THE YEAR OF SORROW—IRELAND—1849.
I.—SPRING.
I
Once more, through God's high will, and grace
Of hours that each its task fulfils,
Heart-healing Spring resumes her place
The valley throngs and scales the hills;
II
In vain. From earth's deep heart o'ercharged
The exulting life runs o'er in flowers;
The slave unfed is unenlarged:
In darkness sleep a Nation's powers.
III
Who knows not Spring? Who doubts, when blows
Her breath, that Spring is come indeed?
The swallow doubts not; nor the rose
That stirs, but wakes not; nor the weed.
IV
I feel her near but see her not;
For these with pain uplifted eyes
Fall back repulsed, and vapours blot
The vision of the earth and skies.
V
I see her not: I feel her near,
As, charioted in mildest airs
She sails through yon empyreal sphere
And in her arms and bosom bears
VI
That urn of flowers and lustral dews
Whose sacred balm, o'er all things shed
Revives the weak, the old renews
And crowns with votive wreaths the dead.
VII
Once more the cuckoo's call I hear;
I know, in many a glen profound
The earliest violets of the year
Rise up like water from the ground.
VIII
The thorn I know once more is white;
And, far down many a forest dale
The anemones in dubious light
Are trembling like a bridal veil.
IX
By streams released that singing flow
From craggy shelf through sylvan glades
The pale narcissus, well I know,
Smiles hour by hour on greener shades.
X
The honeyed cowslip tufts once more
The golden slopes; with gradual ray
The primrose stars the rock and o'er
The wood-path strews its milky way.
XI
From ruined huts and holes come forth
Old men, and look upon the sky!
The Power Divine is on the earth:
Give thanks to God before ye die!
XII
And ye, O children worn and weak
Who care no more with flowers to play
Lean on the grass your cold, thin cheek,
And those slight hands, and whispering, say,
XIII
‘Stern Mother of a race unblest,
In promise kindly, cold in deed,
Take back, O Earth, into thy breast
The children whom thou wilt not feed.’
II.—SUMMER.
I
Approved by works of love and might
The Year, consummated and crowned,
Has scaled the zenith's purple height
And flings his robe the earth around.
II
Impassioned stillness—fervours calm—
Brood vast and bright o'er land and deep:
The warrior sleeps beneath the palm;
The dark-eyed captive guards his sleep.
III
The Iberian labourer rests from toil;
Sicilian virgins twine the dance;
Laugh Tuscan vales in wine and oil;
Fresh laurels flash from brows of France.
IV
Far off in regions of the North
The hunter drops his winter fur;
Sun-stricken babes their feet stretch forth;
And nested dormice feebly stir.
V
But thou, O land of many woes!
What cheer is thine? Again the breath
Of proved Destruction o'er thee blows
And sentenced fields grow black in death.
VI
In horror of a new despair
His blood-shot eyes the peasant strains
With hands clenched fast and lifted hair
Along the daily-darkening plains.
VII
Behold, O People! thou shalt die!
What art thou better than thy sires?
The hunted deer a weeping eye
Turns on his birthplace, and expires.
VIII
Lo! as the closing of a book
Or statue from its base o'erthrown
Or blasted wood or dried-up brook
Name, race, and nation, thou art gone.
IX
The stranger shall thy hearth possess;
The stranger build upon thy grave.
But know this also—he, not less
His limit and his term shall have.
X
Once more thy volume open cast
In thunder forth shall sound thy name;
Thy forest, hot at heart, at last
God's breath shall kindle into flame.
XI
Thy brook dried up a cloud shall rise
And stretch an hourly widening hand
In God's high judgement through the skies
And onward o'er the Invader's land.
XII
Of thine, one day, a remnant left
Shall raise o'er earth a Prophet's rod
And teach far coasts of Faith bereft
The names of Ireland, and of God.
III.—AUTUMN.
I
Then die, thou Year; thy work is done:
The work ill done is done at last;
Far off, beyond that sinking sun
Which sets in blood, I hear the blast
II
That sings thy dirge, and says, ‘Ascend,
And answer make amid thy peers
Since all things here must have an end,
Thou latest of the famine years!’
III
I join that voice. No joy have I
In all thy purple and thy gold
Nor in that nine-fold harmony
From forest on to forest rolled;
IV
Nor in that stormy western fire,
Which burns on ocean's gloomy bed,
And hurls as from a funeral pyre
A glare that strikes the mountain's head;
V
And writes on low-hung clouds its lines
Of cyphered flame with hurrying hand,
And flings amid the topmost pines
That crown the steep a burning brand.
VI
Make answer, Year, for all thy dead,
Who found not rest in hallowed earth,
The widowed wife, the father fled
The babe age-stricken from its birth.
VII
Make answer, Year, for virtue lost,
For courage proof 'gainst fraud and force
Now waning like a noontide ghost,
Affections poisoned at their source.
VIII
The labourer spurned his lying spade;
The yeoman spurned his useless plough;
The pauper spurned the unwholesome aid
Obtruded once exhausted now.
IX
Dread Power Unknown! Whom mortal years
Nor touch, nor tempt; Who sitt'st sublime
In night of night, O bid thy spheres
Resound at last a funeral chime!
X
Call up at last the afflicted race
Whose Sorrow nears its ending.—Sore,
For centuries, their strife: the place
That knew them once shall know no more!
IV.—WINTER.
I
Fall, snow, and cease not! Flake by flake
The decent winding-sheet compose:
Thy task is just and pious; make
An end of blasphemies and woes.
II
Fall flake by flake! by thee alone
Last friend, the sleeping draught is given:
Kind nurse, by thee the couch is strewn
The couch whose covering is from heaven.
III
Descend and clasp the mountain's crest;
Inherit plain and valley deep:
This night on thy maternal breast
A vanquished nation dies in sleep.
IV
Lo! from the starry Temple Gates
Death rides and bears the flag of peace:
The combatants he separates;
He bids the wrath of ages cease.
V
Descend, benignant Power! But O
Ye torrents, shake no more the vale,
Dark streams, in silence seaward flow:
Thou rising storm remit thy wail.
VI
Shake not, to-night, the cliffs of Moher
Nor Brandon's base, rough sea! Thou Isle,
The Rite proceeds! From shore to shore
Hold in thy gathered breath the while.
VII
Fall, snow! in stillness fall, like dew
On church's roof and cedar's fan;
And mould thyself on pine and yew
And on the awful face of man.
VIII
Without a sound, without a stir,
In streets and wolds, on rock and mound
O, omnipresent Comforter
By thee, this night, the lost are found!
IX
On quaking moor, and mountain moss
With eyes upstaring at the sky
And arms extended like a cross
The long-expectant sufferers lie.
X
Bend o'er them, white-robed Acolyte!
Put forth thine hand from cloud and mist!
And minister the last sad Rite,
Where altar there is none, nor priest.
XI
Touch thou the gates of soul and sense;
Touch darkening eyes and dying ears;
Touch stiffening hands and feet, and thence
Remove the trace of sins and tears.
XII
And ere thou seal those filmèd eyes
Into God's urn thy fingers dip,
And lay, 'mid eucharistic sighs,
The sacred wafer on the lip.
XIII
This night the Absolver issues forth:
This night the Eternal Victim bleeds:
O winds and woods! O heaven and earth!
Be still this night. The Rite proceeds!
