Lady Jane Wilde
To IrelandIIIIIIV
The BrothersIIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXX
The Famine Year IIIIIIIVVVI
The Voice of the Poor IIIIIIIVVVIVII
A Supplication
Foreshadowings IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXIXII
To a Despondent Nationalist IIIIIIIVV
Signs of the Times IIIIIIIVVVI
The Old Man's Blessing
Man's Mission IIIIIIIVVVI
A Lament IIIIIIIVVThe Enigma
The Young Patriot Leader
Attendite Popule
Forward IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXIXII
Have Ye Counted the Cost? IIIIIIIIVVVIVII
The Year of Revolutions IIIIIIIVV
Ruins IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXIXIIXIIIXIVXVXVIXVIIXVIIIXIX
Discipline IIIIIIIVVVI
The Exodus IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXI
The Faithless Shepherds
Work While It Is Called To-Day
To-Day IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXI
To Ireland
I
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 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 gloom 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 weird 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--&Ugr;&pgr;a&ggr;e &Sgr;a&tgr;ana!
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 Capital--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!
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 years 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 bought 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 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 despair 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 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 strength 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 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
Poets 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 spreads 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?
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!