John Jerome Rooney, of New York, read the following beautiful and
stirring poem:
Who fears to claim the Irish name?
Who will forswear his blood?
Who holds in shame the deeds and fame
Of Emmet, Grattan, Flood?
Their hearts held true through death and rue,
Through death and sore disgrace,
Then who’ll forget the boundless debt
We owe our Irish race?
Ere Learning’s sun had found the road
Above the Eastern hill,
Her lamp of art and wisdom glowed
By Irish lake and rill;
To Scotia’s crags it flashed a ray,
And Albion spoke reply;
From tower and shrine it beamed benign,
A beacon in the sky!
Where’er the rights of man were pressed
Beneath the heel of wrong—
Where’er, from utmost East to West,
The helpless sought the strong—
There—there the son of Erin found
His soul’s appointed place—
When Freedom calls, oh, what appals
The dauntless Irish race.
Within the mighty woods of Maine
You hear their cheery word;
Upon the boundless Texan plain
They drive their thundering herd;
They smite the veins of golden ore,
They gird the earth with plans—
But first and most (their proudest boast),
_They’re true Americans!_
Then, who would shame the Irish name
By one ignoble deed?
He—he alone we will not own
Who would belie his seed!
We claim our line—your blood and mine—
From out a sacred sod.
Then, hand in hand, we’ll take our stand—
_True to ourselves and God!_