In the world's last and awful hour,
Surrounded by the starry seven,
So comes God's greatest work, the sun,
Upborne upon the clouds of heaven,
In pomp, and majesty, and power.
The virgin snowdrop bends its head
Above its grave in grateful prayer;
The daisy lifts its radiant brow,
With a saint's glory round it shed;
The violet's worth, unhidden now,
Is wafted wide by every air.
The parent stem reclasps once more
Its long-lost severed buds and leaves;
Once more the tender tendrils twine
Around the forms they clasped of yore
The very rain is now a sign
Great Nature's heart no longer grieves.
And now the judgment-hour arrives,
And now their final doom they know;
No dreadful doom is theirs whose birth
Was not more stainless than their lives;
'Tis Goodness calls them from the earth,
And Mercy tells them where to go.
Some of them fly with glad accord,
Obedient to the high behest,
To worship with their fragrant breath
Around the altars of the Lord;
And some, from nothingness and death,
Pass to the heaven of beauty's breast.
Oh, let the simple fancy be
Prophetic of our final doom;
Grant us, O Lord, when from the sod
Thou deign'st to call us too, that we
Pass to the bosom of our God
From the dark nothing of the tomb!
THE FIRST OF THE ANGELS.
Hush! hush! through the azure expanse of the sky
Comes a low, gentle sound, 'twixt a laugh and a sigh;
And I rise from my writing, and look up on high,
And I kneel, for the first of God's angels is nigh!
Oh, how to describe what my rapt eyes descry!
For the blue of the sky is the blue of his eye;
And the white clouds, whose whiteness the snowflakes outvie,
Are the luminous pinions on which he doth fly!
And his garments of gold gleam at times like the pyre
Of the west, when the sun in a blaze doth expire;
Now tinged like the orange, now flaming with fire!
Half the crimson of roses and purple of Tyre.
And his voice, on whose accents the angels have hung,
He himself a bright angel, immortal and young,
Scatters melody sweeter the green buds among
Than the poet e'er wrote, or the nightingale sung.
It comes on the balm-bearing breath of the breeze,
And the odours that later will gladden the bees,
With a life and a freshness united to these,
From the rippling of waters and rustling of trees.
Like a swan to its young o'er the glass of a pond,
So to earth comes the angel, as graceful and fond;
While a bright beam of sunshine--his magical wand,
Strikes the fields at my feet, and the mountains beyond.
They waken--they start into life at a bound--
Flowers climb the tall hillocks, and cover the ground
With a nimbus of glory the mountains are crown'd,
As the rivulets rush to the ocean profound.
There is life on the earth, there is calm on the sea,
And the rough waves are smoothed, and the frozen are free;
And they gambol and ramble like boys, in their glee,
Round the shell-shining strand or the grass-bearing lea.
There is love for the young, there is life for the old,
And wealth for the needy, and heat for the cold;
For the dew scatters, nightly, its diamonds untold,
And the snowdrop its silver, the crocus its gold!
God!--whose goodness and greatness we bless and adore--
Be Thou praised for this angel--the first of the four--
To whose charge Thou has given the world's uttermost shore,
To guide it, and guard it, till time is no more!
SPIRIT VOICES.
There are voices, spirit voices,
Sweetly sounding everywhere,
At whose coming earth rejoices,
And the echoing realms of air,
And their joy and jubilation
Pierce the near and reach the far,
From the rapid world's gyration
To the twinkling of the star.
One, a potent voice uplifting,
Stops the white cloud on its way,
As it drives with driftless drifting
O'er the vacant vault of day,
And in sounds of soft upbraiding
Calls it down the void inane
To the gilding and the shading
Of the mountain and the plain.
Airy offspring of the fountains,
To thy destined duty sail,
Seek it on the proudest mountains,
Seek it in the humblest vale;
Howsoever high thou fliest,
How so deep it bids thee go,
Be a beacon to the highest
And a blessing to the low.
When the sad earth, broken-hearted,
Hath not even a tear to shed,
And her very soul seems parted
For her children lying dead,
Send the streams with warmer pulses
Through that frozen fount of fears,
And the sorrow that convulses,
Soothe and soften down to tears.
Bear the sunshine and the shadow,
Bear the rain-drop and the snow,
Bear the night-dew to the meadow,
And to hope the promised bow,
Bear the moon, a moving mirror
For her angel face and form,
Bear to guilt the flashing terror
Of the lightning and the storm.
When thou thus hast done thy duty
On the earth and o'er the sea,
Bearing many a beam of beauty,
Ever bettering what must be,
Thus reflecting heaven's pure splendour
And concealing ruined clay,
Up to God thy spirit render,
And dissolving pass away.
And with fond solicitation,
Speaks another to the streams--
Leave your airy isolation,
Quit the cloudy land of dreams,
Break the lonely peak's attraction,
Burst the solemn, silent glen,
Seek the living world of action
And the busy haunts of men.
Turn the mill-wheel with thy fingers,
Turn the steam-wheel with thy breath,
With thy tide that never lingers
Save the dying fields from death;
Let the swiftness of thy currents
Bear to man the freight-fill'd ship,
And the crystal of thy torrents
Bring refreshment to his lip.
And when thou, O rapid river,
Thy eternal home dost seek,
When no more the willows quiver
But to touch thy passing cheek,
When the groves no longer greet thee
And the shore no longer kiss,
Let infinitude come meet thee
On the verge of the abyss.
Other voices seek to win us--
Low, suggestive, like the rest--
But the sweetest is within us
In the stillness of the breast;
Be it ours, with fond desiring,
The same harvest to produce,
As the cloud in its aspiring
And the river in its use.
Centenary Odes.
O'CONNELL.
AUGUST 6TH, 1875.
Harp of my native land
That lived anew 'neath Carolan's master hand;
Harp on whose electric chords,
The minstrel Moore's melodious words,
Each word a bird that sings,
Borne as if on Ariel's wings,
Touched every tender soul
From listening pole to pole.
Sweet harp, awake once more:
What, though a ruder hand disturbs thy rest,
A theme so high
Will its own worth supply.
As finest gold is ever moulded best:
Or as a cannon on some festive day,
When sea and sky, when winds and waves rejoice,
Out-booms with thunderous voice,
Bids echo speak, and all the hills obey--
So let the verse in echoing accents ring,
So proudly sing,
With intermittent wail,
The nation's dead, but sceptred King,
The glory of the Gael.
1775.
Six hundred stormy years have flown,
Since Erin fought to hold her own,
To hold her homes, her altars free,
Within her wall of circling sea.
No year of all those years had fled,
No day had dawned that was not red,
(Oft shed by fratricidal hand),
With the best blood of all the land.
And now, at last, the fight seemed o'er,
The sound of battle pealed no more;
Abject the prostrate people lay,
Nor dared to hope a better day;
An icy chill, a fatal frost,
Left them with all but honour lost,
Left them with only trust in God,
The lands were gone their fathers owned;
Poor pariahs on their native sod.
Their faith was banned, their prophets stoned;
Their temples crowning every height,
Now echoed with an alien rite,
Or silent lay each mouldering pile,
With shattered cross and ruined aisle.
Letters denied, forbade to pray,
And white-winged commerce scared away:
Ah, what can rouse the dormant life
That still survives the stormier strife?
What potent charm can once again
Relift the cross, rebuild the fane?
Free learning from felonious chains,
And give to youth immortal gains?
What signal mercy from on high?--
Hush! hark! I hear an infant's cry,
The answer of a new-born child,
From Iveragh's far mountain wild.
Yes, 'tis the cry of a child, feeble and faint in the night,
But soon to thunder in tones that will rouse both tyrants and slaves.
Yes, 'tis the sob of a stream just awake in its source on the height,
But soon to spread as a sea, and rush with the roaring of waves.
Yes, 'tis the cry of a child affection hastens to still,
But what shall silence ere long the victor voice of the man?
Easy it is for a branch to bar the flow of the rill,
But all the forest would fail where raging the torrent once ran.
And soon the torrent will run, and the pent-up waters o'erflow,
For the child has risen to a man, and a shout replaces the cry;
And a voice rings out through the world, so wing`ed with Erin's woe,
That charmed are the nations to listen, and the Destinies to reply.
Boyhood had passed away from that child, predestined by fate
To dry the eyes of his mother, to end the worst of her ills,
And the terrible record of wrong, and the annals of hell and hate,
Had gathered into his breast like a lake in the heart of the hills.
Brooding over the past, he found himself but a slave,
With manacles forged on his mind, and fetters on every limb;
The land that was life to others, to him was only a grave,
And however the race he ran no victor wreath was for him.
The fane of learning was closed, shut out was the light of day,
No ray from the sun of science, no brightness from Greece or Rome,
And those who hungered for knowledge, like him, had to fly away,
Where bountiful France threw wide the gates that were shut at home.
And there he happily learned a lore far better than books,
A lesson he taught for ever, and thundered over the land,
That Liberty's self is a terror, how lovely may be her looks,
If religion is not in her heart, and reverence guide not her hand.
The steps of honour were barred: it was not for him to climb,
No glorious goal in the future, no prize for the labour of life,
And the fate of him and his people seemed fixed for all coming time
To hew the wood of the helot and draw the waters of strife.
But the glorious youth returning
Back from France the fair and free,
Rage within his bosom burning,
Such a servile sight to see,
Vowed to heaven it should not be.
"No!" the youthful champion cried,
"Mother Ireland, widowed bride,
If thy freedom can be won
By the service of a son,
Then, behold that son in me.
I will give thee every hour,
Every day shall be thy dower,
In the splendour of the light,
In the watches of the night,
In the shine and in the shower,
I shall work but for thy right."
1782-1800.
A dazzling gleam of evanescent glory,
Had passed away, and all was dark once more,
One golden page had lit the mournful story,
Which ruthless hands with envious rage out-tore.
One glorious sun-burst, radiant and far-reaching,
Had pierced the cloudy veil dark ages wove,
When full-armed Freedom rose from Grattan's teaching,
As sprang Minerva from the brain of Jove.
Oh! in the transient light that had outbroken,
How all the land with quickening fire was lit!
What golden words of deathless speech were spoken,
What lightning flashes of immortal wit!
Letters and arts revived beneath its beaming,
Commerce and Hope outspread their swelling sails,
And with "Free Trade" upon their standard gleaming,
Now feared no foes and dared adventurous gales.
Across the stream the graceful arch extended,
Above the pile the rounded dome arose,
The soaring spire to heaven's high vault ascended,
The loom hummed loud as bees at evening's close.
And yet 'mid all this hope and animation,
The people still lay bound in bigot chains,
Freedom that gave some slight alleviation,
Could dare no panacea for their pains.
Yet faithful to their country's quick uprising,
Like some fair island from volcanic waves,
They shared the triumph though their claims despising,
And hailed the freedom though themselves were slaves.
But soon had come the final compensation,
Soon would the land one brotherhood have known,
Had not some spell of hellish incantation
The new-formed fane of Freedom overthrown.
In one brief hour the fair mirage had faded,
No isle of flowers lay glad on ocean's green,
But in its stead, deserted and degraded,
The barren strand of Slavery's shore was seen.
1800-1829.
Yet! 'twas on that barren strand
Sing his praise throughout the world!
Yet, 'twas on that barren strand,
O'er a cowed and broken band,
That his solitary hand
Freedom's flag unfurled.
Yet! 'twas there in Freedom's cause,
Freedom from unequal laws,
Freedom for each creed and class,
For humanity's whole mass,
That his voice outrang;--
And the nation at a bound,
Stirred by the inspiring sound,
To his side up-sprang.
Then the mighty work began,
Then the war of thirty years--
Peaceful war, when words were spears,
And religion led the van.
When O'Connell's voice of power,
Day by day and hour by hour,
Raining down its iron shower,
Laid oppression low,
Till at length the war was o'er,
And Napoleon's conqueror,
Yielded to a mightier foe.
1829.
Into the senate swept the mighty chief,
Like some great ocean wave across the bar
Of intercepting rock, whose jagged reef
But frets the victor whom it cannot mar.
Into the senate his triumphal car
Rushed like a conqueror's through the broken gates
Of some fallen city, whose defenders are
Powerful no longer to resist the fates,
But yield at last to him whom wondering Fame awaits.
And as "sweet foreign Spenser" might have sung,
Yoked to the car two wing`ed steeds were seen,
With eyes of fire and flashing hoofs outflung,
As if Apollo's coursers they had been.
These were quick Thought and Eloquence, I ween,
Bounding together with impetuous speed,
While overhead there waved a flag of green,
Which seemed to urge still more each flying steed,
Until they reached the goal the hero had decreed.
There at his feet a captive wretch lay bound,
Hideous, deformed, of baleful countenance,
Whom as his blood-shot eye-balls glared around,
As if to kill with their malignant glance,
I knew to be the fiend Intolerance.
But now no longer had he power to slay,
For Freedom touched him with Ithuriel's lance,
His horrid form revealing by its ray,
And showed how foul a fiend the world could once obey.
Then followed after him a numerous train,
Each bearing trophies of the field he won:
Some the white wand, and some the civic chain,
Its golden letters glistening in the sun;
Some--for the reign of justice had begun--
The ermine robes that soon would be the prize
Of spotless lives that all pollution shun,
And some in mitred pomp, with upturned eyes,
And grateful hearts invoked a blessing from the skies.
1843-1847.
A glorious triumph! a deathless deed!--
Shall the hero rest and his work half done?
Is it enough to enfranchise a creed,
When a nation's freedom may yet be won?
Is it enough to hang on the wall
The broken links of the Catholic chain,
When now one mighty struggle for ALL
May quicken the life in the land again?--
May quicken the life, for the land lay dead;
No central fire was a heart in its breast,--
No throbbing veins, with the life-blood red,
Ran out like rivers to east or west:
Its soul was gone, and had left it clay--
Dull clay to grow but the grass and the root;
But harvests for Men, ah! where were they?--
And where was the tree for Liberty's fruit?
Never till then, in victory's hour,
Had a conqueror felt a joy so sweet,
As when the wand of his well-won power
O'Connell laid at his country's feet.
"No! not for me, nor for mine alone,"
The generous victor cried, "Have I fought,
But to see my Eire again on her throne;
Ah, that was my dream and my guiding thought.
To see my Eire again on her throne,
Her tresses with lilies and shamrocks twined,
Her severed sons to a nation grown,
Her hostile hues in one flag combined;
Her wisest gathered in grave debate,
Her bravest armed to resist the foe:
To see my country 'glorious and great,'--
To see her 'free,'--to fight I go!"
And forth he went to the peaceful fight,
And the millions rose at his words of fire,
As the lightning's leap from the depth of the night,
And circle some mighty minster's spire:
Ah, ill had it fared with the hapless land,
If the power that had roused could not restrain?
If the bolts were not grasped in a glowing hand
To be hurled in peals of thunder again?
And thus the people followed his path,
As if drawn on by a magic spell,--
By the royal hill and the haunted rath,
By the hallowed spring and the holy well,
By all the shrines that to Erin are dear,
Round which her love like the ivy clings,--
Still folding in leaves that never grow sere
The cell of the saint and the home of kings.
And a soul of sweetness came into the land:
Once more was the harp of Erin strung;
Once more on the notes from some master hand
The listening land in its rapture hung.
Once more with the golden glory of words
Were the youthful orator's lips inspired,
Till he touched the heart to its tenderest chords,
And quickened the pulse which his voice had fired.
And others divinely dowered to teach--
High souls of honour, pure hearts of fire,
So startled the world with their rhythmic speech,
That it seemed attuned to some unseen lyre.
But the kingliest voice God ever gave man
Words sweeter still spoke than poet hath sung,--
For a nation's wail through the numbers ran,
And the soul of the Celt exhaled on his tongue.
And again the foe had been forced to yield;
But the hero at last waxed feeble and old,
Yet he scattered the seed in a fruitful field,
To wave in good time as a harvest of gold.
Then seeking the feet of God's High Priest,
He slept by the soft Ligurian Sea,
Leaving a light, like the Star in the East,
To lead the land that will yet be free.
1875.
A hundred years their various course have run,
Since Erin's arms received her noblest son,
And years unnumbered must in turn depart
Ere Erin fails to fold him to her heart.
He is our boast, our glory, and our pride,
For us he lived, fought, suffered, dared, and died;
Struck off the shackles from each fettered limb,
And all we have of best we owe to him.
If some cathedral, exquisitely fair,
Lifts its tall turrets through the wondering air,
Though art or skill its separate offering brings,
'Tis from O'Connell's heart the structure springs.
If through this city on these festive days,
Halls, streets, and squares are bright with civic blaze
Of glittering chains, white wands, and flowing gowns,
The red-robed senates of a hundred towns,
Whatever rank each special spot may claim,
'Tis from O'Connell's hand their charters came.
If in the rising hopes of recent years
A mighty sound reverberates on our ears,
And myriad voices in one cry unite
For restoration of a ravished right,
'Tis the great echo of that thunder blast,
On Tara pealed or mightier Mullaghmast,
If arts and letters are more widely spread,
A Nile o'erflowing from its fertile bed,
Spreading the rich alluvium whence are given
Harvests for earth and amaranth flowers for heaven;
If Science still, in not unholy walls,
Sets its high chair, and dares unchartered halls,
And still ascending, ever heavenward soars,
While capped Exclusion slowly opes it doors,
It is his breath that speeds the spreading tide,
It is his hand the long-locked door throws wide.
Where'er we turn the same effect we find--
O'Connell's voice still speaks his country's mind.
Therefore we gather to his birthday feast
Prelate and peer, the people and the priest;
Therefore we come, in one united band,
To hail in him the hero of the land,
To bless his memory, and with loud acclaim
To all the winds, on all the wings of fame
Waft to the listening world the great O'Connell's name.
MOORE.
MAY 28TH, 1879.
Joy to Ierne, joy,
This day a deathless crown is won,
Her child of song, her glorious son,
Her minstrel boy
Attains his century of fame,
Completes his time-allotted zone,
And proudly with the world's acclaim
Ascends the lyric throne.
Yes, joy to her whose path so long,
Slow journeying to her realm of rest
O'er many a rugged mountain's crest,
He charmed with his enchanting song:
Like his own princess in the tale,
When he who had her way beguiled
Through many a bleak and desert wild
Until she reached Cashmere's bright vale
Had ceased those notes to play and sing
To which her heart responsive swelled,
She looking up, in him beheld
Her minstrel lover and her king;--
So Erin now, her journey well-nigh o'er,
Enraptured sees her minstrel king in Moore.
And round that throne whose light to-day
O'er all the world is cast,
In words though weak, in hues though faint,
Congenial fancy rise and paint
The spirits of the past
Who here their homage pay--
Those who his youthful muse inspired,
Those who his early genius fired
To emulate their lay:
And as in some phantasmal glass
Let the immortal spirits pass,
Let each renew the inspiring strain,
And fire the poet's soul again.
First there comes from classic Greece,
Beaming love and breathing peace,
With her pure, sweet smiling face,
The glory of the Aeolian race,
Beauteous Sappho, violet-crowned,
Shedding joy and rapture round:
In her hand a harp she bears,
Parent of celestial airs,
Love leaps trembling from each wire,
Every chord a string of fire:--
How the poet's heart doth beat,
How his lips the notes repeat,
Till in rapture borne along,
The Sapphic lute, the lyrist's song,
Blend in one delicious strain,
Never to divide again.
And beside the Aeolian queen
Great Alcaeus' form is seen:
He takes up in voice more strong
The dying cadence of the song,
And on loud resounding strings
Hurls his wrath on tyrant kings:--
Like to incandescent coal
On the poet's kindred soul
Fall these words of living flame,
Till their songs become the same,--
The same hate of slavery's night,
The same love of freedom's light,
Scorning aught that stops its way,
Come the black cloud whence it may,
Lift alike the inspir`ed song,
And the liquid notes prolong.
Carolling a livelier measure
Comes the Teian bard of pleasure,
Round his brow where joy reposes
Radiant love enwreaths his roses,
Rapture in his verse is ringing,
Soft persuasion in his singing:--
'Twas the same melodious ditty
Moved Polycrates to pity,
Made that tyrant heart surrender
Captive to a tone so tender:
To the younger bard inclining,
Round his brow the roses twining,
First the wreath in red wine steeping,
He his cithern to his keeping
Yields, its glorious fate foreseeing,
From her chains a nation freeing,
Fetters new around it flinging
In the flowers of his own singing.
But who is this that from the misty cloud
Of immemorial years,
Wrapped in the vesture of his vaporous shroud
With solemn steps appears?
His head with oak-leaves and with ivy crowned
Lets fall its silken snow,
While the white billows of his beard unbound
Athwart his bosom flow:
Who is this venerable form
Whose hands, prelusive of the storm
Across his harp-strings play--
That harp which, trembling in his hand,
Impatient waits its lord's command
To pour the impassioned lay?
Who is it comes with reverential hail
To greet the bard who sang his country best
'Tis Ossian--primal poet of the Gael--
The Homer of the West.
He sings the heroic tales of old
When Ireland yet was free,
Of many a fight and foray bold,
And raid beyond the sea.
Of all the famous deeds of Fin,
And all the wiles of Mave,
Now thunders 'mid the battle's din,
Now sobs beside the wave.
That wave empurpled by the sword
The hero used too well,
When great Cuchullin held the ford,
And fair Ferdiah fell.
And now his prophet eye is cast
As o'er a boundless plain;
He sees the future as the past,
And blends them in his strain.
The Red-Branch Knights their flags unfold
When danger's front appears,
The sunburst breaks through clouds of gold
To glorify their spears.
But, ah! a darker hour drew nigh,
The hour of Erin's woe,
When she, though destined not to die,
Lay prostrate 'neath the foe.
When broke were all the arms she bore,
And bravely bore in vain,
Till even her harp could sound no more
Beneath the victor's chain.
Ah! dire constraint, ah! cruel wrong,
To fetter thus its chord,
But well they knew that Ireland's song
Was keener than her sword.
That song would pierce where swords would fail,
And o'er the battle's din,
The sweet, sad music of the Gael
A peaceful victory win.
Long was the trance, but sweet and low
The harp breathed out again
Its speechless wail, its wordless woe,
In Carolan's witching strain.
Until at last the gift of words
Denied to it so long,
Poured o'er the now enfranchised chords
The articulate light of song.
Poured the bright light from genius won,
That woke the harp's wild lays;
Even as that statue which the sun
Made vocal with his rays.
Thus Ossian in disparted dream
Outpoured the varied lay,
But now in one united stream
His rapture finds its way:--
"Yes, in thy hands, illustrious son,
The harp shall speak once more,
Its sweet lament shall rippling run
From listening shore to shore.
Till mighty lands that lie unknown
Far in the fabled west,
And giant isles of verdure thrown
Upon the South Sea's breast.
And plains where rushing rivers flow--
Fit emblems of the free--
Shall learn to know of Ireland's woe,
And Ireland's weal through thee."
'Twas thus he sang,
And while tumultuous plaudits rang
From the immortal throng,
In the younger minstrel's hand
He placed the emblem of the land--
The harp of Irish song.
Oh! what dulcet notes are heard.
Never bird
Soaring through the sunny air
Like a prayer
Borne by angel's hands on high
So entranced the listening sky
As his song--
Soft, pathetic, joyous, strong,
Rising now in rapid flight
Out of sight
Like a lark in its own light,
Now descending low and sweet
To our feet,
Till the odours of the grass
With the light notes as they pass
Blend and meet:
All that Erin's memory guards
In her heart,
Deeds of heroes, songs of bards,
Have their part.
Brian's glories reappear,
Fionualla's song we hear,
Tara's walls resound again
With a more inspir`ed strain,
Rival rivers meet and join,
Stately Shannon blends with Boyne;
While on high the storm-winds cease
Heralding the arch of peace.
And all the bright creations fair
That 'neath his master-hand awake,
Some in tears and some in smiles,
Like Nea in the summer isles,
Or Kathleen by the lonely lake,
Round his radiant throne repair:
Nay, his own Peri of the air
Now no more disconsolate,
Gives in at Fame's celestial gate
His passport to the skies--
The gift to heaven most dear,
His country's tear.
From every lip the glad refrain doth rise,
"Joy, ever joy, his glorious task is done,
The gates are passed and Fame's bright heaven is won!"
Ah! yes, the work, the glorious work is done,
And Erin crowns to-day her brightest son,
Around his brow entwines the victor bay,
And lives herself immortal in his lay--
Leads him with honour to her highest place,
For he had borne his more than mother's name
Proudly along the Olympic lists of fame
When mighty athletes struggled in the race.
Byron, the swift-souled spirit, in his pride
Paused to cheer on the rival by his side,
And Lycidas, so long
Lost in the light of his own dazzling song,
Although himself unseen,
Gave the bright wreath that might his own have been
To him whom 'mid the mountain shepherd throng,
The minstrels of the isles,
When Adonais died so fair and young,
Ierne sent from out her green defiles
"The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,
And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue."
And he who sang of Poland's kindred woes,
And Hope's delicious dream,
And all the mighty minstrels who arose
In that auroral gleam
That o'er our age a blaze of glory threw
Which Shakspere's only knew--
Some from their hidden haunts remote,
Like him the lonely hermit of the hills,
Whose song like some great organ note
The whole horizon fills.
Or the great Master, he whose magic hand,
Wielding the wand from which such wonder flows,
Transformed the lineaments of a rugged land,
And left the thistle lovely as the rose.
Oh! in a concert of such minstrelsy,
In such a glorious company,
What pride for Ireland's harp to sound,
For Ireland's son to share,
What pride to see him glory-crowned,
And hear amid the dazzling gleam
Upon the rapt and ravished air
Her harp still sound supreme!
Glory to Moore, eternal be the glory
That here we crown and consecrate to-day,
Glory to Moore, for he has sung our story
In strains whose sweetness ne'er can pass away.
Glory to Moore, for he has sighed our sorrow
In such a wail of melody divine,
That even from grief a passing joy we borrow,
And linger long o'er each lamenting line.
Glory to Moore, that in his songs of gladness
Which neither change nor time can e'er destroy,
Though mingled oft with some faint sigh of sadness,
He sings his country's rapture and its joy.
What wit like his flings out electric flashes
That make the numbers sparkle as they run:
Wit that revives dull history's Dead-sea ashes,
And makes the ripe fruit glisten in the sun?
What fancy full of loveliness and lightness
Has spread like his as at some dazzling feast,
The fruits and flowers, the beauty and the brightness,
And all the golden glories of the East?
Perpetual blooms his bower of summer roses,
No winter comes to turn his green leaves sere,
Beside his song-stream where the swan reposes
The bulbul sings as by the Bendemeer.
But back returning from his flight with Peris,
Above his native fields he sings his best,
Like to the lark whose rapture never wearies,
When poised in air he singeth o'er his nest.
And so we rank him with the great departed,
The kings of song who rule us from their urns,
The souls inspired, the natures noble hearted,
And place him proudly by the side of Burns.
And as not only by the Calton Mountain,
Is Scotland's bard remembered and revered,
But whereso'er, like some o'erflowing fountain,
Its hardy race a prosperous path has cleared.
There 'mid the roar of newly-rising cities,
His glorious name is heard on every tongue,
There to the music of immortal ditties,
His lays of love, his patriot songs are sung.
So not alone beside that bay of beauty
That guards the portals of his native town
Where like two watchful sentinels on duty,
Howth and Killiney from their heights look down.
But wheresoe'er the exiled race hath drifted,
By what far sea, what mighty stream beside,
There shall to-day the poet's name be lifted,
And Moore proclaimed its glory and its pride:
There shall his name be held in fond memento,
There shall his songs resound for evermore,
Whether beside the golden Sacramento,
Or where Niagara's thunder shakes the shore.
For all that's bright indeed must fade and perish,
And all that's sweet when sweetest not endure,
Before the world shall cease to love and cherish
The wit and song, the name and fame of MOORE.
Miscellaneous Poems.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SNOW.
The night brings forth the morn--
Of the cloud is lightning born;
From out the darkest earth the brightest roses grow.
Bright sparks from black flints fly,
And from out a leaden sky
Comes the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.
The wondering air grows mute,
As her pearly parachute
Cometh slowly down from heaven, softly floating to and fro;
And the earth emits no sound,
As lightly on the ground
Leaps the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.
At the contact of her tread,
The mountain's festal head,
As with chaplets of white roses, seems to glow;
And its furrowed cheek grows white
With a feeling of delight,
At the presence of the Spirit of the Snow.
As she wendeth to the vale,
The longing fields grow pale--
The tiny streams that vein them cease to flow;
And the river stays its tide
With wonder and with pride,
To gaze upon the Spirit of the Snow.
But little doth she deem
The love of field or stream--
She is frolicsome and lightsome as the roe;
She is here and she is there,
On the earth or in the air,
Ever changing, floats the Spirit of the Snow.
Now a daring climber, she
Mounts the tallest forest tree--
Out along the giddy branches doth she go;
And her tassels, silver-white,
Down swinging through the night,
Mark the pillow of the Spirit of the Snow.
Now she climbs the mighty mast,
When the sailor boy at last
Dreams of home in his hammock down below
There she watches in his stead
Till the morning sun shines red,
Then evanishes the Spirit of the Snow.
Or crowning with white fire.
The minster's topmost spire
With a glory such as sainted foreheads show;
She teaches fanes are given
Thus to lift the heart to heaven,
There to melt like the Spirit of the Snow.
Now above the loaded wain,
Now beneath the thundering train,
Doth she hear the sweet bells tinkle and the snorting engine blow;
Now she flutters on the breeze,
Till the branches of the trees
Catch the tossed and tangled tresses of the Spirit of the Snow.
Now an infant's balmy breath
Gives the spirit seeming death,
When adown her pallid features fair Decay's damp dew-drops flow;
Now again her strong assault
Can make an army halt,
And trench itself in terror 'gainst the Spirit of the Snow.
At times with gentle power,
In visiting some bower,
She scarce will hide the holly's red, the blackness of the sloe;
But, ah! her awful might,
When down some Alpine height
The hapless hamlet sinks before the Spirit of the Snow.
On a feather she floats down
The turbid rivers brown,
Down to meet the drifting navies of the winter-freighted floe;
Then swift o'er the azure walls
Of the awful waterfalls,
Where Niagara leaps roaring, glides the Spirit of the Snow.
With her flag of truce unfurled,
She makes peace o'er all the world--
Makes bloody battle cease awhile, and war's unpitying woe;
Till, its hollow womb within,
The deep dark-mouthed culverin
Encloses, like a cradled child, the Spirit of the Snow.
She uses in her need
The fleetly-flying steed--
Now tries the rapid reindeer's strength, and now the camel slow;
Or, ere defiled by earth,
Unto her place of birth,
Returns upon the eagle's wing the Spirit of the Snow.
Oft with pallid figure bowed,
Like the Banshee in her shroud,
Doth the moon her spectral shadow o'er some silent gravestone throw;
Then moans the fitful wail,
And the wanderer grows pale,
Till at morning fades the phantom of the Spirit of the Snow.
In her ermine cloak of state
She sitteth at the gate
Of some winter-prisoned princess in her palace by the Po;
Who dares not to come forth
Till back unto the North
Flies the beautiful besieger--the Spirit of the Snow.
In her spotless linen hood,
Like the other sisterhood,
She braves the open cloister when the psalm sounds sweet and low;
When some sister's bier doth pass
From the minster and the Mass,
Soon to sink into the earth, like the Spirit of the Snow.
But at times so full of joy,
She will play with girl and boy,
Fly from out their tingling fingers, like white fireballs on the foe;
She will burst in feathery flakes,
And the ruin that she makes
Will but wake the crackling laughter of the Spirit of the Snow.
Or in furry mantle drest,
She will fondle on her breast
The embryo buds awaiting the near Spring's mysterious throe;
So fondly that the first
Of the blossoms that outburst
Will be called the beauteous daughter of the Spirit of the Snow.
Ah! would that we were sure
Of hearts so warmly pure,
In all the winter weather that this lesser life must know;
That when shines the Sun of Love
From the warmer realm above,
In its light we may dissolve, like the Spirit of the Snow.
TO THE BAY OF DUBLIN.
My native Bay, for many a year
I've lov'd thee with a trembling fear,
Lest thou, though dear and very dear,
And beauteous as a vision,
Shouldst have some rival far away,
Some matchless wonder of a bay,
Whose sparkling waters ever play
'Neath azure skies elysian.
'Tis Love, methought, blind Love that pours
The rippling magic round these shores,
For whatsoever Love adores
Becomes what Love desireth:
'Tis ignorance of aught beside
That throws enchantment o'er the tide,
And makes my heart respond with pride
To what mine eye admireth,
And thus, unto our mutual loss,
Whene'er I paced the sloping moss
Of green Killiney, or across
The intervening waters,
Up Howth's brown sides my feet would wend,
To see thy sinuous bosom bend,
Or view thine outstretch'd arms extend
To clasp thine islet daughters;
Then would this spectre of my fear
Beside me stand--How calm and clear
Slept underneath, the green waves, near
The tide-worn rocks' recesses;
Or when they woke, and leapt from land,
Like startled sea-nymphs, hand-in-hand,
Seeking the southern silver strand
With floating emerald tresses:
It lay o'er all, a moral mist,
Even on the hills, when evening kissed
The granite peaks to amethyst,
I felt its fatal shadow:
It darkened o'er the brightest rills,
It lowered upon the sunniest hills,
And hid the wing`ed song that fills
The moorland and the meadow.
But now that I have been to view
All even Nature's self can do,
And from Gaeta's arch of blue
Borne many a fond memento;
And from each fair and famous scene,
Where Beauty is, and Power hath been,
Along the golden shores between
Misenum and Sorrento:
I can look proudly in thy face,
Fair daughter of a hardier race,
And feel thy winning well-known grace,
Without my old misgiving;
And as I kneel upon thy strand,
And kiss thy once unvalued hand,
Proclaim earth holds no lovelier land,
Where life is worth the living.
TO ETHNA.
First loved, last loved, best loved of all I've loved!
Ethna, my boyhood's dream, my manhood's light,
Pure angel spirit, in whose light I've moved,
Full many a year, along life's darksome night!
Thou wert my star, serenely shining bright
Beyond youth's passing clouds and mists obscure
Thou wert the power that kept my spirit white,
My soul unsoiled, my heart untouched and pure.
Thine was the light from heaven that ever must endure.
Purest, and best, and brightest, no mishap,
No chance, or change can break our mutual ties;
My heart lies spread before thee like a map,
Here roll the tides, and there the mountains rise;
Here dangers frown and there hope's streamlet flies,
And golden promontories cleave the main:
And I have looked into thy lustrous eyes,
And saw the thought thou couldst not all restrain,
A sweet, soft, sympathetic pity for my pain!
Dearest, and best, I dedicate to thee,
From this hour forth, my hopes, my dreams, my cares,
All that I am, and all I e'er may be,
Youth's clustering locks, and age's thin white hairs;
Thou by my side, fair vision, unawares--
Sweet saint--shalt guard me as with angel's wings;
To thee shall rise the morning's hopeful prayers,
The evening hymns, the thoughts that midnight brings,
The worship that like fire out of the warm heart springs.
Thou wilt be with me through the struggling day,
Thou wilt be with me through the pensive night,
Thou wilt be with me, though far, far away
Some sad mischance may snatch you from my sight,
In grief, in pain, in gladness, in delight,
In every thought thy form shall bear a part,
In every dream thy memory shall unite,
Bride of my soul! and partner of my heart!
Till from the dreadful bow flieth the fatal dart!
Am I deceived? and do I pine and faint
For worth that only dwells in heaven above,
And if thou'rt not the Ethna that I paint,
Then thou art not the Ethna that I love;
If thou art not as gentle as the dove,
And good as thou art beautiful, the tooth
Of venomed serpent will not deadlier prove
Than that dark revelation; but in sooth,
Ethna, I wrong thee, dearest, for thy name is TRUTH.
"NOT KNOWN."
On receiving through the Post-Office a Returned Letter from an old
residence, marked on the envelope, "Not Known."
A beauteous summer-home had I
As e'er a bard set eyes on--
A glorious sweep of sea and sky,
Near hills and far horizon.
Like Naples was the lovely bay,
The lovely hill like Rio--
And there I lived for many a day
In Campo de Estio.
It seemed as if the magic scene
No human skill had planted;
The trees remained for ever green,
As if they were enchanted:
And so I said to Sweetest-eyes,
My dear, I think that we owe
To fairy hands this paradise
Of Campo de Estio.
How swiftly flew the hours away!
I read and rhymed and revelled;
In interchange of work and play,
I built, and drained, and levelled;
"The Pope," so "happy," days gone by
(Unlike our ninth Pope Pio),
Was far less happy then than I
In Campo de Estio.
For children grew in that sweet place,
As in the grape wine gathers--
Their mother's eyes in each bright face,
In each light heart, their father's:
Their father, who by some was thought
A literary 'leo,'
Ne'er dreamed he'd be so soon forgot
In Campo de Estio.
But so it was:--Of hope bereft,
A year had scarce gone over,
Since he that sweetest place had left,
And gone--we'll say--to Dover,
When letters came where he had flown.
Returned him from the "P. O.,"
On which was writ, O Heavens! "NOT KNOWN
IN CAMPO DE ESTIO!"
"Not known" where he had lived so long,
A "cintra" home created,
Where scarce a shrub that now is strong
But had its place debated;
Where scarce a flower that now is shown,
But shows his care: O Dio!
And now to be described, "Not known
In Campo de Estio."
That pillar from the Causeway brought--
This fern from Connemara--
That pine so long and widely sought--
This Cedrus deodara--
That bust (if Shakespeare's doth survive,
And busts had brains and 'brio'),
Might keep his name at least alive
In Campo de Estio.
When Homer went from place to place,
The glorious siege reciting
(Of course I presuppose the case
Of reading and of writing),
I've little doubt the Bard divine
His letters got from Scio,
Inscribed "Not known," Ah! me, like mine
From Campo de Estio.
The poet, howsoe'er inspired,
Must brave neglect and danger;
When Philip Massinger expired,
The death-list said "a stranger!"
A stranger! yes, on earth, but let
The poet sing 'laus Deo'!--
Heaven's glorious summer waits him yet--
God's "Campo de Estio."
THE LAY MISSIONER.
Had I a wish--'twere this, that heaven would make
My heart as strong to imitate as love,
That half its weakness it could leave, and take
Some spirit's strength, by which to soar above,
A lordly eagle mated with a dove.
Strong-will and warm affection, these be mine;
Without the one no dreams has fancy wove,
Without the other soon these dreams decline,
Weak children of the heart, which fade away and pine!
Strong have I been in love, if not in will;
Affections crowd and people all the past,
And now, even now, they come and haunt me still,
Even from the graves where once my hopes were cast.
But not with spectral features--all aghast--
Come they to fright me; no, with smiles and tears,
And winding arms, and breasts that beat as fast
As once they beat in boyhood's opening years,
Come the departed shades, whose steps my rapt soul hears.
Youth has passed by, its first warm flush is o'er,
And now, 'tis nearly noon; yet unsubdued
My heart still kneels and worships, as of yore,
Those twin-fair shapes, the Beautiful and Good!
Valley and mountain, sky and stream, and wood,
And that fair miracle, the human face,
And human nature in its sunniest mood,
Freed from the shade of all things low and base,--
These in my heart still hold their old accustom'd place.
'Tis not with pride, but gratitude, I tell
How beats my heart with all its youthful glow,
How one kind act doth make my bosom swell,
And down my cheeks the sweet, warm, glad tears flow.
Enough of self, enough of me you know,
Kind reader, but if thou wouldst further wend,
With me, this wilderness of weak words thro',
Let me depict, before the journey end,
One whom methinks thou'lt love, my brother and my friend.
Ah! wondrous is the lot of him who stands
A Christian Priest, with a Christian fane,
And binds with pure and consecrated hands,
Round earth and heaven, a festal, flower chain;
Even as between the blue arch and the main,
A circling western ring of golden light
Weds the two worlds, or as the sunny rain
Of April makes the cloud and clay unite,
Thus links the Priest of God the dark world and the bright.
All are not priests, yet priestly duties may
And should be all men's: as a common sight
We view the brightness of a summer's day,
And think 'tis but its duty to be bright;
But should a genial beam of warming light
Suddenly break from out a wintry sky,
With gratitude we own a new delight,
Quick beats the heart and brighter beams the eye,
And as a boon we hail the splendour from on high.
'Tis so with men, with those of them at least
Whose hearts by icy doubts are chill'd and torn;
They think the virtues of a Christian Priest
Something professional, put on and worn
Even as the vestments of a Sabbath morn:
But should a friend or act or teach as he,
Then is the mind of all its doubting shorn,
The unexpected goodness that they see
Takes root, and bears its fruit, as uncoerced and free!
One I have known, and haply yet I know,
A youth by baser passions undefiled,
Lit by the light of genius and the glow
Which real feeling leaves where once it smiled;
Firm as a man, yet tender as a child;
Armed at all points by fantasy and thought,
To face the true or soar amid the wild;
By love and labour, as a good man ought,
Ready to pay the price by which dear truth is bought!
'Tis not with cold advice or stern rebuke,
With formal precept, or wit face demure,
But with the unconscious eloquence of look,
Where shines the heart so loving and so pure:
'Tis these, with constant goodness, that allure
All hearts to love and imitate his worth.
Beside him weaker natures feel secure,
Even as the flower beside the oak peeps forth,
Safe, though the rain descends, and blows the biting North!
Such is my friend, and such I fain would be,
Mild, thoughtful, modest, faithful, loving, gay,
Correct, not cold, nor uncontroll'd though free,
But proof to all the lures that round us play,
Even as the sun, that on his azure way
Moveth with steady pace and lofty mien,
Though blushing clouds, like syrens, woo his stay,
Higher and higher through the pure serene,
Till comes the calm of eve and wraps him from the scene.
THE SPIRIT OF THE IDEAL.
Sweet sister spirits, ye whose starlight tresses
Stream on the night-winds as ye float along,
Missioned with hope to man--and with caresses
To slumbering babes--refreshment to the strong--
And grace the sensuous soul that it's arrayed in:
As the light burden of melodious song
Weighs down a poet's words;--as an o'erladen
Lily doth bend beneath its own pure snow;
Or with its joy, the free heart of a maiden:--
Thus, I behold your outstretched pinions grow
Heavy with all the priceless gifts and graces
God through thy ministration doth bestow.
Do ye not plant the rose on youthful faces?
And rob the heavens of stars for Beauty's eyes?
Do ye not fold within love's pure embraces
All that Omnipotence doth yet devise
For human bliss, or rapture superhuman--
Heaven upon earth, and earth still in the skies?
Do ye not sow the fruitful heart of woman
With tenderest charities and faith sincere,
To feed man's sterile soul and to illumine
His duller eyes, that else might settle here,
With the bright promise of a purer region--
A starlight beacon to a starry sphere?
Are they not all thy children, that bright legion--
Of aspirations, and all hopeful sighs
That in the solemn train of grave Religion
Strew heavenly flowers before man's longing eyes,
And make him feel, as o'er life's sea he wendeth,
The far-off odorous airs of Paradise?--
Like to the breeze some flowery island sendeth
Unto the seaman, ere its bowers are seen,
Which tells him soon his weary wandering endeth--
Soon shall he rest, in bosky shades of green,
By daisied meadows prankt with dewy flowers,
With ever-running rivulets between.
These are thy tasks, my sisters--these the powers
God in his goodness gives into thy hands:--
'Tis from thy fingers fall the diamond showers
Of budding Spring, and o'er the expectant lands
June's odorous purple and rich Autumn's gold:
And even when needful Winter wide expands
His fallow wings, and winds blow sharp and cold
From the harsh east, 'tis thine, o'er all the plain,
The leafless woodlands and the unsheltered wold,
Gently to drop the flakes of feathery rain--
Heaven's warmest down--around the slumbering seeds,
And o'er the roots the frost-blanched counterpane.
What though man's careless eye but little heeds
Even the effects, much less the remoter cause,
Still, in the doing of beneficent deeds--
By God and his Vicegerent Nature's laws--
Ever a compensating joy is found.
Think ye the rain-drop heedeth if it draws
Rankness as well as Beauty from the ground?
Or that the sullen wind will deign to wake
Only Aeolian melodies of sound--
And not the stormy screams that make men quake
Thus do ye act, my sisters; thus ye do
Your cheerful duty for the doing's sake--
Not unrewarded surely--not when you
See the successful issue of your charms,
Bringing the absent back again to view--
Giving the loved one to the lover's arms--
Smoothing the grassy couch in weary age--
Hushing in death's great calm a world's alarms.
I, I alone upon the earth's vast stage
Am doomed to act an unrequited part--
I, the unseen preceptress of the sage--
I, whose ideal form doth win the heart
Of all whom God's vocation hath assigned
To wear the sacred vesture of high Art--
To pass along the electric sparks of mind
From age to age, from race to race, until
The expanding truth encircles all mankind.
What without me were all the poet's skill?--
Dead, sensuous form without the quickening soul.
What without me the instinctive aim of will?--
A useless magnet pointing to no pole.
What the fine ear and the creative hand?
Most potent spirits free from man's control.
I, THE IDEAL, by the poet stand
When all his soul o'erflows with holy fire,
When currents of the beautiful and grand
Run glittering down along each burning wire
Until the heart of the great world doth feel
The electric shock of his God-kindled lyre:--
Then rolls the thunderous music peal on peal,
Or in the breathless after-pause, a strain
Simpler and sweeter through the hush doth steal--
Like to the pattering drops of summer rain
Or rustling grass, when fragrance fills the air
And all the groves are vocal once again:
Whatever form, whatever shape I bear,
The Spirit of high Impulse, and the Soul
Of all conceptions beautiful and rare,
Am I; who now swift spurning all control,
On rapid wings--the Ariel of the Muse--
Dart from the dazzling centre to the pole;
Now in the magic mimicry of hues
Such as surround God's golden throne, descend
In Titian's skies the boundaries to confuse
Betwixt earth's heaven and heaven's own heaven to blend
In Raphael's forms the human and divine,
Where spirit dawns, and matter seems to end.
Again on wings of melody, so fine
They mock the sight, but fall upon the ear
Like tuneful rose-leaves at the day's decline--
And with the music of a happier sphere
Entrance some master of melodious sound,
Till startled men the hymns of angels hear.
Happy for me when, in the vacant round
Of barren ages, one great steadfast soul
Faithful to me and to his art is found.
But, ah! my sisters, with my grief condole;
Join in my sorrows and respond my sighs;
And let your sobs the funeral dirges toll;
Weep those who falter in the great emprise--
Who, turning off upon some poor pretence,
Some worthless guerdon or some paltry prize,
Down from the airy zenith through the immense
Sink to the low expedients of an hour,
And barter soul for all the slough of sense,--
Just when the mind had reached its regal power,
And fancy's wing its perfect plume unfurl'd,--
Just when the bud of promise in the flower
Of all completeness opened on the world--
When the pure fire that heaven itself outflung
Back to its native empyrean curled,
Like vocal incense from a censer swung:--
Ah, me! to be subdued when all seemed won--
That I should fly when I would fain have clung.
Yet so it is,--our radiant course is run;--
Here we must part, the deathless lay unsung,
And, more than all, the deathless deed undone.
RECOLLECTIONS.
Ah! summer time, sweet summer scene,
When all the golden days,
Linked hand-in-hand, like moonlit fays,
Danced o'er the deepening green.
When, from the top of Pelier[111] down
We saw the sun descend,
With smiles that blessings seemed to send
To our near native town.
And when we saw him rise again
High o'er the hills at morn--
God's glorious prophet daily born
To preach good will to men--
Good-will and peace to all between
The gates of night and day--
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
Sweet summer time, true age of gold,
When hand-in-hand we went
Slow by the quickening shrubs, intent
To see the buds unfold:
To trace new wild flowers in the grass,
New blossoms on the bough,
And see the water-lilies now
Rise o'er the liquid glass.
When from the fond and folding gale
The scented briar I pulled,
Or for thy kindred bosom culled
The lily of the vale;--
Thou without whom were dark the green,
The golden turned to gray,
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
Sweet summer time, delight's brief reign,
Thou hast one memory still,
Dearer than ever tree or hill
Yet stretched along life's plain.
Stranger than all the wond'rous whole,
Flowers, fields, and sunset skies--
To see within our infant's eyes
The awakening of the soul.
To see their dear bright depths first stirred
By the far breath of thought,
To feel our trembling hearts o'erfraught
With rapture when we heard
Her first clear laugh, which might have been
A cherub's laugh at play--
Ah! love, thou canst but join and say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
Sweet summer time, sweet summer days,
One day I must recall;
One day the brightest of them all,
Must mark with special praise.
'Twas when at length in genial showers
The spring attained its close;
And June with many a myriad rose
Incarnadined the bowers:
Led by the bright and sun-warm air,
We left our indoor nooks;
Thou with my paper and my books,
And I thy garden chair;
Crossed the broad, level garden-walks,
With countless roses lined;
And where the apple still inclined
Its blossoms o'er the box,
Near to the lilacs round the pond,
In its stone ring hard by
We took our seats, where save the sky,
And the few forest trees beyond
The garden wall, we nothing saw,
But flowers and blossoms, and we heard
Nought but the whirring of some bird,
Or the rooks' distant, clamorous caw.
And in the shade we saw the face
Of our dear infant sleeping near,
And thou wert by to smile and hear,
And speak with innate truth and grace.
There through the pleasant noontide hours
My task of echoed song I sung;
Turning the golden southern tongue
Into the iron ore of ours!
'Twas the great Spanish master's pride,
The story of the hero proved;
'Twas how the Moorish princess loved,
And how the firm Fernando died.[112]
O happiest season ever seen,
O day, indeed the happiest day;
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
One picture more before I close
Fond Memory's fast dissolving views;
One picture more before I lose
The radiant outlines as they rose.
'Tis evening, and we leave the porch,
And for the hundredth time admire
The rhododendron's cones of fire
Rise round the tree, like torch o'er torch.
And for the hundredth time point out
Each favourite blossom and perfume--
If the white lilac still doth bloom,
Or the pink hawthorn fadeth out:
And by the laurell'd wall, and o'er
The fields of young green corn we've gone;
And by the outer gate, and on
To our dear friend's oft-trodden door.
And there in cheerful talk we stay,
Till deepening twilight warns us home;
Then once again we backward roam
Calmly and slow the well-known way--
And linger for the expected view--
Day's dying gleam upon the hill;
Or listen for the whip-poor-will,[113]
Or the too seldom shy cuckoo.
At home the historic page we glean,
And muse, and hope, and praise, and pray--
Join with me, love, as then, and say--
Sweet summer time and scene!
111. Mount Pelier, in the county of Dublin, overlooking Rathfarnham,
and more remotely Dundrum. To a brief residence near the latter village
the "Recollections" rendered in this poem are to be referred.
112. Calderon's "El Principe Constante," translated in the earlier
volumes of the author's Calderon. London, 1853.
113. I do not know the bird to which I have given this Indian name.
It, however, imitated its note quite distinctly.
DOLORES.
The moon of my soul is dark, Dolores,
Dead and dark in my breast it lies,
For I miss the heaven of thy smile, Dolores,
And the light of thy brown bright eyes.
The rose of my heart is gone, Dolores,
Bud or blossom in vain I seek;
For I miss the breath of thy lip, Dolores,
And the blush of thy pearl-pale cheek.
The pulse of my heart is still, Dolores,
Still and chill is its glowing tide;
For I miss the beating of thine, Dolores,
In the vacant space by my side.
But the moon shall revisit my soul, Dolores,
And the rose shall refresh my heart,
When I meet thee again in heaven, Dolores,
Never again to part.
LOST AND FOUND.
"Whither art thou gone, fair Una?
Una fair, the moon is gleaming;
Fear no mortal eye, fair Una,
For the very flowers are dreaming.
And the twinkling stars are closing
Up their weary watching glances,
Warders on heaven's walls reposing,
While the glittering foe advances.
"Una dear, my heart is throbbing,
Full of throbbings without number;
Come! the tired-out streams are sobbing
Like to children ere they slumber;
And the longing trees inclining,
Seek the earth's too distant bosom;
Sad fate! that keeps from intertwining
The earthly and the aerial blossom.
"Una dear, I've roamed the mountain,
Round the furze and o'er the heather;
Una, dear, I've sought the fountain
Where we rested oft together;
Ah! the mountain now looks dreary,
Dead and dark where no life liveth;
Ah! the fountain, to the weary,
Now, no more refreshment giveth.
"Una, darling, dearest daughter
Beauty ever gave to Fancy,
Spirit of the silver water,
Nymph of Nature's necromancy!
Fair enchantress, fond magician,
Is thine every spell-word spoken?
Hast thou closed thy fairy mission?
Is thy potent wand then broken?
"Una dearest, deign to hear me,
Fly no more my prayer resisting!"
Then a trembling voice came near me,
Like a maiden to the trysting,
Like a maiden's feet approaching
Where the lover doth attend her;
Half-forgiving, half-reproaching,
Came that voice so shy and tender.
"Must I blame thee, must I chide thee,
Change to scorn the love I bore thee?
And the fondest heart beside thee,
And the truest eyes before thee.
And the kindest hands to press thee,
And the instinctive sense to guide thee,
And the purest lips to bless thee,
What, O dreamer! is denied thee?
"Hast thou not the full fruition,
Hast thou not the full enjoyance
Of thy young heart's fond ambition,
Free from every feared annoyance
Thou hast sighed for truth and beauty,
Hast thou failed, then, in thy wooing?
Dreamed of some ideal duty,
Is there nought that waits thy doing?--
"Is the world less bright or beauteous,
That dear eyes behold it with thee?
Is the work of life less duteous,
That thou art helped to do it, prithee?
Is the near rapture non-existent,
Because thou dreamest an ideal?
And canst thou for a glimmering distant
Forget the blessings of the real?
"Down on thy knees, O doubting dreamer!
Down! and repent thy heart's misprision."
Scarce had I knelt in tears and tremor,
When the scales fell from off my vision.
There stood my human guardian angel,
Given me by God's benign foreseeing,
While from her lips came life's evangel,
"Live! that each day complete thy being!"
SPRING FLOWERS FROM IRELAND.
On receiving an early crocus and some violets in a letter from Ireland.
Within the letter's rustling fold
I find once more a glad surprise--
A little tiny cup of gold--
Two little lovely violet eyes;
A cup of gold with emeralds set,
Once filled with wine from happier spheres;
Two little eyes so lately wet
With spring's delicious dewy tears.
Oh! little eyes that wept and laughed,
Now bright with smiles, with tears now dim,
Oh! little cup that once was quaffed
By fay-queens fluttering round thy rim.
I press each silken fringe's fold,
Sweet little eyes once more ye shine;
I kiss thy lip, oh, cup of gold,
And find thee full of Memory's wine.
Within their violet depths I gaze,
And see as in the camera's gloom,
The island with its belt of bays,
Its chieftained heights all capped with broom,
Which as the living lens it fills,
Now seems a giant charmed to sleep--
Now a broad shield embossed with hills
Upon the bosom of the deep.
When will the slumbering giant wake?
When will the shield defend and guard?
Ah, me! prophetic gleams forsake
The once rapt eyes of seer or bard.
Enough, if shunning Samson's fate,
It doth not all its vigour yield;
Enough, if plenteous peace, though late,
May rest beneath the sheltering shield.
I see the long and lone defiles
Of Keimaneigh's bold rocks uphurled,
I see the golden fruited isles
That gem the queen-lakes of the world;
I see--a gladder sight to me--
By soft Shanganah's silver strand,
The breaking of a sapphire sea
Upon the golden-fretted sand.
Swiftly the tunnel's rock-hewn pass,
Swiftly the fiery train runs through;
Oh! what a glittering sheet of glass!
Oh! what enchantment meets my view!
With eyes insatiate I pursue,
Till Bray's bright headland bounds the scene.
'Tis Baiae, by a softer blue!
Gaeta, by a gladder green!
By tasseled groves, o'er meadows fair,
I'm carried in my blissful dream,
To where--a monarch in the air--
The pointed mountain reigns supreme;
There in a spot remote and wild,
I see once more the rustic seat,
Where Carrigoona, like a child,
Sits at the mightier mountain's feet.
There by the gentler mountain's slope,
That happiest year of many a year,
That first swift year of love and hope,
With her then dear and ever dear,
I sat upon the rustic seat,
The seat an aged bay-tree crowns,
And saw outspreading from our feet
The golden glory of the Downs.
The furze-crowned heights, the glorious glen,
The white-walled chapel glistening near,
The house of God, the homes of men,
The fragrant hay, the ripening ear;
There where there seemed nor sin nor crime,
There in God's sweet and wholesome air--
Strange book to read at such a time--
We read of Vanity's false Fair.
We read the painful pages through,
Perceived the skill, admired the art,
Felt them if true, not wholly true,
A truer truth was in our heart.
Save fear and love of One, hath proved
The sage how vain is all below;
And one was there who feared and loved,
And one who loved that she was so.
The vision spreads, the memories grow,
Fair phantoms crowd the more I gaze,
Oh! cup of gold, with wine o'erflow,
I'll drink to those departed days:
And when I drain the golden cup
To them, to those I ne'er can see,
With wine of hope I'll fill it up,
And drink to days that yet may be.
I've drunk the future and the past,
Now for a draught of warmer wine--
One draught, the sweetest and the last,
Lady, I'll drink to thee and thine.
These flowers that to my breast I fold,
Into my very heart have grown;
To thee I'll drain the cup of gold,
And think the violet eyes thine own.
Boulogne, March, 1865.
TO THE MEMORY OF FATHER PROUT.
In deep dejection, but with affection,
I often think of those pleasant times,
In the days of Fraser, ere I touched a razor,
How I read and revell'd in thy racy rhymes;
When in wine and wassail, we to thee were vassal,
Of Watergrass-hill, O renowned P.P.!
May the bells of Shandon
Toll blithe and bland on
The pleasant waters of thy memory!
Full many a ditty, both wise and witty,
In this social city have I heard since then
(With the glass before me, how the dream comes o'er me,
Of those Attic suppers, and those vanished men).
But no song hath woken, whether sung or spoken,
Or hath left a token of such joy in me
As "The Bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee."
The songs melodious, which--a new Harmodius--
"Young Ireland" wreathed round its rebel sword,
With their deep vibrations and aspirations,
Fling a glorious madness o'er the festive board!
But to me seems sweeter, with a tone completer,
The melodious metre that we owe to thee--
Of the bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
There's a grave that rises o'er thy sward, Devizes,
Where Moore lies sleeping from his land afar,
And a white stone flashes over Goldsmith's ashes
In quiet cloisters by Temple Bar;
So where'er thou sleepest, with a love that's deepest,
Shall thy land remember thy sweet song and thee,
While the Bells of Shandon
Shall sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
THOSE SHANDON BELLS.
[The remains of the Rev. Francis Mahony were laid in the family
burial-place in St. Anne Shandon Churchyard, the "Bells," which he has
rendered famous, tolling the knell of the poet, who sang of their sweet
chimes.]
Those Shandon bells, those Shandon bells!
Whose deep, sad tone now sobs, now swells--
Who comes to seek this hallowed ground,
And sleep within their sacred sound?
'Tis one who heard these chimes when young,
And who in age their praises sung,
Within whose breast their music made
A dream of home where'er he strayed.
And, oh! if bells have power to-day
To drive all evil things away,
Let doubt be dumb, and envy cease--
And round his grave reign holy peace.
True love doth love in turn beget,
And now these bells repay the debt;
Whene'er they sound, their music tells
Of him who sang sweet Shandon bells!
May 30, 1866.
YOUTH AND AGE.
To give the blossom and the fruit
The soft warm air that wraps them round,
Oh! think how long the toilsome root
Must live and labour 'neath the ground.
To send the river on its way,
With ever deepening strength and force,
Oh! think how long 'twas let to play,
A happy streamlet, near its source.
TO JUNE.
WRITTEN AFTER AN UNGENIAL MAY.
I'll heed no more the poet's lay--
His false-fond song shall charm no more--
My heart henceforth shall but adore
The real, not the misnamed May.
Too long I've knelt, and vainly hung
My offerings round an empty name;
O May! thou canst not be the same
As once thou wert when Earth was young.
Thou canst not be the same to-day--
The poet's dream--the lover's joy:--
The floral heaven of girl and boy
Were heaven no more, if thou wert May.
If thou wert May, then May is cold,
And, oh! how changed from what she has been--
Then barren boughs are bright with green,
And leaden skies are glad with gold.
And the dark clouds that veiled thy moon
Were silvery-threaded tissues bright,
Looping the locks of amber light
That float but on the airs of June.
O June! thou art the real May;
Thy name is soft and sweet as hers
But rich blood thy bosom stirs,
Her marble cheek cannot display.
She cometh like a haughty girl,
So conscious of her beauty's power,
She now will wear nor gem nor flower
Upon her pallid breast of pearl.
And her green silken summer dress,
So simply flower'd in white and gold,
She scorns to let our eyes behold,
But hides through very wilfulness:
Hides it 'neath ermined robes, which she
Hath borrowed from some wintry quean,
Instead of dancing on the green--
A village maiden fair and free.
Oh! we have spoiled her with our praise,
And made her froward, false, and vain;
So that her cold blue eyes disdain
To smile as in the earlier days.
Let her beware--the world full soon
Like me shall tearless turn away,
And woo, instead of thine, O May!
The brown, bright, joyous eyes of June.
O June! forgive the long delay,
My heart's deceptive dream is o'er--
Where I believe I will adore,
Nor worship June, yet kneel to May.
SUNNY DAYS IN WINTER.
Summer is a glorious season
Warm, and bright, and pleasant;
But the Past is not a reason
To despise the Present.
So while health can climb the mountain,
And the log lights up the hall,
There are sunny days in Winter, after all!
Spring, no doubt, hath faded from us,
Maiden-like in charms;
Summer, too, with all her promise,
Perished in our arms.
But the memory of the vanished,
Whom our hearts recall,
Maketh sunny days in Winter, after all!
True, there's scarce a flower that bloometh,
All the best are dead;
But the wall-flower still perfumeth
Yonder garden-bed.
And the arbutus pearl-blossom'd
Hangs its coral ball--
There are sunny days in Winter, after all!
Summer trees are pretty,--very,
And love them well:
But this holly's glistening berry,
None of those excel.
While the fir can warm the landscape,
And the ivy clothes the wall,
There are sunny days in Winter, after all!
Sunny hours in every season
Wait the innocent--
Those who taste with love and reason
What their God hath sent.
Those who neither soar too highly,
Nor too lowly fall,
Feel the sunny days of Winter, after all!
Then, although our darling treasures
Vanish from the heart;
Then, although our once-loved pleasures
One by one depart;
Though the tomb looms in the distance,
And the mourning pall,
There is sunshine, and no Winter, after all!
THE BIRTH OF THE SPRING.
O Kathleen, my darling, I've dreamt such a dream,
'Tis as hopeful and bright as the summer's first beam:
I dreamt that the World, like yourself, darling dear,
Had presented a son to the happy New Year!
Like yourself, too, the poor mother suffered awhile,
But like yours was the joy, at her baby's first smile,
When the tender nurse, Nature, quick hastened to fling
Her sun-mantle round, as she fondled THE SPRING.
O Kathleen, 'twas strange how the elements all,
With their friendly regards, condescended to call:
The rough rains of winter like summer-dews fell,
And the North-wind said, zephyr-like: "Is the World well?"
And the streams ran quick-sparkling to tell o'er the earth
God's goodness to man in this mystical birth;
For a Son of this World, and an heir to the King
Who rules over man, is this beautiful Spring!
O Kathleen, methought, when the bright babe was born,
More lovely than morning appeared the bright morn;
The birds sang more sweetly, the grass greener grew,
And with buds and with blossoms the old trees looked new;
And methought when the Priest of the Universe came--
The Sun--in his vestments of glory and flame,
He was seen, the warm raindrops of April to fling
On the brow of the babe, and baptise him The Spring!
O Kathleen, dear Kathleen! what treasures are piled
In the mines of the past for this wonderful Child!
The lore of the sages, the lays of the bards,
Like a primer, the eye of this infant regards;
All the dearly-bought knowledge that cost life and limb,
Without price, without peril, is offered to him;
And the blithe bee of Progress concealeth its sting,
As it offers its sweets to the beautiful Spring!
O Kathleen, they tell us of wonderful things,
Of speed that surpasseth the fairy's fleet wings;
How the lands of the world in communion are brought,
And the slow march of speech is as rapid as thought.
Think, think what an heir-loom the great world will be
With this wonderful wire 'neath the earth and the sea;
When the snows and the sunshine together shall bring
All the wealth of the world to the feet of The Spring.
Oh! Kathleen, but think of the birth-gifts of love,
That THE MASTER who lives in the GREAT HOUSE above
Prepares for the poor child that's born on His land--
Dear God! they're the sweet flowers that fall from Thy hand--
The crocus, the primrose, the violet given
Awhile, to make earth the reflection of heaven;
The brightness and lightness that round the world wing
Are thine, and are ours too, through thee, happy Spring!
O Kathleen, dear Kathleen! that dream is gone by,
And I wake once again, but, thank God! thou art by;
And the land that we love looks as bright in the beam,
Just as if my sweet dream was not all out a dream,
The spring-tide of Nature its blessing imparts,
Let the spring-tide of Hope send its pulse through our hearts;
Let us feel 'tis a mother, to whose breast we cling,
And a brother we hail, when we welcome the Spring.
ALL FOOL'S DAY.
The Sun called a beautiful Beam, that was playing
At the door of his golden-wall'd palace on high;
And he bade him be off, without any delaying,
To a fast-fleeting Cloud on the verge of the sky:
"You will give him this letter," said roguish Apollo
(While a sly little twinkle contracted his eye),
With my royal regards; and be sure that you follow
Whatsoever his Highness may send in reply."
The Beam heard the order, but being no novice,
Took it coolly, of course--nor in this was he wrong--
But was forced (being a clerk in Apollo's post-office)
To declare (what a bounce!) that he wouldn't be long;
So he went home and dress'd--gave his beard an elision--
Put his scarlet coat on, nicely edged with gold lace;
And thus being equipped, with a postman's precision,
He prepared to set out on his nebulous race.
Off he posted at last, but just outside the portals
He lit on earth's high-soaring bird in the dark;
So he tarried a little, like many frail mortals,
Who, when sent on an errand, first go on a lark;
But he broke from the bird--reach'd the cloud in a minute--
Gave the letter and all, as Apollo ordained;
But the Sun's correspondent, on looking within it,
Found, "Send the fool farther," was all it contained.
The Cloud, who was up to all mystification,
Quite a humorist, saw the intent of the Sun;
And was ever too airy--though lofty his station--
To spoil the least taste of the prospect of fun;
So he hemm'd, and he haw'd--took a roll of pure vapour,
Which the light from the beam made as bright as could be,
(Like a sheet of the whitest cream golden-edg'd paper),
And wrote a few words, superscribed, "To the Sea."
"My dear Beam," or "dear Ray" (t'was thus coolly he hailed him),
"Pray take down to Neptune this letter from me,
For the person you seek--though I lately regaled him--
Now tries a new airing, and dwells by the sea."
So our Mercury hastened away through the ether,
The bright face of Thetis to gladden and greet;
And he plunged in the water a few feet beneath her,
Just to get a sly peep at her beautiful feet.
To Neptune the letter was brought for inspection--
But the god, though a deep one, was still rather green;
So he took a few moments of steady reflection,
Ere he wholly made out what the missive could mean:
But the date (it was "April the first") came to save it
From all fear of mistake; so he took pen in hand,
And, transcribing the cruel entreaty, he gave it
To our travel-tired friend, and said, "Bring it to Land."
To Land went the Sunbeam, which scarcely received it,
When it sent it, post-haste, back again to the sea;
The Sea's hypocritical calmness deceived it,
And sent it once more to the Land on the lea;--
From the Land to the Lake--from the Lakes to the Fountains--
From the Fountains and Streams to the Hills' azure crest,
'Till, at last, a tall Peak on the top of the mountains,
Sent it back to the Cloud in the now golden west.
He saw the whole trick by the way he was greeted
By the Sun's laughing face, which all purple appears;
Then, amused, yet annoyed at the way he was treated,
He first laughed at the joke, and then burst into tears.
It is thus that this day of mistakes and surprises,
When fools write on foolscap, and wear it the while,
This gay saturnalia for ever arises
'Mid the showers and the sunshine, the tear and the smile.
DARRYNANE.
[Written in 1844, after a visit to Darrynane Abbey.]
Where foams the white torrent, and rushes the rill,
Down the murmuring slopes of the echoing hill--
Where the eagle looks out from his cloud-crested crags,
And the caverns resound with the panting of stags--
Where the brow of the mountain is purple with heath,
And the mighty Atlantic rolls proudly beneath,
With the foam of its waves like the snowy 'fenane'--[114]
Oh! that is the region of wild Darrynane!
Oh! fair are the islets of tranquil Glengariff,
And wild are the sacred recesses of Scariff,
And beauty, and wildness, and grandeur commingle
By Bantry's broad bosom, and wave-wasted Dingle;
But wild as the wildest, and fair as the fairest,
And lit by a lustre that thou alone wearest--
And dear to the eye and the free heart of man
Are the mountains and valleys of wild Darrynane!
And who is the Chief of this lordly domain?
Does a slave hold the land where a monarch might reign?
Oh! no, by St. Finbar,[115] nor cowards, nor slaves,
Could live in the sound of these free, dashing waves!
A chieftain, the greatest the world has e'er known--
Laurel his coronet--true hearts his throne--
Knowledge his sceptre--a Nation his clan--
O'Connell, the chieftain of proud Darrynane!
A thousand bright streams on the mountains awake,
Whose waters unite in O'Donoghue's lake--
Streams of Glanflesk and the dark Gishadine
Filling the heart of that valley divine!
Then rushing in one mighty artery down
To the limitless ocean by murmuring Lowne--[116]
Thus Nature unfolds in her mystical plan
A type of the Chieftain of wild Darrynane!
In him every pulse of our bosoms unite--
Our hatred of wrong and our worship of right--
The hopes that we cherish, the ills we deplore,
All centre within his heart's innermost core,
Which, gathered in one mighty current, are flung
To the ends of the earth from his thunder-toned tongue!
Till the Indian looks up, and the valiant Afghan
Draws his sword at the echo from far Darrynane!
But here he is only the friend and the father,
Who from children's sweet lips truest wisdom can gather,
And seeks from the large heart of Nature to borrow
Rest for the present and strength for the morrow!
Oh! who that e'er saw him with children about him
And heard his soft tones of affection could doubt him?
My life on the truth of the heart of that man
That throbs like the Chieftain's of wild Darrynane!
Oh! wild Darrynane, on thy ocean-washed shore,
Shall the glad song of mariners echo once more?
Shall the merchants, and minstrels, and maidens of Spain,
Once again in their swift ships come over the main?
Shall the soft lute be heard, and the gay youths of France
Lead our blue-eyed young maidens again to the dance?
Graceful and shy as thy fawns, Killenane,[117]
Are the mind-moulded maidens of far Darrynane!
Dear land of the south, as my mind wandered o'er
All the joys I have felt by thy magical shore,
From those lakes of enchantment by oak-clad Glena
To the mountainous passes of bold Iveragh!
Like birds which are lured to a haven of rest,
By those rocks far away on the ocean's bright breast--[118]
Thus my thoughts loved to linger, as memory ran
O'er the mountains and valleys of wild Darrynane!
114. "In the mountains of Slievelougher, and other parts of this
county, the country people, towards the end of June, cut the coarse
mountain grass, called by them 'fenane'; towards August this grass grows
white."--Smith's Kerry.
115. The abbey on the grounds of Darrynane was founded in the seventh
century by the monks of St. Finbar.
116. The river Lowne is the only outlet by which all the streams that
form the Lakes of Killarney discharge themselves into the sea--'Lan,' or
'Lowne,' in the old Irish signifying full.
117. "Killenane lies to the east of Cahir. It has many mountains
towards the sea. These mountains are frequented by herds of fallow
deer, that range about it in perfect security."--Smith's Kerry.
118. The Skellig Rocks. In describing one of them, Keating says "That
there is a certain attractive virtue in the soil which draws down all
the birds which attempt to fly over it, and obliges them to alight upon
the rock."
A SHAMROCK FROM THE IRISH SHORE.
(On receiving a Shamrock in a Letter from Ireland.)
O postman! speed thy tardy gait--
Go quicker round from door to door;
For thee I watch, for thee I wait,
Like many a weary wanderer more.
Thou brightest news of bale and bliss--
Some life begun, some life well o'er.
He stops--he rings!--O heaven! what's this?--
A shamrock from the Irish shore!
Dear emblem of my native land,
By fresh fond words kept fresh and green;
The pressure of an unfelt hand--
The kisses of a lip unseen;
A throb from my dead mother's heart--
My father's smile revived once more--
Oh, youth! oh, love! oh, hope thou art,
Sweet shamrock from the Irish shore!
Enchanter, with thy wand of power,
Thou mak'st the past be present still:
The emerald lawn--the lime-leaved bower--
The circling shore--the sunlit hill;
The grass, in winter's wintriest hours,
By dewy daisies dimpled o'er,
Half hiding, 'neath their trembling flowers,
The shamrock of the Irish shore!
And thus, where'er my footsteps strayed,
By queenly Florence, kingly Rome--
By Padua's long and lone arcade--
By Ischia's fires and Adria's foam--
By Spezzia's fatal waves that kissed
My poet sailing calmly o'er;
By all, by each, I mourned and missed
The shamrock of the Irish shore!
I saw the palm-tree stand aloof,
Irresolute 'twixt the sand and sea:
I saw upon the trellised roof
Outspread the wine that was to be;
A giant-flowered and glorious tree
I saw the tall magnolia soar;
But there, even there, I longed for thee,
Poor shamrock of the Irish shore!
Now on the ramparts of Boulogne,
As lately by the lonely Rance,
At evening as I watch the sun,
I look! I dream! Can this be France
Not Albion's cliffs, how near they be,
He seems to love to linger o'er;
But gilds, by a remoter sea,
The shamrock on the Irish shore!
I'm with him in that wholesome clime--
That fruitful soil, that verdurous sod--
Where hearts unstained by vulgar crime
Have still a simple faith in God:
Hearts that in pleasure and in pain,
The more they're trod rebound the more,
Like thee, when wet with heaven's own rain,
O shamrock of the Irish shore!
Memorial of my native land,
True emblem of my land and race--
Thy small and tender leaves expand
But only in thy native place.
Thou needest for thyself and seed
Soft dews around, kind sunshine o'er;
Transplanted thou'rt the merest weed,
O shamrock of the Irish shore.
Here on the tawny fields of France,
Or in the rank, red English clay,
Thou showest a stronger form perchance;
A bolder front thou mayest display,
More able to resist the scythe
That cut so keen, so sharp before;
But then thou art no more the blithe
Bright shamrock of the Irish shore!
Ah, me! to think--thy scorns, thy slights,
Thy trampled tears, thy nameless grave
On Fredericksburg's ensanguined heights,
Or by Potomac's purpled wave!
Ah, me! to think that power malign
Thus turns thy sweet green sap to gore,
And what calm rapture might be thine,
Sweet shamrock of the Irish shore!
Struggling, and yet for strife unmeet,
True type of trustful love thou art;
Thou liest the whole year at my feet,
To live but one day at my heart.
One day of festal pride to lie
Upon the loved one's heart--what more?
Upon the loved one's heart to die,
O shamrock of the Irish shore!
And shall I not return thy love?
And shalt thou not, as thou shouldst, be
Placed on thy son's proud heart above
The red rose or the fleur-de-lis?
Yes, from these heights the waters beat,
I vow to press thy cheek once more,
And lie for ever at thy feet,
O shamrock of the Irish shore!
Boulogne-sur-Mer, March 17, 1865.
ITALIAN MYRTLES.
[Suggested by seeing for the first time fire-flies in the myrtle hedges
at Spezzia.]
By many a soft Ligurian bay
The myrtles glisten green and bright,
Gleam with their flowers of snow by day,
And glow with fire-flies through the night,
And yet, despite the cold and heat,
Are ever fresh, and pure, and sweet.
There is an island in the West,
Where living myrtles bloom and blow,
Hearts where the fire-fly Love my rest
Within a paradise of snow--
Which yet, despite the cold and heat,
Are ever fresh, and pure, and sweet.
Deep in that gentle breast of thine--
Like fire and snow within the pearl--
Let purity and love combine,
O warm, pure-hearted Irish girl!
And in the cold and in the heat
Be ever fresh, and pure, and sweet.
Thy bosom bears as pure a snow
As e'er Italia's bowers can boast,
And though no fire-fly lends its glow--
As on the soft Ligurian coast--
'Tis warmed by an internal heat
Which ever keeps it pure and sweet.
The fire-flies fade on misty eves--
The inner fires alone endure;
Like rain that wets the leaves,
Thy very sorrows keep thee pure--
They temper a too ardent heat--
And keep thee ever pure and sweet.
La Spezzia, 1862.
THE IRISH EMIGRANT'S MOTHER.
"Oh! come, my mother, come away, across the sea-green water;
Oh! come with me, and come with him, the husband of thy daughter;
Oh! come with us, and come with them, the sister and the brother,
Who, prattling climb thy ag'ed knees, and call thy daughter--mother.
"Oh come, and leave this land of death--this isle of desolation--
This speck upon the sunbright face of God's sublime creation,
Since now o'er all our fatal stars the most malign hath risen,
When Labour seeks the poorhouse, and Innocence the prison.
"'Tis true, o'er all the sun-brown fields the husky wheat is bending;
'Tis true, God's blessed hand at last a better time is sending;
'Tis true the island's aged face looks happier and younger,
But in the best of days we've known the sickness and the hunger.
"When health breathed out in every breeze, too oft we've known the
fever--
Too oft, my mother, have we felt the hand of the bereaver:
Too well remember many a time the mournful task that brought him,
When freshness fanned the summer air, and cooled the glow of autumn.
"But then the trial, though severe, still testified our patience,
We bowed with mingled hope and fear to God's wise dispensations;
We felt the gloomiest time was both a promise and a warning,
Just as the darkest hour of night is herald of the morning.
"But now through all the black expanse no hopeful morning breaketh--
No bird of promise in our hearts the gladsome song awaketh;
No far-off gleams of good light up the hills of expectation--
Nought but the gloom that might precede the world's annihilation.
"So, mother, turn thy ag'ed feet, and let our children lead 'em
Down to the ship that wafts us soon to plenty and to freedom;
Forgetting nought of all the past, yet all the past forgiving;
Come, let us leave the dying land, and fly unto the living.
"They tell us, they who read and think of Ireland's ancient story,
How once its emerald flag flung out a sunburst's fleeting glory
Oh! if that sun will pierce no more the dark clouds that efface it,
Fly where the rising stars of heaven commingle to replace it.
"So come, my mother, come away, across the sea-green water;
Oh! come with us, and come with him, the husband of thy daughter;
Oh! come with us, and come with them, the sister and the brother,
Who, prattling, climb thy ag'ed knees, and call thy daughter--mother."
"Ah! go, my children, go away--obey this inspiration;
Go, with the mantling hopes of health and youthful expectation;
Go, clear the forests, climb the hills, and plough the expectant
prairies;
Go, in the sacred name of God, and the Blessed Virgin Mary's.
"But though I feel how sharp the pang from thee and thine to sever,
To look upon these darling ones the last time and for ever;
Yet in this sad and dark old land, by desolation haunted,
My heart has struck its roots too deep ever to be transplanted.
"A thousand fibres still have life, although the trunk is dying,
They twine around the yet green grave where thy father's bones are
lying;
Ah! from that sad and sweet embrace no soil on earth can loose 'em,
Though golden harvests gleam on its breast, and golden sands its bosom.
"Others are twined around the stone, where ivy-blossoms smother
The crumbling lines that trace your names, my father and my mother;
God's blessing be upon their souls--God grant, my old heart prayeth,
Their names be written in the Book whose writing ne'er decayeth.
"Alas! my prayers would never warm within those great cold buildings,
Those grand cathedral churches with their marbles and their gildings;
Far fitter than the proudest dome that would hang in splendour o'er me,
Is the simple chapel's white-washed wall, where my people knelt before
me.
"No doubt it is a glorious land to which you now are going,
Like that which God bestowed of old, with milk and honey flowing;
But where are the blessed saints of God, whose lives of his law remind
me,
Like Patrick, Brigid, and Columkille, in the land I'd leave behind me?
"So leave me here, my children, with my old ways and old notions;
Leave me here in peace, with my memories and devotions;
Leave me in sight of your father's grave, and as the heavens allied us,
Let not, since we were joined in life, even the grave divide us.
"There's not a week but I can hear how you prosper better and better,
For the mighty fire-ships o'er the sea will bring the expected letter;
And if I need aught for my simple wants, my food or my winter firing,
You will gladly spare from your growing store a little for my requiring.
"Remember with a pitying love the hapless land that bore you;
At every festal season be its gentle form before you;
When the Christmas candle is lighted, and the holly and ivy glisten,
Let your eye look back for a vanished face--for a voice that is silent,
listen!
"So go, my children, go away--obey this inspiration;
Go, with the mantling hopes of health and youthful expectation;
Go, clear the forests, climb the hills, and plough the expectant
prairies;
Go, in the sacred name of God, and the Blessed Virgin Mary's."
THE RAIN: A SONG OF PEACE.[119]
The Rain, the Rain, the beautiful Rain--
Welcome, welcome, it cometh again;
It cometh with green to gladden the plain,
And to wake the sweets in the winding lane.
The Rain, the Rain, the beautiful Rain,
It fills the flowers to their tiniest vein,
Till they rise from the sod whereon they had lain--
Ah, me! ah, me! like an army slain.
The Rain, the Rain, the beautiful Rain,
Each drop is a link of a diamond chain
That unites the earth with its sin and its stain
To the radiant realm where God doth reign.
The Rain, the Rain, the beautiful Rain,
Each drop is a tear not shed in vain,
Which the angels weep for the golden grain
All trodden to death on the gory plain;
For Rain, the Rain, the beautiful Rain,
Will waken the golden seeds again!
But, ah! what power will revive the slain,
Stark lying death over fair Lorraine?
'Twere better far, O beautiful Rain,
That you swelled the torrent and flooded the main;
And that Winter, with all his spectral train,
Alone lay camped on the icy plain.
For then, O Rain, O beautiful Rain,
The snow-flag of peace were unfurl'd again;
And the truce would be rung in each loud refrain
Of the blast replacing the bugle's strain.
Then welcome, welcome, beautiful Rain,
Thou bringest flowers to the parched-up plain;
Oh! for many a frenzied heart and brain,
Bring peace and love to the world again!
August 28, 1870.
119. Written during the Franco-German war.
M. H. Gill & Sons, Printers, Dublin.
Transcriber's Notes.
Source. The collection of poems here presented follows as closely as
possible the 1882 first edition. I assembled this e-text over several
years, either typing or scanning one poem at a time as the spirit moved
me. Some poems were transcribed either from the 1884 second edition, or
from D. F. MacCarthy's earlier publications, depending on whatever
happened to be handy at the time. I have proofread this entire e-text
against the 1882 edition. In many instances there are minor variations,
mostly in punctuation, among the different source material. In some
cases, if the 1882 edition clearly has an error, I have used the other
works as a guide. Where there are variations that are not obviously
errors, I have followed the 1882 edition. It is certainly possible,
where I transcribed from a non-1882 source, that a few variations may
have slipt my notice, and have not been changed.
General. In the printed source the first word of each section and poem
is in "small capitals," which I have removed as per Project Gutenberg
standards. Elsewhere instances of small capitals are rendered as ALL
CAPITALS. In the printed source the patronymic prefix "Mac" is always
followed by a half space; due to limitations in this electronic format I
have rendered names in ALL CAPITALS with a full space (MAC CAURA) and
names in Mixed Capitals without any space (MacCaura) throughout. In
this plain-text file, italics in the original publication have been
either indicated with "double quotes" or 'single quotes' if contextually
appropriate; otherwise they have simply been dropt. Accents and other
diacritical marks have also been dropt. However, where the original has
an accent over the "e" in a past participle for poetical reasons, I have
marked an e-acute with an apostrophe (as in "belov'ed") and marked an
e-grave with a grave accent (as in "charm`ed") to indicate the intended
pronunciation. For a fully formatted version, with italics, extended
characters, et cetera, please refer to the HTML version of this
collection of poetry, released by Project Gutenberg simultaneously with
this plain text edition. The longest line in this plain-text file is 72
characters; this means that in some poems I had to wrap the ends of very
long verses to the next line.
Footnotes. In the printed source footnotes are marked with an asterisk,
dagger, et cetera and placed at the bottom of each page. In this
electronic version I have numbered the footnotes and placed them below
each section or poem.
Contents. I have removed the page numbers from the contents list. Text
in brackets are my additions, giving alternate/earlier published titles
for the poems.
Waiting for the May. This poem was published under the title of "Summer
Longings" in "The Bell-Founder and Other Poems," 1857.
Oh! had I the Wings of a Bird. This poem was published under the title
of "Home Preference" in The Bell-Founder and Other Poems, 1857.
Ferdiah. The ballad between Mave and Ferdiah includes some long lines
of text that would require (due to electronic publishing line length
standards) occasionally breaking a line ending to make a new line.
Because there is an internal rhyme in these lines, and for more
consistent formatting, I have decided to break every line here at the
internal rhyme, but not capitalizing the beginning of resultant new
line. For example, "Which many an arm less brave than thine, which many
a heart less bold, would claim?" is one line of verse in the 1882
edition, but I have formatted it as "Which many an arm less brave than
thine, / which many a heart less bold, would claim?" For purposes of
recording errata below, I have not numbered these new pseudo-lines. The
word "creit" is taken directly from the Irish text untranslated--a
roughly equivalent English word is "frame."
The Voyage of St. Brendan. Note 56 refers to a puffin (Anas leucopsis)
or 'girrinna.' The bird, at least by 2004 classification, is not a
puffin but a barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis) and I found one reference
to its Irish name as 'ge ghiurain.' As these birds nest in remote areas
of the arctic, people were quite free to invent stories of their
origins.
The Dead Tribune. The subject of this poem is Daniel O'Connell
(1775-1847), an Irish political leader and Minister of Parliament. In
ill health, his doctor advised he go to a warmer climate; he died en
route to Rome for a pilgrimage. The 1882 edition has the word "knawing"
which is an obsolete variant of "gnawing"; the latter appears in the
1884 edition.
A Mystery. The spelling of "Istambol" is intentional--the current
"Istanbul" was not adopted until the twentieth century. The name
probably derives from an old nickname for Constantinople, but the
complexity of this city's naming is beyond the capacity of a footnote.
To Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. MacCarthy's translation of Calderon's
"The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria" has been released as
Project Gutenberg e-text #12173.
To Ethna. This poem was published under the listing of "Dedicatory
Sonnet" and dated 1850 in The Bell-Founder and Other Poems, 1857.
O'Connell. See note a few lines up on "The Dead Tribune." My
correction of the phrase "heaven's high fault" is not based on any other
published edition. It is conjectural, based on the illogicality of the
phrase and MacCarthy's use of the phrase "heaven's high vault" in his
translation of Calderon's "The Purgatory of St. Patrick" (Project
Gutenberg e-text #6371) published two years before this poem was
written.
Moore. The subject of this poem is Thomas Moore (1779-1852). A
collection of his poems has been released as Project Gutenberg e-text
#8187, but note that the biographical sketch therein mistakenly lists
1780 as his birth year. In this poem "Shakspere" is not misspelt; it is
one of many variants used during and after the bard's lifetime (my
favorite is "Shaxpere" from 1582).
To Ethna. This poem bears the same title as a sonnet, also in this
collection of poems.
The Irish Emigrant's Mother. This poem was published under the title of
"The Emigrants" in The Bell-Founder and Other Poems, 1857.
Errata.
Printer's errors found in the 1882 edition have been corrected in this
electronic edition. While I have no desire to standardize Mr.
MacCarthy's spelling or curtail his poetic license, in some cases where
I could not find a documented variant matching the printed source I have
replaced it and listed the change here. Occasionally I have inserted
punctuation where it is obviously missing. Naturally it is possible
that some of these "corrections" are themselves erroneous. When in
doubt about either a spelling or punctuation error, I have followed the
text of the original. The list below does not include minor corrections
(punctuation and capitalization) in notes or introductions.
The [original text is in brackets] and {corrected text is in braces}
below.
Contents. [The Year King] {The Year-King} / [The Awakening]
{The Awaking} / [The Voice and the Pen] {The Voice and Pen}
Waiting for the May. line 9 [longing] {longing,}
Kate of Kenmare. line 37 [and] {land}
A Lament. line 117 [strewn] {strown}
Oh! had I the Wings of a Bird. line 35 [home] {home,}
The Fireside. line 20 [fireside.] {fireside!}
Autumn Fears. line 40 [field] {field!} / line 48 [field] {field!}
Ferdiah. line 69 [birds sing] {bird sings} / line 590 [ogether]
{Together} / line 1007 [gle] {glen} / line 1229 [be.'] {be."}
The Voyage of St. Brendan. note 64 [tanagar] {tanager} / note 65
[driole] {oriole}
The Foray of Con O'Donnell. line 347 [and come] {and some} / line 407
[seagull] {sea gull}
The Bell-Founder. subheader [Vicissitude and Rest.]
{Part III.--Vicissitude and Rest.}
Alice and Una. line 77 [Glengarifl's] {Glengariff's} / note 100
[Digialis] {Digitalis}
The Voice and Pen. line 35 [orator s] {orator's}
The Arraying. line 59 [verduous] {verdurous}
Welcome, May. line 30 [footseps] {footsteps}
The Progress of the Rose. line 65 [beateous] {beauteous}
The Year-King. line 114 [iu] {in}
The Awaking. line 11 [fear] {fear,} / line 29 [known] {known:}
The First of the Angels. line 32 [grass-bearing; lea]
{grass-bearing lea}
Spirit Voices. title [VOICES] {VOICES.} / line 78 [prodnce] {produce}
O'Connell. line 123 [fault] {vault} / line 283 [it] {its}
Moore. line 101 [countr y] {country}
"Not Known". line 39 [Not] {NOT}
The Lay Missioner. line 20 [tis] {'tis}
Recollections. line 94 [hundreth] {hundredth}
Spring Flowers from Ireland. line 96 [own] {own.}
The Birth of the Spring. line 21 [When] {when} / line 29 [nowledge]
{knowledge}
Darrynane. line 30 [Lowne?] {Lowne--} / line 52 [main] {main?}
The Irish Emigrant's Mother. line 10 [Tis] {'Tis}
The Rain: a Song of Peace. line 32 [again] {again!}