Will the holy and beautiful chimes
Ring out the old wrongs of the past,
Ring in the new glories and times?
Will the eyes of the pale prisoners rest
Once again on their loved mountain scenes,
When the crimson of East or of West
Falls o'er them as mantles on Queens?
Will they muse once again by the sea,
List the thunder of waves on the strand,
As exultant, as fearless and free
As the foam-flakes that dash on the land?
Will they lift their wan faces to God
In the radiant, bright, infinite air,
Press their lips to the old native sod
In a rapture of praise and of prayer?
II.
Ah, the years of their young lives pass over,
Still wept out in dungeons alone,
Where the lips of a wife, child, or mother
Were never yet pressed to their own;
Years of torture and sorrow and trials,
In the gloom of the desolate cell,
Where the wrath of the sevenfold vials
Seem poured to turn Earth to a Hell;
Where strong brains are seared into madness,
And burning hearts frozen to stone,
And despair surges over life's gladness,
And young life goes out with a moan.
Go, kneel as at graves, weeping woman--
When the last fatal sentence was said,
All ties that are tender and human
Were rent as from those that are dead.
III.
They were young then, in youth's glorious fashion
With a pulse-throb of fire in each vein,
And the glow and the splendours of passion
Flashing up from the heart to the brain.
Sharp as falchions their keen words reproving--
Great words moved by no coward breath--
And no crime on their souls save of loving
Their Country with love strong as death.
Oh, their hearts, how they leaped to the surface,
As a sword from the scabbard unsheathed,
Their pale faces stern with a purpose,
Their brows with Fate's cypress enwreathed,
Grave, earnest, the judgment unheeding,
Or the wreck of their lives lying prone,
From these doomed lips the strong spirits' pleading
Soared up from man's bar to God's Throne.
IV.
"We but taught men," they said, "from the pages,
Graven deep in our history and soil,
From the Litanies poured through the ages
Of sorrow, and torture, and toil;
By the insults, the mockings, the scornings,
The bondage on body and soul;
By the ruin, the slaughters, the burnings,
When death was the patriot's goal;
By the falsehood enthroned in high places,
By the feeble hearts cowering within,
By the slave-brand read plain on their faces,
Though the ermine might cover the sin.
We were broken and sundered and shattered,
Made thrall by the tyrant's strong arm,
To the wild waves and fierce winds were scattered
As dead leaves swept on by the storm.
For each age gave a traitor or tyrant
To build up the wrongs that we see,
But each age, too, gives heroes aspirant
Of the Fame or the death of the Free!"
V.
Oh, Chimes ringing out in our city,
Oh, Angels that walk to and fro,
Oh, Christ-words of pardon and pity,
Can ye speak to those souls lying low
In a sorrow no festal chime scatters,
In a night where no Angel appears,
The wasted limbs heavy with fetters,
The weary heart heavy with tears;
With the ghost of dead youth crushing on them,
And the gloom of the years yet to be,
With a blackness of darkness upon them
As of night when it falls on the sea?
VI.
When the Christmas bells ring out at even
The song of the Angels' bright spheres,
Their sad eyes will strain up to Heaven,
Their bread will be bitter with tears.
Through our laughter will come that sad vision,
Through the ivy-wreathed wine-cup's red glow,
Through our wassail the wail from their prison,
Lamentation and mourning and woe.
With sorrow wrapped round like a garment,
With ashes for joy as their crown,
With bonds tight'ning close as a cerement
They wait till God's morning comes down;
Yet no echo from their lips will falter
Of the solemn, sweet carol or song,
But a cry, as of souls 'neath the Altar,
"_How long! oh, our Lord God, how long?_"
THE DAWN.
What of the night, O Watcher on the Tower?
Is the Day dawning through the golden bars?
Comes it through the midnight, over clouds that lower,
Trailing robes of crimson mid the fading stars?
"Through the rent clouds I see a splendour gleaming,
Rolling down the darkness to the far Heaven's rim,
While through the mist the glorious Dawn upstreaming
Rises like the music of a grand choral hymn."
From the deep valleys where the whirlwind passes,
Hear you the tramp of the coming hosts of men,
Strong in their manhood, mighty in their masses,
Swift as rushing torrents down a mountain glen?
"Far as eye can reach, where purple mists are lifted,
Thousands upon thousands are gathering in might,
Powerful as tempests when giant sails are rifted,
Beautiful as ocean in the sun's silver light."
See you their Banner in the free air proudly
Waving, as an oriflamme a king might bear,
Has it no legend--dare we utter loudly
All that a people may have written there?
"I see their Banner in the red dawn flashing--
Haughty is the legend, plain to all men's sight,
Traced in their heart's blood, which the breeze upcatching,
Flings out in flame-words--Liberty and Right!
"Onward they come, still gathering in power,
Serried ranks of men o'er the crimson-clouded lawn;
Banners glisten brightly in the golden shower
Pouring through the portals of the golden Dawn.
"Each bears a symbol, glorious in its meaning,
Holy as the music of the crown'd Bard's Psalm:
Faith gazing upward, on her Anchor leaning,
Peace with the Olive, and Mercy with the Palm."
Long have we waited, O Watcher, for the vision,
Splendid in promise we now can see it rise,
Scattering the darkness, while with hero-mission
Brave hands uplift Hope's banner to the skies.
Not with vain clamour, but the soul's strength revealing
In the golden silence of all great true deeds,
Banded in strength for human rights appealing,
Banded in love for our poor human needs.
Bitter was the Past; let it rest, a new Æon
Preaches a new Gospel to man not in vain,
Earth through all her kingdoms echoes back the Pæan
Chanted once by Angels on the star-lit plain.
Brotherhood of Nations, disdaining ancient quarrel,
Brotherhood of Peoples, flushed with a nobler rage,
Palm branch and Olive let us mingle with the Laurel
In the radiant future of the coming Age!
AN APPEAL TO IRELAND.
I.
The sin of our race is upon us,
The pitiless, cruel disdain
Of brother for brother, tho' coiling
Round both is the one fatal chain;
And aimless and reckless and useless
Our lives pass along to the grave
In tumults of words that bewilder,
And the conflicts of slave with slave.
II.
Yet shadows are heavy around us,
The darkness of sin and of shame,
While the souls of the Nation to slumber
Are lulled by vain visions of fame;
True hearts, passion-wasted, and breaking
With sense of our infinite wrong,
Oh! wake them, nor dread the awaking,
We need all the strength of the strong.
III.
For we rage with senseless endeavours
In a fever of wild unrest,
While glory lies trampled, dishonoured,
Death-pale, with a wound in her breast;
Had we loosened one chain from the spirit,
Had we strove from the ruin of things
To build up a Temple of Concord,
More fair than the palace of Kings;
IV.
Our name might be heard where the Nations
Press on to the van of the fight,
Where Progress makes war upon Evil,
And Darkness is scattered by Light.
They have gold and frankincense and myrrh
To lay at the feet of their King,
But we--what have we but the wine-cup
Of wrath and of sorrow to bring?
V.
Let us ask of our souls, lying under
The doom of this bondage and ban,
Why we, made by God high as Angels,
Should fall so much lower than man;
Some indeed have been with us would scale
Heav'n's heights for life-fire if they dare--
But the vultures now gnaw at their hearts
Evermore on the rocks of Despair.
VI.
Let us think, when we stand before God,
On the Day of the Judgment roll,
And He asks of the work we have done
In the strength of each God-like soul;
Can we answer--"Our prayers have gone up
As light from the stars and the sun,
And Thy blessing came down on our deeds
As a crown when the victory's won.
VII.
"We fought with wild beasts, wilder passions,
As of old did the saints of God,
Tho' our life-blood ran red in the dust
Of the fierce arena we trod;
We led up Thy people triumphant
From Egypt's dark bondage of sin,
And made the fair land which Thou gavest
All glorious without and within.
VIII.
"We changed to a measure of music
The discord and wail of her days.
For sorrow gave garments of gladness,
For scorn of her enemies praise.
We crowned her a Queen in the triumph
Of noble and beautiful lives,
While her chariot of Freedom rolled on
Through the crash of her fallen gyves."
IX.
I ask of you, Princes, and Rulers,
I ask of you, Brothers around,
Can ye thus make reply for our people
When the Nations are judged or crowned?
If not, give the reins of the chariot
To men who can curb the wild steeds--
They are nearing the gulf, in this hour
We appeal by our wrongs and our needs.
X.
Stand back and give place to new leaders;
We need them--some strong gifted souls,
From whose lips, never touched by a falsehood,
The heart's richest eloquence rolls.
True Patriots by grandeur of purpose,
True men by the power of the brain:
The chosen of God to lift upward
His Ark with hands clear of all stain.
XI.
We need them to tend the Lord's vineyard,
As shepherds to watch round His fold,
With brave words from pure hearts outpouring,
As wine from a chalice of gold;
That the souls of the Nation uplifted,
May shine in new radiance of light,
As of old stood the Prophets transfigured
In glory with Christ on the height.
XII.
Far out, where the grand western sunsets
Flush crimson the mountain and sea,
And the echoes of Liberty mingle
With the roar of the waves on the lea;
Where over the dim shrouded passes
The clouds fling a rainbow-hued arch,
And through giant-rent portals a people
Go forth on their sad, solemn march:
XIII.
I had dreams of a future of glory
For this fair motherland of mine,
When knowledge would bring with its splendours
The Human more near the Divine.
And as flash follows flash on the mountains,
When lightnings and thunders are hurled,
So would throb in electrical union
Her soul with the soul of the world.
XIV.
For we stand too apart in our darkness,
As planets long rent from the sun,
And the mystical breath of the spirit
Scarce touches our hearts sweeping on.
I appeal from this drear isolation
To earth, to the mountains, and sky--
Must we die as of thirst in a desert,
While full tides of life pass us by?
XV.
Yet still, through the darkness and sorrow,
I dream of a time yet to be,
When from mountain and ocean to Heaven
Will rise up the Hymn of the Free.
When our Country, made perfect through trial,
White-robed, myrtle-crowned, as a Bride,
Will stand forth, "a Lady of Kingdoms,"
Through Light and through Love glorified.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: "Kings--The Earthly Elohim."--+SIR THOMAS BROWNE.+]
[Footnote 2: Palmyra, or Tadmor.]
[Footnote 3: On reading his Essay on the Collation of Certain Ancient
Spanish Manuscripts, printed from the proceedings of the Royal
Irish Academy.]
[Footnote 4: Abdallah is known in history as "El triste Rey."]
[Footnote 5: This taunt of the Sultana mother is related by Condé.]
[Footnote 6: Lorc, or Lorcan, an ancient King of Munster, the
grandfather of the great King Brian Boru.]
[Footnote 7: This Irish poem, so pathetic and expressive in its
simplicity, first appeared in the _Dublin University Magazine_, in
the Essay on "The Food of the Irish," by Sir William Wilde. It is
quoted by him as "highly characteristic both of the feelings of the
people and the extent of the calamity of that time; besides being a
good specimen of the native poetry of the Irish more than a hundred
years ago."]
[Footnote 8: "Thoughts come again, convictions perpetuate themselves
opportunities pass by irrecoverably."--+GOETHE.+]
[Footnote 9: Novgorod the Great.]
[Footnote 10: Lithuania.]
End of Project Gutenberg's Poems by Speranza, by Jane Francesca Agnes Wilde