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Poems Real and Ideal

By George Barlow

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 XIV. 
SONNET XIV. TO IRELAND.
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44

SONNET XIV. TO IRELAND.

O Ireland, Ireland,—and we love thee well!—
Lo! thy green meadows are made foul with red
Blood-stains by thine own sons' mad folly shed;
The land was heavenlike: thou hast made it hell.
Thou hast set murder on the lonely fell,
And filled the night with shadows of the dead,
And made the moonlight shudder at the tread
Of monstrous deeds too horrible to tell.
And this is love of Ireland! Pause and think.
Would not your love on nobler pinions soar
If it were taught from cowardly crimes to shrink,—
Murder to hate, injustice to abhor?
Ye your own chains are forging link by link,
And barring on yourselves your prison-door.