The fight in Ireland is 'twixt Man and Brute.
A lion with the sea-surge for his mane,
Is there hurled back by Man with proud disdain,
Although heart-drained with gash from head to foot.
Oh, in that Eden of Forbidden Fruit,
How Satan, searching for a snake in vain,
Fumed forth a monster from his heart and brain--
The Lion--as the serpent's substitute!
Oh, all ye peoples of the World draw nigh!
Stand on the bodies of eight centuries,
Struck dead with horror; for, raised thus, one sees
In Erin, torn, a soul that cannot die,
And that its struggle is Humanity's
Against the fiend, who would give God the lie.