of the Fame or the death of the Free!”

V

Oh, Chimes ringing out in our city,
Oh, Angels that walk to and fro,
Oh, Christ-words of pardon and pity,
Can ye speak to those souls lying low
In a sorrow no festal chime scatters,
In a night where no Angel appears,
The wasted limbs heavy with fetters,
The weary heart heavy with tears;
With the ghost of dead youth crushing on them,
And the gloom of the years yet to be,
With a blackness of darkness upon them
As of night when it falls on the sea?

VI

When the Christmas bells ring out at even
The song of the Angels' bright spheres,
Their sad eyes will strain up to Heaven,
Their bread will be bitter with tears.
Through our laughter will come that sad vision,
Through the ivy-wreathed wine-cup's red glow,
Through our wassail the wail from their prison,
Lamentation and mourning and woe.
With sorrow wrapped round like a garment,
With ashes for joy as their crown,
With bonds tight'ning close as a cerement
They wait till God's morning comes down;
Yet no echo from their lips will falter
Of the solemn, sweet carol or song,
But a cry, as of souls 'neath the Altar,
“How long! oh, our Lord God, how long?”

176

THE DAWN.

What of the night, O Watcher on the Tower?
Is the Day dawning through the golden bars?
Comes it through the midnight, over clouds that lower,
Trailing robes of crimson mid the fading stars?

“Through the rent clouds I see a splendour gleaming,
Rolling down the darkness to the far Heaven's rim,
While through the mist the glorious Dawn upstreaming
Rises like the music of a grand choral hymn.”

From the deep valleys where the whirlwind passes,
Hear you the tramp of the coming hosts of men,
Strong in their manhood, mighty in their masses,
Swift as rushing torrents down a mountain glen?

“Far as eye can reach, where purple mists are lifted,
Thousands upon thousands are gathering in might,
Powerful as tempests when giant sails are rifted,
Beautiful as ocean in the sun's silver light.”

See you their Banner in the free air proudly
Waving, as an oriflamme a king might bear,
Has it no legend—dare we utter loudly
All that a people may have written there?

“I see their Banner in the red dawn flashing—
Haughty is the legend, plain to all men's sight,
Traced in their heart's blood, which the breeze upcatching,
Flings out in flame-words—Liberty and Right!

“Onward they come, still gathering in power,
Serried ranks of men o'er the crimson-clouded lawn;
Banners glisten brightly in the golden shower
Pouring through the portals of the golden Dawn.

177

“Each bears a symbol, glorious in its meaning,
Holy as the music of the crown'd Bard's Psalm:
Faith gazing upward, on her Anchor leaning,
Peace with the Olive, and Mercy with the Palm.”

Long have we waited, O Watcher, for the vision,
Splendid in promise we now can see it rise,
Scattering the darkness, while with hero-mission
Brave hands uplift Hope's banner to the skies.

Not with vain clamour, but the soul's strength revealing
In the golden silence of all great true deeds,
Banded in strength for human rights appealing,
Banded in love for our poor human needs.

Bitter was the Past; let it rest, a new Æon
Preaches a new Gospel to man not in vain,
Earth through all her kingdoms echoes back the Pæan
Chanted once by Angels on the star-lit plain.

Brotherhood of Nations, disdaining ancient quarrel,
Brotherhood of Peoples, flushed with a nobler rage,
Palm branch and Olive let us mingle with the Laurel
In the radiant future of the coming Age!

178

AN APPEAL TO IRELAND.

I

The sin of our race is upon us,
The pitiless, cruel disdain
Of brother for brother, tho' coiling
Round both is the one fatal chain;
And aimless and reckless and useless
Our lives pass along to the grave
In tumults of words that bewilder,
And the conflicts of slave with slave.

II

Yet shadows are heavy around us,
The darkness of sin and of shame,
While the souls of the Nation to slumber
Are lulled by vain visions of fame;
True hearts, passion-wasted, and breaking
With sense of our infinite wrong,
Oh! wake them, nor dread the awaking,
We need all the strength of the strong.

III

For we rage with senseless endeavours
In a fever of wild unrest,
While glory lies trampled, dishonoured,
Death-pale, with a wound in her breast;
Had we loosened one chain from the spirit,
Had we strove from the ruin of things
To build up a Temple of Concord,
More fair than the palace of Kings;

IV

Our name might be heard where the Nations
Press on to the van of the fight,
Where Progress makes war upon Evil,
And Darkness is scattered by Light

179

They have gold and frankincense and myrrh
To lay at the feet of their King,
But we—what have we but the wine-cup
Of wrath and of sorrow to bring?

V

Let us ask of our souls, lying under
The doom of this bondage and ban,
Why we, made by God high as Angels,
Should fall so much lower than man;
Some indeed have been with us would scale
Heav'n's heights for life-fire if they dare—
But the vultures now gnaw at their hearts
Evermore on the rocks of Despair.

VI

Let us think, when we stand before God,
On the Day of the Judgment roll,
And He asks of the work we have done
In the strength of each God-like soul;
Can we answer—“Our prayers have gone up
As light from the stars and the sun,
And Thy blessing came down on our deeds
As a crown when the victory's won.

VII

“We fought with wild beasts, wilder passions,
As of old did the saints of God,
Tho' our life-blood ran red in the dust
Of the fierce arena we trod;
We led up Thy people triumphant
From Egypt's dark bondage of sin,
And made the fair land which Thou gavest
All glorious without and within.

VIII

“We changed to a measure of music
The discord and wail of her days,
For sorrow gave garments of gladness,
For scorn of her enemies praise;

180

We crowned her a Queen in the triumph
Of noble and beautiful lives,
While her chariot of Freedom rolled on
Through the crash of her fallen gyves.”

IX

I ask of you, Princes, and Rulers,
I ask of you, Brothers around,
Can ye thus make reply for our people
When the Nations are judged or crowned?
If not, give the reins of the chariot
To men who can curb the wild steeds—
They are nearing the gulf, in this hour
We appeal by our wrongs and our needs.

X

Stand back and give place to new leaders;
We need them—some strong gifted souls,
From whose lips, never touched by a falsehood,
The heart's richest eloquence rolls.
True Patriots by grandeur of purpose,
True men by the power of the brain:
The chosen of God to lift upward
His Ark with hands clear of all stain.

XI

We need them to tend the Lord's vineyard,
As shepherds to watch round His fold,
With brave words from pure hearts outpouring,
As wine from a chalice of gold;
That the souls of the Nation uplifted,
May shine in new radiance of light,
As of old stood the Prophets transfigured
In glory with Christ on the height.

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Far out, where the grand western sunsets
Flush crimson the mountain and sea,
And the echoes of Liberty mingle
With the roar of the waves on the lea;

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Where over the dim shrouded passes
The clouds fling a rainbow-hued arch,
And through giant-rent portals a people
Go forth on their sad, solemn march:

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I had dreams of a future of glory
For this fair motherland of mine,
When knowledge would bring with its splendours
The Human more near the Divine.
And as flash follows flash on the mountains,
When lightnings and thunders are hurled,
So would throb in electrical union
Her soul with the soul of the world.

XIV

For we stand too apart in our darkness,
As planets long rent from the sun,
And the mystical breath of the spirit
Scarce touches our hearts sweeping on.
I appeal from this drear isolation
To earth, to the mountains, and sky—
Must we die as of thirst in a desert,
While full tides of life pass us by?

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Yet still, through the darkness and sorrow,
I dream of a time yet to be,
When from mountain and ocean to Heaven
Will rise up the Hymn of the Free.
When our Country, made perfect through trial,
White-robed, myrtle-crowned, as a Bride,
Will stand forth, “a Lady of Kingdoms,”
Through Light and through Love glorified.

University of Virginia Library

DEDICATION. To Ireland.

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THE BROTHERS.

A SCENE FROM '98.

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THE FAMINE YEAR.

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THE ENIGMA.

THE VOICE OF THE POOR.

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A SUPPLICATION.

FORESHADOWINGS.

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TO A DESPONDENT NATIONALIST.

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

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THE OLD MAN'S BLESSING.

MAN'S MISSION.

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A LAMENT.

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THE YOUNG PATRIOT LEADER.

ATTENDITE POPULE.

FORWARD!

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