 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
166
GRATTAN.
I
God works through man, not hills or snows!In man, not men, is the godlike power;
The man, God's potentate, God foreknows;
He sends him strength at the destined hour:
His Spirit He breathes into one deep heart:
His cloud He bids from one mind depart:
A Saint!—and a race is to God re-born!
A Man! One man makes a Nation's morn!
II
A man, and the blind land by slow degreesGains sight! A man, and the deaf land hears!
A man, and the dumb land like wakening seas
Thunders low dirges in proud, dull ears!
A man, and the People, a three days' corse,
Stands up, and the grave-bands fall off perforce;
One man, and the nation in height a span
To the measure ascends of the perfect man.
III
Thus wept unto God the land of Eire:Yet there rose no man and her hope was dead:
In the ashes she sat of a burn'd-out fire;
And sackcloth was over her queenly head.
But a man in her latter days arose;
A Deliverer stepp'd from the camp of her foes:
He spake; the great and the proud gave way,
And the dawn began which shall end in day!
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |