The Harp of Erin :: :: University of Virginia Library

By yon unhallow'd trunk, whose leafless form,
Rocks to each spectred blast, that sweeps the vale,
Where famish'd ravens shriek amid the storm,
And flashing fires their withered haunts assail,

The child of sorrow sat with musing eye;
Meanwhile, the happy hamlet slept around,
Oft heaved, in agony, the bursting sigh;
Oft sunk, exhausted, on the baneful ground.

The tall grass shiv'ring to the moaning wind,
Seem'd like harsh thunder to his frighted ear,
For by his trembling side, before, behind,
Stood all the aguish fiends of dubious Fear.

“Ah is it thus the Lord of Nature lies?
Thus from his broken heart the accents flow?
Thus streams contrition from his haggard eyes?
A miserable majesty of wo

“Say what avails to strike the seraph wire,
The soul to soften, or the breast inflame?
What boots the soldier's valour, poet's fire,
Or, (that poor meed of all their labour) fame?

“The vex'd stream winding thro' its pebbly course
Shall in the main its liquid journey end;
Life's stream, alas! of every care the source,
Can ne'er its slow and turbid progress mend,

“'Till rolling down the awful gulph of death,
Its eddying surges mock the aching sight;
Hoarse-murmuring echo thro' the vaults beneath,
And solitary pierce the solid night.

“Poor pensioners of Fate, with doubt our doom,
Forsaken infants in this peopled wild;
Whose only comforts lean upon the tomb,
By airy schemes of future bliss beguil'd.

“Away! some demon rules the savage globe;
(Not He, whose matchless mercy feels for all,)
Some demon clad in slaughter's purple robe,
The rebel tyrant of our crazy ball!

“Away, would he, as pitiful, as great,
See virtue struggling with her felon foes?
See puny pride with merit's spoils elate,
And horror's grin malign at feeling's throes?

“Would not the sleeping thunderbolt arise,
The lurid ruin sheet the breaching air,
His own red arm throw back the clouded skies,
And bid, (dread words!) “Mortality despair?”

“Assured in this, why longer should I brook
The rising mischiefs of each rising day?
The stab in dimples wreathed, the angry look,
The killing scorn, and some Infernal's sway?

“No, I will fly to him, my bosom's God;
The God of truth, the bountiful, the brave;
His justice soon shall fix my last abode,
Whose nod can punish, or, whose nod can save.

“Conscious of no ill deed, which honest worth
At Heavn's tribunal to my charge could lay,
On the long road of death I venture forth,
With hope alone to chear me on the way.”

He said, and smote his heart; the well-aim'd blow
Was met by being in a tide of gore:
His pulse paused short, his frame forgot to glow,
He fell—The child of sorrow was no more.