INIS FA I L A LYRICAL CHRONICLE OF IRELAND THE IRISH SISTERS EARLY POEMS, MEDITATIVE OR DEVOTIONAL POEMS FOR THE MOST PART CONNECTED WITH THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE, 1816— 1849 URBS ROMA ST. PETER’S CHAINS BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY CHESTNUT HILL. MASS. BY AUBREY DE YERE NEW EDITION LONDON: BURNS & OATES 28, Orchard Street, W. TJt H5 *f A. TS 132015 CONTENTS PAGE Preface ... ... ... ... ... xvii INISFAIL. A LYRICAL CHRONICLE OF IRELAND. Part I. — 1. The Invasion. 2. The Outlawry Dedication ... ... ... ... ... 1 Prologue. Tlie Three Woes ... ... 3 The Warnings... ... ... ... ... 4 A Bard Song ... . . ^ ... ... 5 The Dirge of the Invaders ... ... ... 6 Peccatum Peccavit ... ... ... ... 8 The Malison ... ... ... ... ... 9 The Legends : ‘ The woods rose slowly ; the clouds sail’d on’ ... ... ... ... 11 The Legends : ‘ Dead is the Prince of the Silver Hand ’ 1 1 The Faithful Norman ... ... ... 12 Song... ... ... ... ... ... 13 The Legends : ‘ They fought ere sunrise at Tor Conainn ’ 1 4 The Bard Ethell ... ... ... ... 14 King Malaclii ... ... ... . . . 25 Saint Patrick and the Knight ... ... . . . 26 The Ballad of the Bier that Conquered . . 27 The Dirge of Athunreo ... ... ... ... 30 The Dirge of Edward Bruce ... ... ... 33 The True King ... ... ... ... 34 The Ballad of Queen Margaret’s Feasting ... 35 The Wedding of the Clans ... ... ... 37 The Irish Norman ... ... ... ... 39 The Statute of Kilkenny ... ... ... 42 The Days of Outlawry ... . . ... 43 The Three Choirs ... ... ... ... 45 The Ballad of Turgesius the Dane ... ... 46 Epilogue ... ... ... ... ... 50 INISFAIL. Part II. — The Wars of Religion Prologue. ‘Can these Bones Live ? ’ ... ... 53 Plorans Ploravit . . ... ... 54 Roisin Dubh ... ... ... . , 54 X CONTENTS. PAGE The Dirge of Desmond .. . ... ... ... 55 War-song of Mac Carthy ... ... ... 57 Florence Mac Carthy’s Farewell to his English Love 58 To the Same ... ... ... ... 53 The Dirge of Kildare ... ... ... ... 59 War-song of TirconnelFs Bard at the Battle of Black- water ... ... ... ... ... 60 The True Victory ... .. ... ... 66 The Sugane Earl ... ... ... ... 67 Ormond’s Lament ... ... ... ... 68 The Phantom Funeral ... ... ... ... 70 The March to Kinsale ... ... ... 72 Kinsale ... ... ... ... 73 RoisinDubh: A Dirge ... ... ... 75 To Nuala in Rome ... ... ... ... 75 The Arraignment ... ... ... ... 77 The Suppression of the Faith in Ulster ... ... 79 King Charles’s ‘ Graces ’ ... ... ... 83 Sibylla Iernensis ... ... ... ... 83 The Ballad of 4 Bonny Portmore ’ ... ... 85 The Intercession ... ... ... ... 87 The Silk of the Kine ... ... ... 89 The Battle of Benburb ... ... ... ... 90 Traditor Iste ... ... ... ... 95 Dirge of Owen Roe O’Neill ... ... ... 97 The Bishop of Ross ... ... ... 98 Dirge ... ... ... ... ... 99 The Wheel of Affliction ... ... ... 100 Epilogue ... ... ... ... ... 100 INISFAIL. The Elegy. Part III. — 1. The Penal Laws. 2. The Victory of Endurance. Prologue. Parvuli Ejus ... ... ... 105 In Ruin Reconciled ... ... ... 106 The Changed Music ... ... ... ... 106 The Minstrel of the Later Day ... ... 107 Ode: The ‘ Curse of Cromwell ’ ... ... ... 108 Peace ... ... ... ... ... 110 The Ballad of the Lady turned Beggar ... ... Ill The Irish Slave in Barbadoes ... ... 113 Archbishop Plunket ... ... ... ... 114 A Ballad of Sarsfield ... ... ... 116 A Ballad of Atlilone ... ... ... ... 117 The Requital ... ... ... ... 118 The Last Mac Carthymore ... ... ••• 119 A Hundred Years ... ... ... 121 Quomodo sedet Sola ... ... ... ... 122 CONTENTS. XI PAGE Spes Unica ... ... ... ... ... 123 Sederunt in Terra ... ... ... ... 124 Deep crieth unto Deep ... ... ... ... 125 Adhaesit Lingua Lactantis ... ... ... 125 The Promise ... ... ... ... ... 126 Only a Reed that sighed ... ... ... 127 Ode: The Cyclic Renovation ... ... ... 127 The Spiritual Renovation ... ... ... 129 A Song of the Brigade : 4 I snatched a stone from the bloodied brook ’ ... ... ... 130 A Song of the Brigade : ‘ River that through this purple plain ’ . . . ... ... ... 131 Song... ... ... ... ... ... 132 A Song of the Brigade : 4 What sound goes up among the Alps’ ... ... ... ... 133 The Sea-watcher ... ... ... ... 134 The Friendly Blight ... ... ... 135 The New Race ... ... ... ... 136 The Irish Exile at Fiesole ... ... ... 137 Winter Song ... ... ... ... ... 139 Gaiety in Penal Days ... ... ... 139 Dirge ... ... ... ... ... 140 Una ... ... ... ... ... 141 Double-lived ... ... ... ... ... 142 Adduxit in Tenebris ... . . . 143 Dirge ... ... ... ... ... 143 Irish Airs ... ... ... . 144 Hope in Death ... ... ... ... 145 The Decree ... ... ... ... 146 Saint Brigid of the Legends : A Bard Song 146 Saint Columba’s Stork ... ... ... 148 The Graves ... ... ... ... ... 149 The Long Dying ... ... ... ... 150 A Bard’s Love for Erin .. . ... ... ... 151 Unrevealed ... ... ... ... 152 Shanid’s Keep . . . ... ... ... 152 Saint Brigid of the Convents ... ... 153 In Far Lands ... ... ... .. ... 154 Saint Columba’s Farewell ... ... ... 154 Arbor Nobilis ... ... ... ... ... 156 Saint Columba of the Legends ... ... 157 The Hermit’s Counsel ... ... ... ... 158 Evening Melody ... ... ... ... 159 Caro Requiescet ... ... ... ... 160 The Secret of Power ... ... ... 161 Evening Melody ... ... ... ... 162 The 4 Old Land’ ... ... . .. ... 163 To Ethnea Reading Homer ... ... ... 164 Grattan ... ... ... ... ... 166 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE The Secret Joy ... ... ... ... 167 Insight ... ... ... ... ... 167 * Song... ... ... ... ... ... 168 The Clue ... ... .. ... ... 168 Ode on the First Repeal of the Penal Laws ... 169 The Cause ... ... ... ... 172 Memory ... ... ... ... ... 173 All-Hallows ... ... ... ... 173 Hymn ... ... ... ... ... 178 Electa ... ... ... ... ... 180 Song... ... ... ... ... 181 The Change ... ... ... ... 181 Semper Eadem ' ... ... ... 182 Epilogue ... ... ... ... ... 183 THE IRISH SISTERS ; or, Weal in Woe 187 EARLY POEMS : Meditative or Devotional. Ode to Jerusalem ... .. ... ... 225 Persecution. An Ode ... ... ... ... 228 The Martyrdom ... ... ... ... 229 Ode ... ... ... ... 231 Vesper Hymn ... ... ... ... 233 Nocturn Hymn ... ... ... ... 233 Adam Refuses the Gifts of the Race of Cain . . . 235 The Planets ... ... ... ... ... 237 A Tale of the Modern Time ... ... ... 244 Magdalene in the Desert ... ... ... 257 Association of Ideas ... ... ... 259 Reality ... ... ... ... ... 260 Humanity ... ... ... ... 260 Via Intelligentise ... ... ... ... 261 ‘ Forward, a step or two, where’er we go J ... 261 St. Dymphna ... ... ... ... . .. 262 Martha and Mary ... ... ... ... 263 Hymns I. — ‘ Lord of the Lords of all the earth ! ’ 264 II. — Peace ... ... ... ... 265 III. — 4 He giveth His beloved sleep 5 ... 266 IV. — 4 In that cold cave with spices sweet ’ ... 267 V. — 4 The stars shine bright while earth is dark ! ’ 268 VI. — 4 A low sweet voice from out the brake ’ 269 VII. — Christ our Example ... ... 271 VIII. — To the Holy Spirit 272 Hymn For the Feast of the Holy Innocents ... 273 „ The Meek 274 ,, For the Building of a Cottage .. ... 281 ,, For Good Friday ... ... ... 286 CONTENTS. Xlll PAGE Hymn The Washing of the Altar on Good Friday 289 ,, The Washing of the Feet on Maundy Thursday 290 ,, Self-sacrifice ... ... ... 291 The Creation of Man ... ... ... ... 292 An Ancient Legend, and its Answer ... ... 293 Trial ... ... ... ... ... 293 Early Sonnets : — I.— God’s Gifts 295 II. — Law and Grace ... ... ... 295 III. — Churches ... ... ... 296 IV. — 4 Ye praise the humble : of the meek ye say’ ... ... ... ... 297 V. — ‘ That depth of love the Church doth bear to thee’ ... ... ... ... 297 VI. — The Vastness of Divine Truth lost in its Simplicity ... ... ... 298 VII. — Evidences of Religion (1) ... ... 298 VIII. — Evidences of Religion (2) .. . ... 299 IX. — Simplicity and Steadfastness of Mind ... 300 X. — The Penitent ... ... ... 300 XI. — Spiritual Retreats. (Penitential I.) ... 301 XII. — Discipline of the Church. (Penitential II. ) 302 XIII. — Penitential Seasons ... ... ... 302 XIV. — On a Picture of the Magdalene ... 303 XV. — Discipline of the Church. (Commemor- ative) ... ... ... 304 XVI. — Natural Religion ... ... ... 304 XVII. — Interior Evidences ... ... 305 XVIII. — Conversion ... ... 305 XIX. — The Communion of Saints ... 306 XX. — Nature and Grace ... ... ... 307 Sonnets by the late Hon. Stephen E. Spring Rice: — I. — ‘With slow and thoughtful step I went my way ’ ... ... ... 311 II. — The Black Tarn under Mangerton ... 311 III. — Early Friendship ... ... 312 IV. — Drudgery ... ... ... ... 313 V.— Titian’s Picture of Bacchus and Ariadne 313 VI. — Mary Saying her Prayers ... ... 314 VII. — ‘ Slow serious phrases, tender words and few’ ... ... ... ... 315 VIII. — Old and Modern Learning ... 315 IX. — ‘ Love is historic ; rests upon the past ’ 316 X. — ‘Think not man’s fallen nature can accept’ ... ... ... ... 316 XI. — ‘ If, task’d beyond my strength, I crave delay’ 317 XIV CONTENTS. PAGE XII. — ‘Soft sighing wind that eomest to dispel' ... ... ... 318 XIII. — ‘No sweeter pleasure can this life supply’ 318 XIV. — Sympathy dispensed with ... ... 319 XV. — The Heart knoweth its own Bitterness 320 XVI. — ‘The spacious Shenan, spreading like a sea’ ... ... ... ... 320 XVII. — Sick Dreams All ... ... 321 XVIII. — The Dream of a Life ... ... 322 XIX. — ‘ Hold up, old Horse ! ’ . . . ... 322 XX. — Spring ... ... ... ... 323 XXI. — To Lina ... ... ... 324 XXII. — Left alone ... ... ... ... 324 XXIII. — Edification ... ... ... 325 XXIV. — The Baby on the Rug ... ... 326 POEMS FOR THE MOST PART CONNECTED WITH THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE, 1846—1849 Irish Colonization ... ... ... ... 329 The Year of Sorrow — Ireland — 1849 ... 331 Widowhood ... ... ... ... 340 The last Irish Gael to the last Irish Norman 343 Ode I. ... ... ... ... ... 349 Ode II. ... ... ... ... 354 Ode III 357 Ode IV. ... ... ... ... 359 To Ireland ... ... ... ... 363 Sonnet ... ... ... ... 366 To Charles Count De Montalembert ... ... 367 Sonnets : — I. — The Irish Constitution of 1782 ... 368 II. — Christian Education ... ... 369 III.-— Ireland and the ‘Ecclesiastical Titles Act’ ... ... ... ... 370 Shepherd Song ... ... ... ... 370 Sonnets : — I. — Joan of Arc ... ... ... 375 II. — The Prince of Wales’ Tribute of Praise to Father Damien ... ... 375 III. — On the late Pilgrimage to Paray le Monial 376 IV. — St. Chrysostom’s Return from Exile ... 377 V. — The Death of Pope Hildebrand ... 378 VI. — The Formulary of Pope Hormisdas ... 379 VII. — The Spanish Armada and the English Catholics ... ... ... 379 CONTENTS. XV PAGE VIII. — The Island of Iona ... ... ... 380 IX. — Mary Queen of Scots ... ... 381 X. — A Portrait of Anne Boleyn ... ... 381 XI. — On the Consecration of St. Patrick’s New Cathedral at Armagh ... ... 382 XII. — On the Consecration of Ireland to the Sacred Heart, Passion Sunday, 1873 383 XIII. — On the Laying of the Foundation Stone of the New Church at Maynootli College 383 XIV. — The Foundation Stone ... ... 384 XV. — The Maynootli Centenary of 1895 ... 385 XVI. — The New Catholic Church near Winder- mere ... ... ... 385 XVII. — Walna Crag, and ‘The Lady’s Rake,’ Derwentwater ... ... ... 387 XVIII.— Ulswater, Sept. 5, 1895 ... ... 388 URBS ROMA. I. — St. Peter’s by Moonlight ... ... 391 II. — Pontific Mass in the Sistine Chapel ... 391 III. — The Pillar of Trajan ... ... 392 IV. — The Arch of Titus ... ... ... 393 V. — The Campagna seen from St. John Lateran 393 VI. — Birds in the Baths of Diocletian ... 394 VII. — The ‘Miserere’ in the Sistine Chapel 395 VIII. — The ‘Miserere 5 in the Sistine Chapel ... 395 IX. — The Monuments of Queen Christina of Sweden and of the Countess Matilda in St. Peter’s ... ... ... 396 X. — The Catacombs ... ... ... 397 XI. — The Appian Way ... ... 397 XII. — On the Cross in the Interior of the Coli- seum... ... ... ... 398 XIII. — The Fountain of Egeria ... ... 399 XIV. — The Graves of Tirconnel and Tyrone on San Pietro, in Montorio ... ... 399 XV. — To the Pillar that stands beside the High Altar at ‘ St. Paul’s outside the Walls/ Rome ... ... ... 400 SAINT PETER’S CHAINS; OR, ROME AND THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION. Part I.— The Revolt Against Christian Civilization. Sonnets : — I. — Christmas Eve, 1859 ..\ ... 408 II. — Italian ‘ Unification ’ in 1860 ... ... 409 III. — The Great Conniving Powers ... 409 IV. — The Retribution ... ... ... 410 V. — Juvenile Patriotism ... ... 411 XVI CONTENTS. PAGE VI. — The Origin of the Temporal Power ... 411 VII. — The Old and New Barbarians ... 412 VIII. — To Italy, 1861 ... ... ... 413 IX.— The Italy of Old ... ... ... 413 X. — The Invasion of the Papal States ... 414 XI. — Rossi ... ... ... ... 415 XII. — True and False Love of Freedom ... 415 XIII. — The Approaching Deed ... ... 416 XIV. — The Consummation ... ... ... 417 SAINT PETER’S CHAINS. Part II. XV. — The French Revolution and National Apostasy ... ... ... 417 X VI. — A ruined French Abbey ... ... 418 XVII. — The Lawless Race ... ... 419 XVIII. — ‘Remember, Italy, thy judged Compeer ’ 419 XIX. — The Church of the Madeleine at Paris and the French Revolution ... ... 420 XX. — The Statue of Voltaire ... ... 421 XXI. — The France of a Future Time ... ... 421 XXII. — The New German Persecution ... 422 XXIII. — ‘Fair Land ! A question I would ask of thee ’ 423 XXIV. —The Faithful Few . . . 423 XXV. — Montalembert and De Merode ... ... 424 XXVI. — The World’s Appreciations ... ... 425 XXVII. — The Higher Civilization ... ... 425 SAINT PETER’S CHAINS. Part III. XXVIII.— The Temporal Power 426 XXIX. — Austria and Spain ... ... ... 427 XXX.— The Nations of Christendom ... 427 XXXI.— The Law of Nations ... ... ... 428 XXXII. — St. Gregory the Great and Charlemagne 429 XXXIII.— St. Gregory the Great and England ... 429 XXXIV.— The Noble Revenge 430 XXXV. — ‘ Yet, yet, ye Kings, and rulers of the earth ’ 431 XXXVI. — Walter Scott at the Tomb of the Stuarts in Saint Peter’s ... ... ... 431 XXXVII.— Walter Scott at the Tomb of the Stuarts in Saint Peter’s ... ... ... 432 XXXVIII. —The ‘ Ara Cceli ’ on the Capitol ... 433 XXXIX.— The Restoration 433 XL. — ‘ Nations self-cheated, this shall come to pass’ ... ... ... ••• 434 XLI. — Saint Peter ... ... ... ... 435 XLII.— Saint Peter 435 INISFAIL. FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1861. PREFACE. (EDITION OF 1877.) ‘ Inisfail ’ is an attempt to represent, as in a picture, the most stormy, but the most poetic period of Irish History. In simpler days than ours, when even rude feelings were tender, and when thought had not separated itself from action, poetry and history were more akin than they have been in recent times. In England and in Spain a series of ballads had early grown up, out of which rose the later literature of each country, ballads that recorded many a precious passage of old times, and embodied the genius, as well as the manners, of the past. Irish History no longer stands thus related to letters. Nowhere in Ireland can we move without being challenged by the monuments of the past ; yet, for many of her sons, and those who ought to be the best instructed, and for the traveller from afar, there exists no Alfred, and no Wallace. For the English-speaking part of the population nearly the whole of the old bardic literature has perished, and with it much of a history admirable for the manner in which it exhibits v. b XV111 PREFACE. the finer, together with the more barbaric, traits of a society the spiritual civilisation of which had been early developed, and the civil early checked. Yet for centuries the bards occupied a more important posi- tion in Ireland than in any other part of the West : their dignity was next to the regal ; their influence over the people unbounded ; and they possessed all the secular learning then in the land. The Gael required that even the precepts of the law should be delivered to him in verse, as well as that the lines of the Princes and Chiefs should be thus traced. The influence of the priest alone equalled that of the bard, and between these two orders a rivalry often existed. We have the testimony of Spenser as to the merit and power of the latter as late as the sixteenth century. He admired them and he feared them. The love of the bard for his country was a lover’s passion. To him of course his Erin was in some degree an Ideal Erin. He could see the crimes of individuals, and denounce judgment on them ; but beneath the accidents of the hour he ever recognised in his Land the child of a divine predilection. The closer the hunters beset her, the more thickly the ‘ winged wounds’ came about her, the more vehemently he hailed her as one 6 doomed to death, yet fated not to die.’ The name 4 Inisfail ’ signified the 4 Isle of Destiny.’ In Ireland the alliance between poetry and love of country was, perhaps, closer than elsewhere. For ages her History was but a record of calamity ; and to every generous nature his country becomes en- deared by her sufferings. But even in earlier days the bards must have found their best subjects for song among the picturesque and romantic details of Irish story. The antiquity to which it mounted PREFACE. XIX excited imaginative sympathies : the dimness with which large tracts of it were invested gave a more striking prominence to what remained of it — those great, half-isolated Records which loomed through the mist like mountain behind mountain retiring into more and more remote distance. Some reference to those records, wild as the wildest ‘ Irish airs/ may perhaps render more easily intelligible an enterprise of verse which many will deem rash, an attempt to add a Gaelic note to that large concert of English poetry enriched long since by strains indirectly drawn from almost every age and land. Long before those three golden centuries succeed- ing her conversion to Christianity, Ireland possessed culture, laws, and a time-honoured monarchy. It was in part for this reason that she at once became the great missionary land of the North, while foreigners flocked in crowds to her colleges. Her Faith was a tree that rapidly ‘ covered the lands with its branches/ because it had been planted ‘ by the water side/ If Ireland had to ‘ wait long for her martyrs/ it was because the genius of her early institutions was less opposed than that of other Western Nations to Christianity. Most of Europe, including Britain and Gaul, had received the Roman civilisation. With Pagan Rome Ireland had had no dealings, closely as she became linked with Christian Rome. She was an Eastern nation in the West, and a Southern in the North. Her civilisation was pa- triarchal, not military, in essence ; its type was the family, not the army ; it had more affinity with the Church, when the Church yet dwelt in tents, than with the complex fabric of the State. It was a civilisation of clans. The clan system would have XX PREFACE. been fatal to a people whose vocation was to create a great political dominion. To a country whose great- ness was destined to be a missionary greatness it proved an auxiliary, at once affording to her the type of those spiritual clans, her convents, of which those ruled by the great monastic family of St. Columba proved the most potent, and also withdrawing her from the larger worldly ambitions. Had the dan system met with no external interference, civil society might possibly in Ireland, as in India, have preserved its original type substantially unchanged to modern times, without decay, though also without progress. But, on the other hand, the missionary progress of Ireland in three centuries, exceeded that made by half the countries of Europe in twice the time. Clan fights were her sports ; but Religion was her Reality. To it her genius was attracted. Another Eastern characteristic, ‘ Fatalism/ has been attributed to the Irish race. Her Fatalism meant simply a profound sense of Religion. The intense Theism which has ever belonged to the East survived in Ireland as an instinct no ]ess than as a Faith. The Irish have commonly found it more easy to recognise the Divine hand than secondary causes. They have regarded Religion as the chief possession of man. Such nations are ever attached to the Past. That Past was indeed too great a thing to be forgotten. Even in our own days, remote and prosaic, by the banks of the Boyne, amid more troubled me- morials, we stand and wonder at tumuli the winding galleries of which are supposed to retain the ashes of those kings of the Tuatha de Danann, who ruled in Ireland before the Milesian race. In the isles of Aran, in Kerry, and in Donegal, we still find the PREFACE. XXI remains of cairn and cromlech and rath, of stone forts, and of those singular houses called c cloghauns ’ with their steep beehive roofs. The Royal Irish Academy shows us its silver shields, golden crowns, cups, torques, spear-heads of bronze, &c. The illuminated Missals and Breviaries of the Dublin University prove to us that no sooner had the land become Christian than it applied to sacred purposes the skill it had long before possessed. Centuries earlier, when the neighbouring countries were barbarous, its Brehon Laws had constituted a complete code of civil rule ; while many of its social usages, fosterage, for instance, and the clan tenure of land, hereditary offices, eric, &c., were as deeply rooted in the national heart, as when, 1500 years later, arbitrary laws endeavoured in vain to eradicate them. The long list of 118 kings, previous to the time of St. Patrick, astonishes us at first * but, on examining the material records still existing, we find abundant proofs of the antiquity of Irish civilisation. The traces of the husbandman’s labour remain on the summit of hills which have not been cultivated within the records of tradition, and the implements with which he toiled have been found in the depth of forest or bog. If the ancient memorials of Ireland are interesting to us, much more so must they have proved to the Irish of an earlier day. A green and woody knoll beside Lough Derg is all that for us remains of Kin- cora, the Palace of the Munster Kings, and home of Brian the Great. But to a Gael in the fifteenth century its ruins must have spoken a language as intelligible as that in which old castles battered by Mount joy address us. To the Irishman, prince or peasant, Nial of the Nine Hostages was as familiar XXII PREFACE. a name as Bruce was to the Scottish. Bard and chronicler told how, before St. Patrick had sum- moned King Laeghaire to believe, Nial had ruled over all Ireland ; how he had been the ancestor of the tribe of Hi-Nial, from which were descended the Princes of Tirconnel and Tyrone, at whose name the children of Norman nobles in the Pale , the four counties round Dublin, trembled ; how he had sent against Britain and Gaul those naval expeditions, still for us recorded in Roman verse ; # how he had leagued with his countrymen in Scotland, those Scoti who with the Piets had again and again driven back the Romans behind their further wall till they left the land defenceless ; and how, at last, he had fallen at sea, in the port of Boulogne, by the hand of his rival, Eochy. From priest as well as bard he would have heard of the Irish Numa, King Cormac ; how he had succeeded to his father, a.d. 227 ; how he had established three colleges, one for war, one for history, and one for jurisprudence ; how he had reduced the old Brehon law into a code ; how he had assembled at his palace of Tara his bards and chroniclers,* and commanded them to collect all the ancient annals of Ireland into a series — the ‘ Psalter of Tara ’ ; how he had himself written a book called ‘ The Institutions of a Prince/ and stored in it the civil wisdom of his time ; how, in obedience to law, he had resigned his throne on becoming disfigured by a wound ; and how it was piously believed that, before his death, Christianity had reached him, and he had become a Believer. 4 Totam cum Scotus Iernem Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Tethys.’ Claudian. PREFACE. XX111 Still more often would he have heard the tale of King Cormac’s grandfather, Conn of the Hundred Fights, who succeeded to the crown of all Ireland, a.d. 123, and who was at last compelled to surrender one half of it to Eoghan More (Eugene the Great), King of Munster. He would have heard how the latter, on the war breaking out again, had sought and found allies in Spain, and with them had perished in a night surprise ; how his rival, Conn of the Hundred Fights, was slain, in the hundredth year of his age, by a king of Ulster ; and how from a king who united the blood of Conn and of Eugene were descended the great houses of Munster, those of the Dalcassian race, as the OBriens, who held sway in Thomond or north Munster, and those of the Euge- nian race, as the MacCarthys, who retained it for so many centuries in Desmond or south Munster, and were at last obliged to share it with the Norman Geraldines. But the records of which every song-loving Gael heard went up to periods long before the Christian Era. He heard how, at a time when the bards had long enjoyed the dignities in Christian times be- stowed on the clergy, a storm had arisen against this song-church, accused of inordinate wealth and abused power. He heard also how it had been saved by the interposition of St. Columba, himself a Poet. He heard how, earlier still, King Eochy had constituted the five provincial kingdoms, as centuries previously King Ugony More had divided Ireland into twenty- five for the benefit of his twenty-five sons, compelling his people to swear by the ‘ sun and the moon, the dew, and all elements visible and invisible/ that their inheritance should not be taken from them for ever. XXIV PREFACE. He heard how Emania, the palace of the Ulster kings, had been built, before the time of Ugony, b.c. 305, by Queen Macha, who had compelled rival princes to toil at the foundations, and marked with the point of her torque the spot where the work was to begin. The annalist of Clonmacnoise told him how for 850 years the Red-branch Knights, the great order of Pagan Chivalry, had gone in and come out among its halls ; how another Queen, Maeve, or Maude, who had herself built the Connaught Palace of Cruachan, invaded Ulster at the head of her army ; how her Gamanradians . of lorras had fought with the Red-branch Chivalry ; and how, centuries later, the three Collas had burned to the ground that Emania of which the only record remaining was then, as it is now, a lonely rath near Armagh. The chronicler would then have told him that the palace of Tara had been built by King Ollamh Fodhla centuries before even that of Emania had been heard of ; that in it, reign after reign, was held the great Triennial Assembly of chiefs, bards, and historians ; that each warrior had taken the seat appointed for him beneath his own banner, during deliberations conducted with a solemnity half regal, half sacerdotal ; that these assemblies continued to take place till a.d. 554, and that it was deserted for ever in con- sequence of a malison pronounced against it by St. Rodanus of Lothra. Emania had enjoyed more years of splendour than had elapsed between the first Danish invasion and Queen Elizabeth’s wars ; yet its greatness was over before Ireland had confessed the Christian Faith. Tara had lasted longer than the whole period of Danish, Norman, and Saxon wars united ; yet the weeds had begun to creep over its PREFACE. XXV old rath as many centuries before Henry IT. had landed in Ireland as elapsed between his enterprise and what in Ireland was called the 4 Anglo-Dutch invasion/ Glancing thus with the bards from epoch to epoch, we reach the latest of the remote ones, that of the Milesian settlement. The most learned amongst recent antiquarians assure us that a sceptical spirit respecting that settlement is as unphilosophical as a credulous spirit would have been deemed in the last century. They affirm that the whole social system of Ireland having been based upon genealogical claims, her most important institutions were formed for the purpose of recording facts and dates accurately ; and they state that the early chronicles are remarkably confirmed by Science as regards eclipses, astronomical calculations, &c. It is certain that the Gael ever looked upon this period as the authentic beginning of Irish glories, however problematical her earlier legends might be. Rejecting the claims to a greater antiquity, Charles O’Connor, of Balenagar, assigns to the establishment of the Milesian monarchy in Ireland the date of 760 years before our Era, making it thus nearly contemporaneous with the foundation of Rome. A race called Gadelian, or Gaelic, and at a later period called Scoti (as is supposed from their claims to a Scythian descent), migrated to Ireland from Spain under the leadership of the six sons of Milesius, king of that country. Their names were Heber, Heremon, Donn, Colpa, Ir, and Amergin. The brothers founded that Gaelic monarchy which had lasted for nearly 2000 years when the mighty Norman race extended its conquests from England to Ireland, a land the political and religious institu- XXVI PREFACE. tions of which had never wholly recovered the effects of the Danish inroads. It is with the Norman conquests in Ireland that the present Poem commences. It is necessary to make a few remarks respecting the chief character- istics of Irish History from that period to the latter part of the eighteenth century. The six centuries of Irish History, illustrated by 4 Inisfail,’ divide themselves into three portions. The first endured for about 350 years. Its pre- dominant characteristic was Outlawry. The Brehon Law was set aside by the conquering race, and the English Law was refused to the conquered, refused by the settler more than by English kings. The weak were the prey of the strong. Yet even in those ages of wrong and rapine all was not suffering. Flowers spring up by the torrent’s bed ; and many a gay song was sung beneath the invader’s fortress. Moreover, in the midst of the Norman settlements the Gaelic chief held his own, and around him the old clan life went on as before. Partly through intermarriages, the Norman nobles, in the remoter parts of Ireland, became Irish Chiefs, speaking the national language, and adopting the national usages. It is thus that Keating, writing his history amid the storms of the seventeenth century, speaks of this race : ‘ Notwithstanding what has been said of the cruelties and sacrilegious acts of some of those foreigners who came into Ireland, many of them were men of virtue and strict piety, who promoted the service of God and the cause of religion by erect- ing churches and monasteries, and bestowing large PREFACE. XXvii revenues upon them for their support ; and God rewarded their charity and acts of mercy with particular marks of His favour, and not only blessed them in their own persons, but in a noble and worthy posterity.’ Their gradual amalgamation with the nation at large is a pledge that no estrangement of race or class among Ireland’s sons can be permanent. The second period is characterised by the wars of Religion. They completed the estrangement between England and Ireland. They completed also the union of the Gaelic and Norman races in Ireland. When the last great act of the tragedy had come, at the same side the ancient foes fought and fell. The Cromwellian victories, and the confiscation of more than half Ireland at that time, reduced with com- paratively few exceptions the chiefs of both the old races to that condition to which the Geraldines of Desmond had previously • been brought by the con- fiscations of Elizabeth, and the Ulster princes by those of James I. This period ends with the de- thronement of James II., when the fall of the old Monarchy consummated that of the old Nobility and the old Faith. The third period is that of Penal Laws, silently endured. A succession of wars, renewed during centuries with recurrent passion, in defence of ancient laws, national existence, and religious free- dom, had remained barren of their intended result. Foreign alliances, even during periods when England was torn by dynastic and religious dissensions, had always proved abortive. The struggle had but ren- dered Ireland famous among the nations, and scattered among them her warriors, as her mission- aries had been scattered in old times. Wrong had XXVI 11 PEEFACE. run its complete circle. But the People endured . The Faith for which it had suffered preserved it as an integral People. The chains which had never been broken fell off. A more glorious triumph than that so often sought had been reserved for Ireland. It was awarded, not to a fortunate moment, but to silent years ; not to nobles, but to a people — among whom, however, many tempests had sown wide the seed of nobility ; not to spasmodic action, but to inflexible fortitude ; not to arms, but to Faith. When the cloud had rolled by there emerged a People and a Beligion. Persons of the most different prepossessions have arrived at practically the same estimate of Irish History, and in it have thus found the moral of the tale. The Catholic sees in Ireland an image of the Church herself — for three early centuries the great missionary of the Faith ; for three late ones its martyr ; ever in tribulation, but never consumed ; at one time exalted as a nation, at another deposed from nationhood but to become more powerful as a race, and effecting more in its captivities and dis- persions than it could have done if oppression, and the poverty bequeathed by oppression, had never driven it to the margin of waters broader and more lonely than those of Euphrates or Choaspes. To one of a different creed a conclusion morally the same is differently coloured. Justice, he says, ulti- mately triumphs over wrong. Liberty cannot be trampled down for ever. A Beligion is a Cause : and a Cause and a People in permanent union are indomitable. The philosopher shapes the result thus : — The relation between the three periods of Irish History is logical. The Outlawry of the first PREFACE. XXIX period rendered it impossible that in the second a new religion should be introduced into Ireland by means of Law. Who were to bow before the new laws at variance with the old traditions ? Not kernes, who had never had the benefit of law : not Barons, whose only law had been their own will. The struggle but identified for ever the National sentiment with the Catholic sentiment. Equally close appears to him the connection between the second and the third period of Irish History. The Penal Laws of the latter were blunted by the whole- sale confiscations of the former. Misery became the pledge for fidelity. To the Irish people, who had already lost their lands, there remained nothing but their Faith. During the long night of persecution its truths shone out like stars, and wrote themselves indelibly on the heart of the race. Its priests were its only friends (a power greater than they sought being thus, but at a later time, forced upon them) : the next world was its nearest hope : and it was not likely that either would be forsaken. In the end, permanent instincts and principles triumphed over temporary necessities. In the failure of persecuting laws, and in the restoration of Ireland, one man sees the victory of Faith, another that of Justice, and a third that of Beason ; three powers that work, on the long run, to the same result. In these days few are so biassed by party or sectarian bitterness as to grudge an epitaph to virtue and calamity in times gone by. A timid caution may shrink from Historical Studies (as if the most interesting of studies could be suppressed), but a manly prudence will enjoin them, provided that they be conducted with justice. Ireland is bound XXX PREFACE. to acknowledge that it was not England alone, or Protestant countries alone, that persecuted. On the long run Truth is a peacemaker. What is to be feared from historical studies in connection with Ireland ? The spirit of vengeance ? A man must be half-witted to sigh for revenge when the offenders have been for centuries dead. He must be an idiot not to perceive that on the long run, whatever a just cause may have gained for a time through the use of unjust means, it has invariably lost ten times as much through injustice. ‘Inisfail’ may be regarded as a National Chronicle cast in a poetic form. Its aim is to embody the essence of a nation’s history during a long period of that History. Contemporary historic poems touch us with a magical hand ; but they often pass by the most important events, and linger beside the most trivial. Looking back upon the past as from a vantage-ground, its general proportions become palpable : and the themes to which poetry then attaches herself are either those critical junctures upon which the fortunes of a nation turn, or such accidents of a lighter sort as illustrate the character of a race. A historic series of poems thus becomes possible, the interest of which is continuous, and the course of which reveals an increasing significance. Such a series, however, as it constitutes a Whole, must be read in its proper order if its meaning is to be understood, and if the Unity of the poem is to be felt. The character of Irish History rendered it natural that its illustration should be chiefly lyrical. In this respect I have imitated the example of Ireland’s ancient bards, with whom the Ode or the Dirge was as common as the Ballad was with the PREFACE. XXXI minstrels of other nations. Throughout, I have en- deavoured to be true to the inner spirit of Irish History, faithful to its meaning, and no less to its changes. This accounts for the difference of treat- ment and tone observable in the three Parts of the poem, a difference which corresponds with the three periods of the history recorded. In Part I. the tone is chiefly legendary, and the treatment objective, be- cause the period of Irish History illustrated in it is that which bordered most nearly upon the legends of Ireland’s heroic yet half barbaric time. In Part II. the tone becomes more dramatic, the tragic struggle having reached its agony. In Part III. the more impassioned part of the conflict being over, the tone subsides into the elegiac until the end is approached, and the morning perforce glimmers through the night. Fidelity to Irish History rendered no less necessary that recurrence to certain fundamental ideas which the reader will observe, as the poem advances, in various degrees of development — such ideas as those of a Providence punishing at once and exalting ; the penance of the Norman ; the penance of the Gael ; the Apostolic mission of Ireland ; her undying hope ; the fidelity of her sons in far lands, &c. I en- deavoured to make the human prevail over the merely political interest of the theme, and to illustrate Ireland’s Faith apart from polemics, and exclusively as a Power of Consolation and Strength. A national Chronicle in verse would, if faithful, be an echo of that voice which comes from the heart of a People, and is heard alike in festive hall and in the village circle, in the church-porch, and on the battle- field. That voice has many tones besides the sadder and more solemn — it records the brief pathetic joy XXX11 PREFACE. which vanishes like a flame, and the hope perennial like a fountain. The main scope, however, of a poem which illustrates the interior life of a Nation — the biography of a People — must be spiritual. The moral of a brief individual life is often hidden. Nations are patriarchs ; and their lives last long enough to vindicate the ways of God. The chief aim of ‘ Inisfail ’ was to indicate that sole point of view from which Irish History possesses a meaning. One great Vocation has been guaranteed to Ireland by many great qualifications, and by many great disqualifications. When Religion and Mis- sionary Enterprise ruled the Irish Heart and Hand, Ireland reached the chief greatness she has known within historic times, and the only greatness which has lasted. When the same Heart and Hand return to the same task, Ireland will reap the full harvest of her sorrowful Centuries. She will then also inherit both a Greatness and a Happiness perhaps such as is tendered to her alone among the Nations. It has been said that Irish History abounds in touching and dramatic details, but that it is essen- tially fragmentary. Religion imparts completeness to it. When Religion threw off the bonds of centuries, a deliverance precious to all who respect freedom of thought and freedom of conscience, Irish History entered on its consummation, and justice won the most remarkable of her triumphs in modern times. Had it been otherwise, Irish History would have been no theme for song. Most unfit for poetry, however pathetic it may be, is any subject the substance of which is but violence and wrong, and the resultant of which is despondency. Under the tumults with which poetry deals there is ever an PREFACE. XXX111 inner voice of peace. Memory — mournful and faith- ful — has been called by Keble the great Inspirer of Poetry. There is a Hope, the sister of devout Memory, which is its inspirer no less. Such Hope may stand on a tombstone; but her eyes are fixed on heaven ; and if her Song begins in dirges it ends in hymns. A. de Y. INISFAIL A LYRICAL CHRONICLE OF IRELAND 3 it ®lmc |1aris ‘ A dirge devoutly breathed o’er sorrows past Tells also of bright calms that shall succeed.’ Wordsworth. the JHemort) of THE FAITHFUL AND THE TRUE ; . OF THOSE AMONG THE SONS OF IRELAND WHO, DURING THE AGES OF HER AFFLICTION, SUSTAINED A JUST CAUSE IN THE SPIRIT OF LOYALTY AND LIBERTY, AND WHO SULLIED THAT CAUSE BY NO CRIME. Y. B PART I. % Irologuc. THE THREE WOES. That Angel whose charge is Eire sang thus o'er the dark isle winging : By a virgin his song was heard at a tempest’s ruinous close : ‘ Three golden ages God gave while your tender corn- blade was springing : Faith’s earliest harvest is reap’d. To-day God sends you Three Woes. ‘ For ages three, without Laws ye shall flee as beasts in the forest : For an age, and a half age, Faith shall bring not peace but a sword : Then Laws shall rend you like eagles, sharp-fang’d, of your scourges the sorest : When these Three Woes are past, look up, for your Hope is restored. 4 The times of your dole shall be twice the time of your foregone glory : But fourfold at last shall lie the grain on your granary floor : ’ 4 THE WARNINGS. The seas in vapour shall fleet, and in ashes the moun- tains hoary : Let God do that which He wills. Let His People endure and adore ! THE WARNINGS. A.D. 1170. I. In the heaven were Portents dire : On the earth were sign and omen : Bleeding stars and rain of fire Dearth and plague foreran the foemen. Causeless tremors on the crowd Fell, and strong men wept aloud : Ere the Northmen cross’d the seas Said the bards, were signs like these. ii. Aodh saw at break of day An oak with blood-beads on its lichen : — All its branches rushed one way, Like an army panic-stricken. Aodh cried, ‘ I see a host That flees as one that flies a ghost.’ Mad he died at noon : ere night The Stranger’s sails were up in sight. hi. Time was given us to repent : Prophets smote us, plain and city : A BARD SONG. 5 But we scorn’d each warning sent, And outwrestled God’s great pity. ’Twixt the blood-stained brother bands Mitred Laurence raised his hands, Raised Saint Patrick’s cross on high : We despised him ; and we die. A BARD SONG. i. Our Kings sat of old in Emania and Tara : Those new kings whence come they ? Their names are unknown ! Our Saints lie entomb’d in Ardmagh and Killdara ; Their relics are healing ; their graves are grass- grown. Our princes of old, when their warfare was over, As pilgrims forth wander’d ; as hermits found rest : Shall the hand of the stranger their ashes uncover In Benchor the holy, in Aran the blest? II. Not so,* by the race our Dalriada planted ! In Alba were children ; we sent her a man. * Innumerable authorities — Irish, English, and Scotch — record that beginning of Scotch, as distinguished from Cale- donian, history, the establishment of an Irish colony in Western Scotland, at that time named Alba — a colony from which that noble country derived its later name, the chief part of its popu- lation, and its Koyal House, from which, through the Stuarts, our present Sovereign is descended. This settlement is recorded by the Venerable Bede. 6 THE DIRGE OF THE INVADERS. Battles won in Argyle in Dunedin they chanted ; King Kenneth completed what Fergus began. Our name is her name : she is Alba no longer : Her kings are our blood, and she crowns them at Scone ; Strong-hearted they are, and strong-handed, but stronger When throned on our Lia Fail, Destiny’s stone. THE DIRGE OF THE INVADERS; OR, THE HOUSE NORMAN. Among the churches sacked and burnt by Dermod and his Norman allies, was that of the Monastery of Kells, to which the headship of the great Order of St. Columba had been trans- ferred several centuries previously, when Iona was wasted by the Danes. The monks are here supposed to have been inter- rupted, while celebrating the obsequies of their slaughtered brethren, by the return of the despoilers. I. The walls are black : but the floor is red ! Blood ! — there is blood on the convent floor ! Woe to the mighty : that blood they shed : Woe, woe, de Boliun ! Woe, woe, le Poer ! Fitz- Walter, beware ! the years are strong : De Burgh, de Burgh ! God rights the wrong. Ye have murder’d priests : the hour draws nigh When your sons unshriven, without priest, shall die. ii. Toll for the Mighty Ones : brethren toll ! They stand astonish’d ! what seek they here ? THE DIRGE OF THE INVADERS. 7 Through tower and through turret the winds on roll, But the yellow lights shake not around the bier. They are here unbidden ! — stand back, ye proud ! God shapes the empires as wind the cloud. The offence must come : but the deed is sin : Toll the death-bell : the death-psalms begin. hi. The happy Dead with God find rest : For them no funeral bell we toll. Fitz-Hugh ! Death sits upon thy crest ! De Clare ! Death sits upon thy soul ! Toll, monks, the death-bell ; toll for them Who masque under helmet and diadem : Death's masque is Sin. The living are they Who live with God in eternal day ! IV. Fitz-Maurice is sentenced ! Sound, monks, his knell ! As Roderick fell must de Courcy fall. Toll for Fitz-Gerald the funeral bell : The blood of O'Ruark is on Lacy's wall. The lions are ye of the robber kind ! But when ye lie old in your dens and blind The wolves and the jackals on you shall prey, From the same shore sent. Beware that day ! v. Toll for the Conquerors : theirs the doom ! For the great House Norman : its bud is nipt ! Ah, princely House, when your hour is come Your dirge shall be sung not in church but crypt ! 8 PECCATUM PECCAVIT. We mourn you in time. A baser scourge Than yours that day will forbid the dirge ! Two thousand years to the Gael God gave : Four hundred shall open the Norman’s grave ! Thus with threne and with stern lament For their brethren dead the old monks made moan In the convent of Kells, the first day of Lent, One thousand one hundred and seventy-one. PECCATUM PECCAVIT . A BAUD SONG. I. Where is thy brother? Heremon, speak ! Heber the son of Milesius, thy sire 1 The orphans’ wail and the widow’s shriek For ever ring on the air of Eire ! And whose, O whose was the sword, Heremon, That smote Amergin, thy brother and bard ? — The Fate of thy house or a mocking Demon Upheaved. thy hand o’er his forehead scarr’d ! ii. Woe, woe to Eire ! That blood of brothers Wells up from her bosom renewed each year ; ’Twas hers the shriek — that desolate Mother’s : — ’Twas Eire that wept o’er that first red bier ! THE MALISON. 9 The priest has warn’d, and the bard lamented : But warning and wailing her sons despised ; The head was sage, and the heart half-sainted ; But the sword-hand was evermore unbaptised ! * THE MALISON. i. The Curse of that land which in ban and in blessing Hath puissance through prayer and through penance, alight On the False One who whisper’d, the Traitor’s hand pressing, 6 1 ride without guards in the morning — good- night ! ’ O beautiful serpent ! 0 woman fiend-hearted ! Wife false to O’Buark ! f Queen base to thy trust ! The glory of ages for ever departed That hour from the isle of the saintly and just. * Between the brothers who founded the great Milesian or Gaelic dynasty in Ireland, about B.c. 760, there was strife, as between the brothers who founded Borne nearly at the same date. Heremon and Heber divided Ireland between them. A dispute having arisen between them, a battle was fought at Geashill, in the present King’s County, in which Heber fell by his brother’s hand. This may be called Ireland’s ‘ Original Sin,’ the typical fount of many woes. In the second year of his reign Heremon also slew his brother, Amergin, in battle. T The story of the Irish Helen is well known. Dervorgil, the wife of O’Buark, Prince of Breffny, fled with Dermod Mac Murrough, King of Leinster. The latter, on his deposition, went to England, where he contracted alliances with Henry II. and Strongbow against Roderick O’Connor, the last Gaelic king of all Ireland. Dervorgil ultimately found a refuge at Mellifont, 10 THE MALISON. II. The Curse of that land on the princes disloyal, Who welcomed the Invader, and knelt at his knee ! False Dermod, false Donald — the chieftains once royal Of the Deasies and Ossory, cursed let them be ! Their name and their shame make eternal. Engrave them On the cliffs which the great billows buffet and stain : Like billows the nations, when tyrants enslave them, Swell up in their vengeance — not always in vain ! hi. But praise in the churches and worship and honour To him who, betray’d and deserted, fought on ! All praise to King Roderick, the chief of Clan- Connor, The King of all Erin, and Cathall his son ! May the million-voiced chant that in endless expan" sion Rolls onward through heaven his praises prolong ; May the heaven of heavens this night be the mansion Of the good king who died in the cloisters of Cong ! where she lived in penance and works of charity. Dermod died at Ferns, under circumstances of strange horror. Ex- hausted by domestic discords, as well as the calamities of his country, Roderick retired to the monastery he had founded at Cong. He died there at the age of eighty-two, and was interred at Clonmacnoise, the burial-place of the Irish kings. THE LEGENDS. 11 THE LEGENDS. A BARD SONG. I. The woods rose slowly 3 tlie clouds sail'd on 3 Man trod not yet the island wide : A ship drew near from the rising sun ; — At the helm was the Scythian Parricide. Battles were lost and battles were won ; New lakes burst open 3 old forests died : For ages once more in the land was none : God slew the race of the Parricide. II. There is nothing that lasts save the Pine and Bard : I, Fintan the bard, was living then ! Tall grows the Pine upon Slieve-Donard : It dies : in the loud harp it lives again. Give praise to the bard and a huge reward ! Give praise to the bard that gives praise to men : My curse upon Aodh, the priest of Skard, Who jeers at the bard-songs of Ikerren ! THE LEGENDS A BARD SONG. I. Dead is the Prince of the Silver Hand, And dead Eochy the son of Ere ! Ere lived Milesius they ruled the land Thou hast ruled and lost in turn, O'Buark ! 12 THE FAITHFUL NORMAN. Two thousand years have pass’d since then, And clans and kingdoms in blind commotion Have butted at heaven and sunk again As great waves sink in the depths of ocean. ii. Last King of the Gaels of Eire, be still ! What God decrees must come to pass : There is none t/hat soundeth His way or will : His hand is iron, and earth is glass. Where built the Firbolgs shrieks the owl ; The Tuatha bequeath’d but the name of Eire : Roderick, our last of kings, thy cowl Outweighs the crown of thy kingly sire ! THE FAITHFUL NORMAN. i. Prx\ise to the valiant and faithful foe ! Give us noble foes, not the friend who lies ! We dread the drugg’d cup, not the open blow ; We dread the old hate in the new disguise. To Ossory’s Prince they had pledged their word : He stood in their camp, and their pledge they broke ; Then Maurice the Norman upraised his sword ; The Cross on its hilt he kiss’d, and spoke : 1 So long as this sword or this arm hath might I swear by the Cross which is lord of all, SONG. By the faith and honour of noble and knight Who touches yon Prince by this hand shall fall So side by side through the throng they pass’d ; And Eire gave praise to the just and true. Brave foe ! the Past truth heals at last : There is room in the great heart of Eire for you SONG . i Willow-like maid with the long loose tresses, With locks like Diarba’s, and fairy foot, That gatherest up from the streamlet its cresses Above that carol ler bending mute, Those tresses black in a fillet bind, Or beware of Manannan the god of the wind ! ii. No fear of the Stranger with feet like those ; No fear of the robbers that couch in the glen But the Wind-god blows on thy cheek a rose, Then back returns to kiss it again. Manannan, they say, is the God in air — So sang the Tuatha — Bind close thy hair ! hi. The red on her cheek was brightening still ; A smile ran o’er it and made reply As she cast from the darkling and sparkling rill The flash of a darkling and sparkling eye ; Then over her shoulder her long locks flung And homeward tripp’d with a mirthful song. 14 THE LEGENDS. THE LEGENDS . A BARD SONG. I. They fought ere sunrise at Tor Conainn ; All day they fought on the hoarse sea-shore ; The sun dropp'd downward ; they fought amain ; The tide rose upward ; they fought the more. The sands were cover’d ; the sea grew red ; The warriors fought in the reddening wave ; That night the sea was the Sea-King's bed ; The Land-King drifted by cliff and cave. ii. Great was the rage in those ancient days (We were pagans then) in the land of Eire ; Like eagles men vanquish’d the noontide blaze ; Their bones were granite ; their nerves were wire. We are hinds to-day ! The Nemedian kings Like elk and bison of old stalk’d forth ; Their name — the ‘ Sea Kings ' — for ever clings To the 4 Giant Stepping Stones' round the North. THE BARD ETHELL . THIRTEENTH CENTURY. I. I am Ethell, the son of Conn ; Here I bide at the foot of the hill ; I am clansman to Brian and servant to none ; Whom I hated I hate ; whom I loved love still. THE BARD ETHELL. 15 Blind am I. On milk I live, And meat (God sends it) on each Saint’s Day, Though Donald Mac Art — may he never thrive — Last Shrovetide drove half my kine away ! ii. At the brown hill’s base, by the pale blue lake, I dwell, and see the things I saw ; The heron flap heavily up from the brake, The crow fly homeward with twig or straw, The wild duck, a silver line in wake, Cutting the calm mere to far Bunaw. And the things that I heard though deaf I hear ; From the tower in the island the feastful cheer ; The horn from the wood ; the plunge of the stag, With the loud hounds after him, down from the crag. Sweet is the chase, but the battle is sweeter ; More healthful, more joyous, for true men meeter ! hi. My hand is weak ; it once was strong : My heart burns still with its ancient fire : If any man smites me he does me wrong, For I was the Bard of Brian Mac Guire. If any man slay me — not unaware, By no chance blow, nor in wine and revel, I have stored beforehand a curse in my prayer For his kith and kindred : his deed is evil. iv. There never was King, and there never will be, In battle or banquet like Malachi ! The Seers his reign had predicted long ; He honour’d the Bards, and gave gold for song. 16 THE BARD ETHELL. If rebels arose he put out their eyes ; If robbers plunder’d or burn’d the fanes He hung them in chaplets, like rosaries, That others, beholding, might take more pains : There was none to women more reverent-minded, For he held his mother, and Mary, dear ; If any man wrong’d them that man he blinded Or straight amerced him of hand or ear. There was none who founded more convents— none ; In his palace the old and poor were fed ; The orphan walked, and the widow’s son, Without groom or page to his throne or bed. In council he mused, with great brows divine, And eyes like the eyes of the musing kine, Upholding a Sceptre o’er which, men said, Seven Spirits of Wisdom like fire-tongues played. He drain’d ten lakes and he built ten bridges ; He bought a gold book for a thousand cows ; He slew ten Princes who brake their pledges ; With the bribed and the base he scorn’d to carouse. He was sweet and awful ; through all his reign God gave great harvests to vale and plain ; From his nurse’s milk he was kind and brave : And when he went down to his well-wept grave Through the triumph of penance his soul uprose To God and the Saints. Hot so his foes ! ' v. The King that came after ! ah woe, woe, woe ! He doubted his friend and he trusted his foe. He bought and he sold : his kingdom old He pledged and pawn’d to avenge a spite : No Bard or prophet his birth foretold : He was guarded and warded both day and night : THE BARD ETHELL. 17 He counsell’d with fools and had boors at his feast ; He was cruel to Christian and kind to beast : Men smiled when they talk’d of him far o’er the wave : Paid were the mourners that wept at his grave ! God plagued for his sake his people sore : — They sinn’d ; for the people should watch and pray That their prayers, like angels at window and door, May keep from the King the bad thought away ! VI. The sun has risen : on lip and brow He greets me — I feel it — with golden wand. Ah, bright-faced Norna ! I see thee now ; Where first I saw thee I see thee stand ! From the trellis the girl look’d down on me : Her maidens stood near : it was late in spring : The grey priests laugh’d as she cried in glee 4 Good Bard, a song in my honour sing ! ’ I sang her praise in a loud-voiced hymn To God who had fashion’d her, face and limb, For the praise of the clan and the land’s behoof : So she flung me a flower from the trellis roof. Ere long I saw her the hill descending — O’er the lake the May morning rose moist and slow : She pray’d me (her smile with the sweet voice blend- in g) To teach her all that a woman should know. Panting she stood : she was out of breath : The wave of her little breast was shaking : From eyes still childish and dark as death Came womanhood’s dawn through a dew-cloud breaking. v. 18 THE BARD ETHELL. Norna was never long time the same : By a spirit so strong was her slight form moulded The curves swell’d out from the flower-like frame In joy ; in grief to a hud she folded : As she listen’d her eyes grew bright and large Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge. VII. So I taught her the hymn of Patrick the Apostle, And the marvels of Bridget and Columkille : Ere long she sang like the lark or the throstle, Sang the deeds of the servants of God’s high Will: I told her. of Brendon who found afar Another world ’neath the western star ; Of our three great bishops in Lindisfarne isle ; Of St. F ursey the wondrous, Fiacre without guile ; Of Sedulius, hymn-maker when hymns were rare ; Of Scotus the subtle who clove a hair Into sixty parts, and had marge to spare. To her brother I spake of Oisin and Fionn, And they wept at the death of great Oisin’s son.* * The publications of the Ossianic Society have made us familiar with Fionn Mac Cumlial (the Fingal of McPherson), chief of the far-famed Irish militia, instituted in the third century to protect the kingdom from foreign invasion. Its organisation rendered it an army of extraordinary efficiency ; but, existing as a separate power, it became in time as for- midable to the native sovereigns as to foreigners. The terrible battle of Gavra was its ruin. In it Oscar, the son of Oisin (or Ossian), and consequently the grandson of Fionn, fell in single combat with the Irish king Carbry, and nearly his whole army perished with him, a.d. 284. To this day Fionn and Oisin are household names in those parts of Western Ireland in which the traditional Gaelic poetry is recited. THE BARD ETHELL. 19 I taught the heart of the boy to revel In tales of old greatness that never tire, And the virgin’s, up-springing from earth’s low level, To wed with heaven like the altar fire. I taught her all that a woman should know : And that none might teach her worse lore I gave her A dagger keen, and I taught her the blow That subdues the knave to discreet behaviour. A sand-stone there on my knee she set, And sharpen’d its point — I can see her yet — 1 held back her hair and she sharpen’d the edge While the wind piped low through the reeds and She died in the convent on Ilia’s height : I saw her the day that she took the veil : As slender she stood as the Paschal light, As tall and slender and bright and pale ! I saw her ; and dropp’d as dead : bereaven Is earth when her holy ones leave her for heaven : Her brother fell in the fight at Beigli : May they plead for me, both, on my dying day ! IX. All praise to the man who brought us the Faith ! ’Tis a stall by day and our pillow in death ! All praise, I say, to that blessed youth Who heard in a dream from Tyrawley’s strand That wail, 4 Put forth o’er the sea thy hand ; In the dark we die : give us Hope and Truth ! ’ But Patrick built not on lorras’ shore That convent where now the Franciscans dwell : 20 THE BARD ETHELL. Columba was mighty in prayer and war ; But the young monk preaches as loud as his bell That love must rule all and all wrongs be forgiven, Or else, he is sure, we shall reach not heaven ! This doctrine I count right cruel and hard : And when I am laid in the old churchyard The habit of Francis I will not wear ; Nor wear I his cord, or his cloth of hair In secret. Men dwindle : till psalm and prayer Had soften’d the land no Dane dwelt there ! x. I forgive old Cathbar who sank my boat : Must I pardon Feargal who slew my son ; Or the pirate, Strongbow, who burn’d Granote, They tell me, and in it nine priests, a nun, And — worst — Saint Finian’s old crosier staff % At forgiveness like that I spit and laugh ! My chief, in his wine-cups, forgave twelve men ; And of these a dozen rebell’d again ! There never was chief more brave than he ! The night he was born Loch Gur up-burst : He was bard-loving, gift-making, loud of glee, The last to fly, to advance the first. He was like the top spray upon Uladh’s oak, He was like the tap-root of Argial’s pine : He was secret and sudden : as lightning his stroke There was none that could fathom his hid design He slept not : if any man scorn’d his alliance He struck the first blow for a frank defiance With that look in his face, half night half light, Like the lake gust-blacken’d yet ridged with white There were comely wonders before he died : The eagle barked and the Banshee cried ; THE BARD ETHELL. 21 The witch-elm wept with a blighted bud : The spray of the torrent was red with blood : The chief, return’d from the mountain’s bound, Forgat to question of Bran, his hound. We knew he would die : three days were o’er ; He died. We waked him for three days more. One by one, upon brow and breast The whole clan kiss’d him. In peace may he rest ! XT. I sang his dirge. I could sing that time Four thousand staves of ancestral rhyme : To-day I can scarcely sing the half : Of old I was corn and now I am chaff ! My song to-day is a breeze that shakes Feebly the down on the cygnet’s breast : ’Twas then a billow the beach that rakes, Or a storm that buffets the mountain’s crest. Whatever I bit with a venomed song Grew sick, were it beast, or tree, or man : The wrong’d one sued me to right his wrong With the flail of the Satire and fierce Ode’s fan. I sang to the chieftains : each stock I traced Lest lines should grow tangled through fraud or haste. To princes I sang in a loftier tone, Of Moran the Just who refused a throne ; Of Moran whose torque would close, and choke The wry-necked witness that falsely spoke. I taught them how to win love and hate, Not love from all ; and to shun debate. To maids in the bower I sang of love : And of war at the feastings in bawn or grove. 22 THE BARD ETHELL. XIT. Great is our Order ; but greater far Were its pomp and power in the days of old, When the five Chief Bards in peace or war Had thirty bards each in his train enroll’d ; When Ollave Fodhla in Tara’s hall Fed bards and kings : when the boy, king Nial, Was train’d by Torna : when Britain and Gaul Sent crowns of laurel to Dalian Forgial. To-day we can launch the clans into fight : That day we could freeze them in mid career ! Whatever man knows was our realm by right : The lore without music no Gael would hear. Old Cormac, the brave blind king, was bard Ere fame rose yet of O’Daly and Ward. The son of Milesius was bard — ‘ Go back, My People,’ he sang ; ‘ ye have done a wrong ! Nine waves go back o’er the green sea track ; Let your foes their castles and coasts make stron To the island ye came by stealth and at night : She is ours if we win her in all men’s sight !’ For that first song’s sake let our bards hold fast To Truth and Justice from first to last ! ’Tis over ! some think we err’d through pride, Though Columba the vengeance turned aside. Too strong we were not : too rich we were : Give wealth to knaves : — ’tis the true man’s snare ! XIII. But now men lie : they are just no more : They forsake the old ways : they quest for new : They pry and they snuff after strange false lore As dogs hunt vermin ! It never was true : — THE BARD ETHELL. 23 I have scorn’d it for twenty years — this babble That eastward and southward a Saxon rabble Have won great battles, and rule large lands, And plight with daughters of ours their hands ! We know the bold Norman o’erset their throne Long since ! Our lands ! Let them guard their own ! xiv. How long He leaves me — the great God — here ! Have I sinn’d some sin, or has God forgotten ? This year I think is m} T hundredth year : I am like a bad apple, unripe yet rotten ! They shall lift me ere long, they shall lay me — the clan — By the strength of men on mount Cruachan ! God has much to think of ! How much he hath seen And how much is gone by that once hath beeu ! On sandy hills where the rabbits burrow Are Baths of Kings men name not now : On mountain tops I have tracked the furrow And found in forests the buried plough. For one now living the. strong land then Gave kindty food and raiment to ten. No doubt they wax’d proud and their God defied ; So their harvest He blighted or burned their hoard ; Or He sent them plague, or He sent the sword ; Or He sent them lightning ; and so they died Like Dathi, the king, on the dark Alp’s side. xv. Ah me that man who is made of dust Should have pride toward God ! ’Tis a demon’s spleen ! 24 THE BARD ETHELL. I have often fear’d lest God, the All-just, Should bend from heaven and sweep earth clean, Should sweep us all into corners and holes, Like dust of the house-floor, both bodies and souls ! I have often fear’d He would send some wind In wrath ; and the nation wake up stone-blind. In age or in youth we have all wrought ill : I say not our great king Nial did well, Although he was Lord of the Pledges Nine When, beside subduing this land of Eire, He raised in Armorica banner and sign, And wasted the British coast with fire. Perhaps in His mercy the Lord will say, 4 These men ! God’s help ! ’Twas a rough boy play ! ’ He is certain — that young Franciscan Priest — God sees great sin where men see least : Yet this were to give unto God the eye Unmeet the thought, of the humming fly ! I trust there are small things He scorns to see In the lowly who cry to Him piteously. Our hope is Christ. I have wept full oft He came not to Eire in Oi sin’s time ; Though love, and those new monks, would make men soft If they were not harden’d by war and rhyme. I have done my part : my end draws nigh : I shall leave old Eire with a smile and sigh : She will miss not me as I miss’d my son : Yet for her, and her praise, were my best deeds done. Man’s deeds ! man’s deeds ! they are shades that fleet, Or ripples like those that break at my feet. The deeds of my chief and the deeds of my Ring Grow hazy, far seen, like the hills in spring. THE CARD ETHELL. 25 Nothing is great save the death on the Cross ! But Pilate and Herod I hate, and know Had Pionn lived then he had laid them low Though the world thereby had sustain’d great loss. My blindness and deafness and aching back With meekness I bear for that suffering’s sake ; And the Lent-fast for Mary’s sake I love, And the honour of Him, the Man above ! My songs are all over now : — so best ! They are laid in the heavenly Singer’s breast Who never sings but a star is born : May we hear His song in the endless morn ! I give glory to God for our battles won By wood or river, on bay or creek ; For Norna — who died ; for my father, Conn : For feasts, and the chase on the mountains bleak : I bewail my sins, both unknown and known, And of those T have injured forgiveness seek. The men that were wicked to me and mine ; — (Not quenching a wrong, nor in war nor wine) I forgive and absolve them all, save three : May Christ in His mercy be kind to me ! KING MALAGHL A BARD SONG. I. ’Twas a holy time when the Kings, long foemen, Fought, side by side, to uplift the serf ; Never triumph’d in old time Greek or Roman As Brian and Malachi at Clontarf. 26 SAINT PATRICK AND THE KNIGHT. There was peace in Eire for long years after Canute in England reign’d and Sweyn ; But Eire found rest, and the freeman’s laughter Bang out the knell of the vanquished Dane. H. Praise to the King of eighty years Who rode round the battle-field, cross in hand ! But the blessing of Eire and grateful tears To the King who fought under Brian’s command A crown in heaven for the King who brake* To staunch old discords, his royal wand : Who spurned his throne for his People’s sake, Who served a rival and saved the land ! SAINT PATRICK AND THE KNIGHT ; OR, THE INAUGURATION OF IRISH CHIVALRY. I. 6 Thou shalfc not be a Priest,’ he said ; ‘ Christ hath for thee a lowlier task : Be thou His soldier ! Wear with dread His Cross upon thy shield and casque ! Put on God’s armour, faithful knight ! Mercy with justice, love with law ; ISTor e’er except for truth and right This sword, cross-hilted, dare to draw.’ ii, He spake, and with his crosier pointed Graved on the broad shield’s brazen boss THE BALLAD OF THE BIER THAT CONQUERED. 27 (That hour baptised, confirmed, anointed Stood Erin’s chivalry) the Cross ; And there was heard a whisper low — Saint Michael, was that whisper thine ? ‘ Thou Sword, keep pure thy virgin vow, And trenchant shalt thou be as mine.’ THE BALLAD OF THE BLEB THAT CONQUERED; or, o’donnell’s answer, a. p. 1257. Maurice Fitz Gerald, Lord Justice, marched to the north-west, and a furious battle was fought between him and Godfrey O’Donnell, Prince of Tirconnell, at Creadran-Killa, north of Sligo, a.d. 1257. The two leaders met in single combat, and severely wounded each other. It was of the wound he then received that O’Donnell died, after triumphantly defeating his great rival in Ulster, O’Neill. The latter, hearing that O’Donnell was dying, demanded hostages from the Kinel Connell. The messengers who brought this insolent message fled in terror the moment they had delivered it ; — and the answer to it was brought by O’Donnell on his bier. Maurice Fitz Gerald finally retired to the Franciscan monastery which he had founded at Youghal, and died peacefully in the habit of that Order. Land which the Norman would make his own ! (Thus sang the Bard ’mid a host o’erthrown, While their white cheeks some on the clench’d hand propp’d, And from some the life-blood unheeded dropp’d) There are men in thee that refuse to die, Though they scorn to live, while a foe stands nigh ! 28 THE BALLAD OF THE BIER THAT CONQUERED. I. O’Donnell lay sick with a grievous wound : The leech had left him ; the priest had come ; The clan sat weeping upon the ground, Their banners furl’d, and their minstrels dumb. ii. Then spake O’Donnell, the King : ‘ Although My hour draws nigh, and my dolours grow ; And although my sins I have now confess’d, And desire in the Land, my charge, to rest, Yet leave this realm, nor will I nor can While a stranger treads on her, child or man. hi. I will languish no longer a sick King here : My bed is grievous ; build up my Bier. The white robe a King wears over me throw ; Bear me forth to the field where he camps — your foe, With the yellow torches and dirges low. The heralds have brought his challenge and fled ; The answer they bore not I bear instead : My People shall fight, my pain in sight, And I shall sleep well when their wrong stands right.’ IV. Then the clan rose up from the ground, and gave ear, And they fell’d great oak-trees and built a Bier ; Its plumes from the eagle’s wings were shed, And the wine-black samite above it spread Inwov’n with sad emblems and texts divine, And the braided bud of Tirconnell’s pine, THE BALLAD OF THE BIER THAT CONQUERED. 29 And all that is meet for the great and brave When past are the measured years God gave, And a voice cries 4 Come ’ from the waiting grave. v. When the Bier was ready they laid him thereon ; And the army forth bore him with wail and moan : With wail by the sea-lakes and rock-abysses ; With moan through the vapour-trail’ d wildernesses ; And men sore wounded themselves drew nigh And said, 4 We will go with our King and die ; ’ And women wept as the pomp pass’d by. The yellow torches far off were seen ; No war-note peal’d through the gorges green ; But the black pines echo’d the mourners’ keen. vi. What said the Invader, that pomp in sight ? ‘They sue for the pity they shall not win.’ But the sick King sat on the Bier upright, And said, 4 So well ! I shall sleep to-night : — Best here my couch, and my peace begin.’ VII. Then the war-cry sounded — 4 Lamb-dearg Aboo ! ’ And the whole clan rushed to the battle plain : They were thrice driven back, but they closed anew That an end might come to their King’s great pain. ’Twas a nation, not army, that onward rush’d, ’Twas a nation’s blood from their wounds that gush’d : Bare-bosom’d they fought, and with joy were slain ; Till evening their blood fell fast like rain ; 30 THE DIRGE OF ATHUNREE. But a shout swelhcl up o’er the setting sun, And O’Donnell died, for the field was won. So they buried their King upon Aileacli’s shore And in peace he slept ; — O’Donnell More. THE DIRGE OF AT HUN REE A.D. 1316 . I. Athunree ! Athunree ! Erin’s crown, it fell on thee ! Ne’er till then in all its woe Did her heart its hope forego. Save a little child — but one — The latest regal race is gone. Roderick died again on thee, Athunree ! 11. Athunree ! Athunree ! A hundred years and forty-three Winter-wing’d and black as night O’er the land had track’d their fiight : In Clonmacnoise from earthy bed Roderick raised once more his head : — Fedlim floodlike rushed to thee, Athunree ! hi. Athunree ! Athunree ! The light that struggled sank on thee ! THE DIRGE OF ATHUNREE. 31 Ne’er since Cathall the red-handed Such a host till then was banded. Long-haired Kerne and Galloglass Met the Norman face to face ; The saffron standard floated far O’er the on-rolling wave of war Bards the onset sang on thee, Athunree ! IV. Athunree ! Athunree ! The poison tree took root in thee ! What might naked breasts avail ’Gainst sharp spear and steel-ribbed mail ] Of our Princes twenty-nine Bulwarks fair of Connor’s line, Of our clansmen thousands ten Slept on thy red ridges. Then — Then the night came down on thee, Athunree ! Athunree ! Athunree ! Strangely shone that moon on thee ! Like the lamp of them that tread Staggering o’er the heaps of dead, Seeking that they fear to see. O that widows’ wailing sore ! On it rang to Oranmore ; Died, they say, among the piles That make holy Aran’s isles ; — It was Erin wept on thee, Athunree ! 32 THE DIRGE OF ATHUNREE. VI. Athunree ! Athunree ! The sword of Erin brake on thee ! Thrice a hundred wounded men, Slowly nursed in wood or glen, When the tidings came of thee Rushed in madness to the sea ; Hurled their swords into the waves, Raving died in ocean caves : — Would that they had died on thee, Athunree ! VII. Athunree ! Athunree ! The heart of Erin burst on thee ! Since that hour some unseen hand On her forehead stamps the brand : Her children ate that hour the fruit That slays manhood at the root ; Our warriors are not what they were ; Our maids no more are blithe and fair ; Truth and Honour died with thee, Athunree ! VIII. Athunree ! Athunree ! Never harvest wave o’er thee ! Never sweetly-breathing kine Pant o’er golden meads of thine ! Barren be thou as the tomb ; May the night-bird haunt thy gloom And the wailer from the sea, Athunree ! THE DIRGE OF EDWARD BRUCE. 33 IX. Athunree ! Athunree ! All my heart is sore for thee ; It was Erin died on thee, Athunree ! THE DIRGE OF EDWARD BRUCE. A.D. 1318. I. He is dead, dead, dead ! The man to Erin dear ! The King who gave our Isle a head — His kingdom is his bier. He rode into our war ; And we crown’d him chief and prince For his race to Alba’s shore Sailed from Erin, ages since. Woe, woe, woe ! Edward Bruce is cold to-day ; He that slew him lies as low, Sword to sword and clay to clay. ii. King Bobert came too late ! Long, long may Erin mourn ! Famine’s rage and dreadful Fate Forbade her Bannockburn ! As the galley touch’d the strand Came the messenger of woe ; v. D 34 THE TRUE KING. The King put back the herald’s hand : £ Peace,’ he said, ‘ thy tale I know ! His face was in the cloud ; And his wraith was on the surge.’ — Maids of Alba, weave his shroud ! Maids of Erin, sing his dirge ! THE TRUE KING. A BARD SONG. A.D. 1399. I. He came in the night on a false pretence ; As a friend he came ; as a lord remains : His coming we noted not ; when, or whence ; We slept : we woke in chains. Ere a year they had chased us to dens and caves ; Our streets and our churches lay drown’d in blood The race that had sold us their sons as slaves In our Land as conquerors stood ! n. Who were they, those princes that gave away What was theirs to keep, not theirs to give ? A king holds sway for a passing day ; The kingdoms for ever live ! The Tanist succeeds when the King is dust : The King rules all ; yet the King hath nought : They were traitors not Kings who sold their trust ; They were traitors not Kings who bought ! THE BALLAD OF QUEEN MARGARET’S FEASTING. 35 III. Brave Art Mac Murrough ! — Arise, ’tis morn ! For a true King the nation waited long, He is strong as the horn of the unicorn, This true King who rights our wrong ! He rules in the fight by an inward right ; From the heart of the nation her king is grown ; He rules by right ; he is might of her might ; Her flesh, and bone of her bone ! THE BALLAD OF QUEEN M AEG ABETS FEASTING . A.D. 1451. The Irish chronicler thus concludes: ‘God’s blessing, the blessing of all the Saints, and of every one, blessing from Jerusalem to Inis Glaaire, be on her going to heaven; and blessed be he who will reade and heare this for blessing her Soul ; and cursed be that sore in her breast that killed Margaret. ’ I. Fair she stood — God’s queenly creature ! Wondrous joy was in her face ; Of her ladies none in stature Like to her, and none in grace. On the church -roof stood they round her, Cloth of gold was her attire ; They in jewell’d circle wound her ; — Beside her Ely’s King, her sire. ii. Far and near the green fields glitter’d Like to flowery meads in Spring, 36 THE BALLAD OF QUEEN MARGARET’S FEASTING. Gay with companies loose-scatter’ d Ranged each in seemly ring Under banners red or yellow : There all day the feast they kept From chill dawn and noontide mellow Till the hill-shades eastward crept. hi. On a white steed at the gateway Margaret’s husband, Calwagh, sate : Guest on guest, approaching, straightway Welcomed he with love and state. Each pass’d on with largess laden : Chosen gifts of thought and work, Now the red cloak of the maiden, Now the minstrel’s golden torque. IV. On the wind the tapestries shifted ; From the blue hills rang the horn ; Slowly toward the sunset drifted Choral song and shout breeze-borne. Like a sea the crowds unresting Murmur’d round the grey church-tower ; Many a prayer amid the feasting, For Margaret’s mother rose that hour ! v. On the church-roof kerne and noble At her bright face look’d, half-dazed ; Nought was hers of shame or trouble ; On the crowds far off she gazed : Once, on heaven her dark eyes bending, Her hands in prayer she flung apart : THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS. 37 Unconsciously her arms extending She bless’d her People in her heart. VI. Thus a Gaelic queen and nation At Imayn till set of sun Kept with feast the Annunciation, Fourteen hundred fifty-one. Time it was of solace tender ; — ’Twas a brave time, strong yet fair ! Blessing, 0 ye Angels, send her From Salem’s towers and Inisglaaire ! THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS. A GIRL’S BABBLE. I go to knit two clans together ; Our clan and this clan unseen of yore : Our clan fears nought ! but I go, O whither ] This day I go from my Mother’s door. Thou redbreast sing’st the old song over Though many a time thou hast sung it before ; They never sent thee to some strange new lover : — I sing a new song by my Mother’s door. I stepp’d from my little room down by the ladder, The ladder that never so shook before ; I was sad last night : to-day I am sadder Because I go from my Mother’s door. The last snow melts upon bush and bramble 3 The gold bars shine on the forest’s floor ; 38 THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS. Shake not, thou leaf ! it is I must tremble Because I go from my Mother’s door. From a Spanish sailor a dagger I bought me 3 I trail’d a rose-tree our grey bawn o’er 3 The creed and my letters our old bard taught me ; My days were sweet by my Mother’s door. My little white goat that with raised feet huggest The oak stock, thy horns in the ivies frore, Could I wrestle like thee — how the wreaths thou tuggest ! — I never would move from my Mother’s door. 0 weep no longer, my nurse and Mother ! My foster-sister, weep not so sore ! You cannot come with me, Ir, my brother 3 Alone I go from my Mother’s door. Farewell, my wolf-hound, that slew Mac Owing As he caught me and far through the thickets bore : My heifer, Alb, in the green vale lowing, My cygnet’s nest upon Lorna’s shore ! He has killed ten chiefs, this chief that plights me 3 His hand is like that of the giant Balor : But I fear his kiss 3 and his beard affrights me, And the great stone dragon above his door. Had I daughters nine with me they should tarry 3 They should sing old songs 3 they should dance at my door 3 They should grind at the quern 3 — no need to marry ! O when will this marriage-day be o’er 1 THE IRISH NORMAN. 39 THE IRISH NORMAN; OR, ‘ LAMENT FOR THE BARON OF LOUGHMOE.' * I. Who shall sing the Baron's dirge ? Not the corded brethren hooded With the earth-hued cloak and cowl — 'Mid the black church mourner-crowded While the night winds round it howl Let them, in the chancel kneeling, Lift the hymns to God appealing : Let them scare the Powers of Evil, Striking dumb the accusing devil : Let them angel-fence the Soul That flies forward to its goal : Prayer can quicken : fire can purge : Yet they shall not sing his dirge ! ii. Who shall sing the Baron's dirge ? Not the ceremonial weepers Blackening o'er the place of tombs : Though their cry might wake the sleepers In the dark that wait their dooms ; Though their dreadful ululation Sounds the death-note of a nation ; Though the far-off listeners shiver Wave-tossed seamen, weary reapers Shiver like to funeral plumes, While the long wail like a river Bolls beyond the horizon's verge ; Yet they shall not sing his dirge ! The name of an Irish air. 40 THE IRISH NORMAN. III. Who shall sing the Baron’s dirge ? Not the minstrels of his presence, Harpers of his halls and towers : Let them, ’mid the bowery pleasance, Sing that flower among the flowers, Female beauty : — swift its race is As the smiles on infant faces ! O, ye conquering years and hours ! Children that together played Love and wed, and then are laid Grey-haired beneath the yew-tree bowers, Passing gleams in glooms that merge ; Yet they shall not sing his dirge ! IV. Who shall sing the Baron’s dirge % Sing it castles that he wasted Like those old oaks thunder-blasted, Wasted with the sword or fire ! Sternness God with sweetness mateth ; Next to him that well createth Is the just and brave Destroyer ! The man that sinned, the same must fall, Though Peter by him stood and Paul ! They his clansmen, they his gleemen, They that wear the garb of freemen Wore the sackcloth, wore the serge : — Let them sing the Baron’s dirge. v. Who shall sing the Baron’s dirge % Whoso fain would sing it failetli, THE IRISH NORMAN. 41 Triumph so o’er grief prevaileth ! Double-fountain eel was his blood, A Gaelic spring, a Norman flood ! To his bosom truth he folded With a youthful lover’s zeal : God’s great Justice seemed he, moulded In a statued shape of steel ! Men were liars ; kerne and noble ; He consumed them like to stubble ! The orphan’s shield, the traitor’s scourge — Sing, fierce winds, the Baron’s dirge ! VI. Who shall sing the Baron’s dirge ? O thou dread Almighty Will ! Man exulteth ; woman plaineth • But the Will Supreme ordaineth, And the years its fate fulfil. All our reason is unreason ; All our glory ends in woe : Thou didst raise him for a season, Thou once more hast laid him low ! But his strong life sought Thee ever \ Sought Thee like a mountain river Lost at last in the sea surge — No ! we will not sing his dirge ! VII. Who shall sing the Baron’s dirge % ’Twas no time of sobs or sighing : Grave, yet glad, he lay a dying. Heralds through the vales were sent Bidding all men pray for grace 42 THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY. That lie rightly might repent Sins of his and all his race : W ell he worked : three days his spirit Throve in prayer and waxed in merit. The blessed lights aloft were raised : On the Cross his dim eyes gazed To the last breath's ebb and gurge — No ! for him we chant no dirge ! THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY. The Statute of Kilkenny, passed a.d. 1362, is thus described by an English historian, Mr. Plowden : — 4 It was enacted that intermarriages with the natives, or any connection with them as fosterers, or in the way of gossipred, should be punished as high treason ; that the use of their name, language, apparel, or cus- toms should be punished with the forfeiture of lands and tene- ments ; that to submit to be governed by the Brehon Laws was treason ; that the English should not make war upon the natives without the permission and authority of Government ; that the English should not permit the Irish to graze upon their lands ; that they should not admit them to any benefice or religious privilege, or even entertain their bards. 5 Of old ye warr’d on men : to-day On women and on babes ye war ; The noble's child his head must lay Beneath the peasant’s roof no more ! I saw in sleep the infant's hand His foster-brother's fiercely grasp ; His warm arm, lithe as willow wand, Twines me each day with closer clasp ! 0 infant srniler ! grief-beguiler ! Between the oppressor and the oppress’d 0 soft, unconscious reconciler, Smile on ! through thee the Land is bless’d. THE STATUTE OP KILKENNY. 43 Through thee the puissant love the poor ; His conqueror 7 s hope the vanquish'd shares : For thy sake by a lowly door The clan made vassal stops and stares. Our vales are healthy. On thy cheek There dawns each day a livelier red : Smile on ! Before another week Thy feet our earthen floor will tread ! Thy foster-brothers twain for thee Would face the wolves on snowy fell : Smile on ! the ‘ Irish Enemy 7 Will fence their Norman nursling well. The nursling as the child is dear ; Thy Mother loves not like thy nurse ! That babbling Mandate steps not near Thy cot but o'er her bleeding corse ! THE DAYS OF OUTLAWRY . i. A cry comes up from wood and wold, A wail from fen and marish, 4 Grant us our Laws, and take our gold ; Like beasts dog-chased we perish.' — The hunters of their kind reply, ‘ Our sports we scorn to barter ; We rule ! the Irish Enemy Partakes not England's charter.' 44 THE DAYS OF OUTLAWRY. II. A cry comes up for ever new A wail of hopeless anguish, ‘ Your Laws, your Laws ! — our Laws ye slew ; In living death we languish.’ — ‘ Not so ! We keep our hunting-ground ; We chase the flying quarry. Hark, hark, that sound ! the horn and hound ! Away ! we may not tarry ! ’ hi. Sad isle, thy laws are Norman lords * That, dower’d by Henry’s bounty, On cities sup ’mid famish’d hordes, And dine on half a county ! A laughing giant, Outlawry, Strides drunk o’er hill and heather ; Justice to him is as a fly ’Twixt mail’d hands clash’d together. IV. 0 memory, memory, leave the graves Knee-deep in grass and darnel ! Wash from a kingdom, winds and waves, The odour of the charnel ! Be dumb, red graves in valleys deep, Black towers on plains blood-sloken : — Dark fields, your thrilling secrets keep, Nor speak till God hath spoken ! * In the reign of Edward I. those Irish who lay contiguous to the county lands, finding themselves in a position of utter out- lawry, the ancient Brehon Law of Ireland not being recognised by England, and English law not being extended to them, applied to the king for the protection of the latter. The inci- THE THREE CHOIRS, 45 THE THREE CHOIRS; OR, THE CONSECRATION OF ST. PATRICK. A BARD SONG. While holy hands on Patrick laid The great Priest consecrated, Three mystic choirs — so sang the bards — Their anthems matched and mated ; The first, that Roman choir which chants O’er tombs of Paul and Peter ; The next a Seraph band, with note By distance rendered sweeter. The third rang out from Fochlut’s wood Where once their ululation Lost Erin’s babes to Patrick raised — 6 Redeem a wildered nation ! ’ Ring out once more, from Erin’s shore ! From Rome, from Heaven, for ever Roll on thou triple Psalm, that God May answer and deliver ! dent is thus narrated by Plowden in his c History of Ireland’ : — ‘ They consequently offered, through Ufford, the chief governor, 8,000 marks to the king, provided he would grant the free enjoyment of the laws of England to the whole body of Irish natives indiscriminately.’ Edward was disposed to accept the offer, but in the words of Plowden : — ‘ These politic and bene- volent intentions of Edward were thwarted by his servants, who, to forward their own rapacious views of extortion and oppression, prevented a convention of the king’s barons and other subjects in Ireland. . . The cry of oppression was not silenced ; the application of the Irish was renewed, and the king repeatedly solicited to accept them as free and faithful subjects.’ 46 THE BALLAD OF TURGESIUS THE DANE. THE BALLAD OF TURGESIUS THE DANE OR, THE GIRL DELIVERER. A BARD SONG. The people sat amid the dust and wept : c In darker days than these God burst the chain/ Thus sang the harper as the chords he swept, ‘ Hear of the Girl Deliverer and the Dane.’ PART i. Twin ivy wreaths her forehead wound, A green wreath and a yellow : Her hair a gleaming dusk in ground With ends of sunshine mellow. Fair rose her head the tall neck o’er ; That neck in snows was bedded : Some crown, they swore, unseen she bore — That queenly head it steadied. Her sable vest in front was laced With laces red as coral ; Her golden zone in gems was traced With leafy type and moral. As treading hearts her small feet went In love-suspended fleetness : And hearts thus trodden forth had sent An organ-sob of sweetness. Upon the dais when she stept Meath’s peopled hall rang loudly ; Their hundred harps the minstrels swept : Her sire looked round him proudly. THE BALLAD OF TURGESIUS THE DANE. 47 The Dane beside him, darkening, sate, At once his guest and victor ; Green Erin’s scourge — the true King’s fate — The sceptred serf’s protector. ‘ Sir King ! our worship grows but small ! Here Gaels alone find honour : A white girl cannot cross your hall But all men gaze upon her ! ‘ My speech is short : yon stands my fort ! Ere three nights thither send her With twenty maidens of her court, Your fairest, to attend her.’ PART II. The Dane strides o’er his stony floor A strong, fierce man, yet hoary : The low sun fires the purple moor With mingled gloom and glory. The tyrant stops ; he stares thereon : Sun-touched, his armour flashes : His rough grey hair a glow hath won Like embers seen through ashes. His mail’d hand grasps his tangled beard : He laughs that red sun watching, Till the roofs laugh back like a forest weird The laughter of Wood-gods catching. ‘ My Sea-Kings ! mark yon furnace-sheen ! The Fire-god is not thrifty ! No flame like that these eyes have seen For winters five-and-fifty. THE BALLAD OF TURGESIUS THE DANE. 4 My sire lay dead : the ship sailed North, The pyre and the corse on bearing : Six miles it sailed ; the flames sprang forth Like sea-vext Hecla glaring ! ‘We’ll pledge him to-night in the blood-red wine : ’Tis wrought, the task he set me ! From coast to coast this Isle is mine : Not soon will her sons forget me ! ‘ I have burned their shrines and their cities sacked ; Their Fair Ones our castles cumber ; We were shamed to-night if the bevy lacked The fairest from their number. ‘ Young wives for us all ; too many by half ! Strange mates — the hind with the dragon ! 5 He laughed as when the reveller’s laugh Kings back from the half-drained flagon. PART III. The girl hath prayed at her Mother’s grave, And kissed that grave, and risen : She hath swathed a knife in a silken glaive : She is calm, but her great eyes glisten. Between silk vest and spotless breast A dagger she hath hidden ; With lips compressed gone forth, a guest Unhonoured — not unbidden. Through moonshine wan on moves she, on : But who are those, the others ? They are garbed like maids, but maids are none : They are lovers of maids, and brothers. THE BALLAD OF TURGESIUS THE DANE. 49 The gates lie wide : they enter in : Loud roars the riot and wassail : They hear at times ’mid the conquerors’ din The harp of the Gaelic vassal. The Dane has laid on her head his hand, The love in his eye is cruel : Out leap the swords of that well-masked band : Two nations have met in duel ! ’Twas God their sentence on high that wrote ! ’Tis a righteous doom — that slaughter ! His Sea-Kings lie drowned in the castle moat, And the Tyrant in Annin water. From mountain to mountain the tidings flashed It pealed from turret to turret : Like a sunlit storm o’er the plains it dashed : It hung o’er the vales like a spirit. ’Twas a maiden’s honour that crowned the right ’Twas a vestal claim, scarce noted By the power which trampled it out of sight, That rose on the wrong, and smote it ! The harper ceased : aloud the young men cried, ‘ That maid is Erin ! Live, O maid, for ever ! ’ ‘ Not Erin but her Faith,’ the old priests replied : 4 Her Faith — that only — shall the Land deliver ! ’ v. E 50 EPILOGUE. EPILOGUE . At my casement I sat by night, while the wind remote in dark valleys Voluminous gather’d and grew, and waxing swell’d to a gale : Now mourning like seas heart-grieved, now sobbing in petulant sallies : Far off, ’twas a People’s moan ; hard by, but a widow’s wail. To God there is fragment none : nothing single ; no isolation : The ages to Him are one : round Him the Woe, and the Wrong Poll like a spiritual star, and the cry of the desolate Nation : The Souls that are under the Altar respond in music ‘ How long i ’ By the casement I sat alone till sign after sign had descended : The Hyads rejoin’d their sea, and the Pleiads by fate were down borne : And then with that distant dirge a tenderer anthem was blended, And, glad to behold her young, the bird gave thanks to the morn. INISFAIL A LYllIGAL CHRONICLE OF IRELAND. THE TRAGEDY. TART II. The Wars of Religion. PART II. ^rolaguc. ‘ CAN THESE BONES LIVE?' A voice from the midnoon call’d, ‘ Arise, be alone, and remove thee ; Descend into valleys of bale, and look on the visions of night ; From the stranger flee, and be strange to the men and the women that love thee That thy wine may be tears, and that ashes may mix with the meats of delight. To few is the Vision shown, and to none for his weal or from merit : As lepers they live who see it ; as those that men pity or hate : And to few is the Voice reveal’d ; yet to them who hear and can bear it Though bitterness cometh at first, yet sweetness cometh more late.’ Then in vision I saw a Corse — death-cold ; but the Angels had draped it In light ; and that light divine round the unseal’d death- cave was strewn ; 54 PLORANS PLORAYIT. And an anthem rush'd o'er the worlds ; but the tongue that moulded and shaped it Was a great storm through ruins borne ; and the lips that spake it were stone. PLORANS PLORAVIT. a.d. 1583. She sits alone on the cold grave-stone And only the dead are nigh her ; In the tongue of the Gael she makes her wail : The night wind rushes by her. ‘ Few, O few are the leal and true, And fewer shall be, and fewer ; The land is a corse ; no life, no force : 0 wind with sere leaves strew her ! ‘ Men ask what scope is left for hope To one who has known her story : — I trust her dead ! Their graves are red ; But their Souls are with God in glory.' ROISIN DUBH ;* OR, THE BLEEDING HEART. I. O who art thou with that queenly brow And uncrown'd head ? * Roisin Dubh signifies the 4 Black little Rose.’ It is well known to the Irish reader through the poem written in Queen Elizabeth’s reign by the Bard of Red Hugh, Prince of Tirconneh ROISIN DUBH. 55 And why is the vest that binds thy breast, O’er the heart, blood-red ? Like a rose-bud in June was that spot at noon, A rose-bud weak ; But it deepens and grows like a July rose : Death-pale thy cheek ! ii. ‘ The babes I fed at my foot lay dead ; I saw them die : In Ramah a blast went wailing past ; It was Rachel’s cry. But I stand sublime on the shores of Time And I pour mine ode As Miriam sang to the cymbals’ clang On the wind to God. hi. O sweet, men say, is the song by day, And the feast by night ; But on poisons I thrive, and in death survive Through ghostly might.’ THE DIRGE OF DESMOND . Rush, dark Dirge, o’er hills of Erin ! Woe for Des- mond’s name and race ! Loving Conqueror whom the Conquered caught so soon to her embrace : There’s a veil on Erin’s forehead : cold at last is Desmond’s hand : — Halls that roofed her outlawed Prelates blacken like a blackening brand. 56 THE DIRGE OF DESMOND. Strongbow’s sons forsook their Strong One, served so long with loving awe ; Roche the Norman, Norman Barry, and the Baron of Lixnaw : Gaelic lords — that once were Princes — holp not — Thomond or Clancar : Ormond, ill-crowned Tudor’s kinsman, ranged her hosts, and led her war. One by one his brothers perished : Fate down dragged them to their grave : Smerwick’s cliffs beheld his Spaniards wrestling with the yeasty wave. Slain the herds, and burned the harvests, vale and plain with corpses strown, ’Mid the waste they spread their feast ; within the charnel reigned — alone. In the death-hunt she w T as nigh him ; she that scorned to leave his side : By her Lord she stood and spake not, neck-deep in the freezing tide : Round them waved the osiers ; o’er them drooped the willows, rank on rank : Troopers spurred ; and bayed the bloodhounds, up and down the bleeding bank. From the East sea to the West sea rings the death- keen long and sore : Erin’s Curse be his that led them to the hovel, burst the door ! O’er the embers dead an old man silent bent with head to knee : Slowly rose he : backward fell they : — ‘ Seek ye Desmond ? I am he.’ WAR-SONG OF MAC CARTHY. 57 London Bridge ! thy central archway props that grey head year by year : But to God that head is holy ; and to Erin it is dear : When that bridge is dust, that river in the last fire- judgment dried, The man shall live who fought for God ; the man who for his country died. WAR-SONG OF MAC CARTHY. i. Two lives of an eagle, the old song saitli, Make the life of a black yew-tree ; For two lives of a yew-tree the furrow’s path Endures on the grassy lea : Two furrows shall last till the time is past God willeth the world to be ; For a furrow’s time has Mac Cartliy stood fast Mac Car thy in Carbery. ii. Up with the banner whose green shall live While lives the green on the oak ! And down with the axes that grind and rive Keen-edged as the thunder-stroke ! And on with the battle-cry known of old And the clan-rush like wind and wave ; On, on ! the Invader is bought and sold ; His own hand hath dug his grave ! 58 FLORENCE MAC CARTHy’s FAREWELL TO HIS LOVE. FLORENCE MAC CARTHTS FAREWELL TO HIS ENGLISH LOVE . i. England’s fair child, Evangeline ! In that far-distant land of mine There stands a Yew-tree among tombs ! For ages there that tree hath stood, A black pall dash’d with drops of blood ; O’er all my world it breathes its glooms. ii. Evangeline ! Evangeline ! Because my Yew-tree is not thine, Because thy Gods on mine wage war, Farewell ! Back fall the gates of brass ; The exile to his own must pass : I seek the land of tombs once more. TO THE SAME. We seem to tread the self-same street, To pace the self-same courts or grass ; Parting, our hands appear to meet : O vanitatum vanitas ! Distant as earth from heaven — or hell — From thee the things to me most dear : Ghost-throng’d Cocytus and thy will Between us rush. We might be near. THE DIRGE OF KILDARE. 59 Thy world is fair : my thoughts refuse To dance its dance or drink its wine ; Nor canst thou hear the reeds and yews That sigh to me from lands not thine. THE DIRGE OF KILDARE . a.d. 1595. The North wind clanged on the sharp hill-side : The mountain muttered : the cloud replied ; ‘ There is one rides up through thy woods, Tyrone ! That shall ride on a bier of the pine branch down.’ The flood roars over Danara’s bed : ’Twas green at morning : to-night ’tis red : What whispers the raven to oak and cave ? ‘ Make ready the bier and make ready the grave.’ Kildare, Kildare ! Thou hast left the bound Of hawk and heron, of hart and hound ; With the hunters art come to the Lion’s lair : He is mighty of limb and old. Beware ! Beware, for on thee that eye is set Which glared upon Norreys at Clontibret : And that hand is lifted, from horse to heath Which hurled the giant they mourn in Meath ! Kildare, Kildare ! There are twain this hour With brows turned north from Maynooth’s grey tower : The Mother sees nought : the bride shall see The Herald and Death-flag far off — not thee. 60 WAR-SONG OF TIRCON NELL’S BARD. WAR-SONG OF TIRGONNELFS BARD AT THE BATTLE OF BLACK WATER. August 14, a.d. 1598. At this battle the Irish of Ulster were commanded by 4 Red Hugh ’ O’Neill, Prince of Tyrone, and by Hugh O’Don- nell (called also 4 Red Hugh ’), Prince of Tirconnell. Queen Elizabeth’s army was led by Marshal Bagnal, who fell in the rout with 2,500 of his force. Twelve thousand gold pieces, thirty-four standards, and all the artillery of the vanquished army were taken. I. Glory to God, and to the Powers that fight For Freedom and the Eight ! We have them then, the Invaders ! There they stand At last on OriePs land ! And there the far-famed Marshal holds command, Bagnal, their bravest, at his right That recreant, neither chief nor knight, ‘ The Queen’s O’Beilly,’ he that sold His country, clan, and church for gold. They have pass’d the gorge stream-cloven, And the mountain’s purple bound ; Now the toils are round them woven, Now the nets are spread around ! Give them time : their steeds are blown ; — Let them stand and round them stare, Breathing blasts of Irish air : Our eagles know their own ! ii. Twin Stars ! Twin regents of our righteous war ! This day remember whose, and who ye are — WAR-SONG OF TIRCONNELL’s BARD. 61 Thou that o’er green Tir-o wen’s Tribes hast sway ! Thou whom Tirconnell’s vales obey ! The line of Nial, the line of Conn So oft at strife, to-day are one ! To Erin both are dear ; to me Dearest he is, and needs must be My Prince, my chief, my child, on whom So early fell the dungeon’s doom. O’Donnell ! hear this day thy Bard ! By those young feet so maim’d and scarr’d, Bit by the winter’s fangs when lost Thou wandered’st on through snows and frost, Remember thou those years in chains thou worest, Snatch’d in false peace from unsuspecting halls, And that one thought, of all thy pangs the sorest, Thy subjects groan’d the upstart Stranger’s thralls ! That thought on waft thee through the fight : On, on, for Erin’s right ! hi. Seest thou yon stream whose tawny waters glide Through weeds and yellow marsh lingeringly and slowly % Blest is that spot and holy ! There, ages past, Saint Bercan stood and cried, ‘ This spot shall quell one day the Invaders’ pride ! ’ He saw in mystic trance The blood-stain flush yon rill : On, hosts of God, advance ; Your country’s fates fulfil ! Be Truth this day your might ! Truth lords it in the fight ! 62 WAR-SONG OF TIRCONNELL S BARD IV. O’Neill ! That day be with thee now When, throned on Ulster’s regal seat of stone, Thou sat’st and thou alone ; While flocked from far the Tribes, and to thy hand Was given the snow-white wand, Erin’s authentic sceptre of command ! Kingless a People stood around thee ! Thou Didst dash the alien bauble from thy brow, And for a coronet laid down That People’s love became once more their Mon arch’s crown ! True King alone is he In whom made one his People share the throne : Fair from the soil he rises like a tree : Bock-like the Tyrant presses on it, prone ! Strike for that People’s cause ! For Gaelic rights ; for Brehon laws : The sage traditions of civility ; Pure hearths, and Faith set free ! v. Hark ! the thunder of their meeting ! Hand meets hand, and rough the greeting ! Hark ! the crash of shield and brand ; They mix, they mingle, band with band, Like two horn-commingling stags Wrestling on the mountain crags, Intertwisted, intertangled, Mangled forehead meeting mangled ! Lo ! the wavering darkness through I see the banner of Bed Hugh ; WAR-SONG OF TIRCONNELL’s BARD. Close beside is thine, O'Neill ! Now they stoop and now they reel, Rise once more and onward sail, Like two falcons on one gale ! O ye clansmen past me rushing, Like mountain torrents seaward gushing, Tell the chiefs that from this height Their chief of Bards beholds the fight ; That on theirs he pours his spirit ; Marks their deeds and chants their merit While the Priesthood evermore, Like him that ruled God’s host of yore, With arms outstretch’d that God implore VI. Mightiest of the line of Conn, On to victory ! On, on, on ! It is Erin that in thee Lives and works right wondrously ! Eva from the heavenly bourne Upon thee her eyes doth turn, She whose marriage couch was spread ’Tw'ixt the dying and the dead ! Parcell’d kingdoms one by one For a prey to traitors thrown ; Pledges forfeit, broken vows, Roofless fane and blazing house ; All the dreadful deeds of old Rise resurgent from the mould, For their judgment peal is toll’d ! All our Future takes her stand Hawk-like on thy lifted hand. States that live not, vigil keeping In the limbo of long weeping ; 64 WAR-SONG OF TIRCONNELL’s BARD. Palace-courts and minster-towers That shall make this isle of ours Fairer than the star of morn, Wait thy mandate to be born ! Chief elect 7 mid desolation Wield thou well the inspiration Thou drawest from a new-born nation ! VII. Sleep no longer Bards that hold Banged beneath me harps of gold ! Smite them with a heavier hand Than vengeance lays on axe or brand ! Pour upon the blast a song Linking litanies of wrong, Till, like poison-dews, the strain Eat into the Invader’s brain. On the retributive harp Catch that death-shriek shrill and sharp, Hers, though choked in blood, whose lord Perish’d, Essex, at thy board ! Peerless chieftain ! peerless wife ! From his throat, and hers, the knife Drain’d the mingled tide of life ! Sing the base assassin’s steel By Sussex hired to slay O’Neill ! Sing, fierce Bards, the plains sword-wasted, Sing the cornfields burnt and blasted, That when raged the war no longer Kernes dog-chased might pine with hunger Pour around their ears the groans Of half -human skeletons From wet cave or forest-cover WAR-SONG OF TIRCONNELL’s BARD. 65 Foodless deserts peering over, Or upon the roadside lying Infant dead and mother dying, On their mouth the grassy stain Of the wild weed gnaw’d in vain : — Look upon them hoary Head Of the last of Desmonds dead ; Plead that evermore dost frown From the Bridge of London down ! She that slew him from her barge Makes that Head this hour the targe Of her insults cold and keen, England’s Caliph, not her Queen ! — Portent terrible and dire Whom thy country and thy sire Branded with a bastard’s name, Thy birth was but thy lightest shame ! To honour recreant and thine oath ; Trampling that Faith whose borrow’d garb First gave thee sceptre, crown, and orb, Thy flatterers scorn, thy lovers loathe That idol with the blood-stained feet Ill-throned on murder’d Mary’s seat ! VIII. Glory be to Him Alone who holds the nations in His hand ! The plain lies bare ; the smoke drifts by ; they fly — the invaders — band o’er band ! Sing, ye priests, your deep Te Deums ; bards, make answer loud and long In your rapture flinging heavenward censers of triumphant song. v. F 66 WAR-SONG OF TIRCONNELL’S BARD. Isle for centuries blind in bondage lift once more thine ancient boast, From the cliffs of Inishowen southward on to Carbery’s coast ! We have seen the Fight made perfect, seen the Hand that rules the spheres Glance like lightning through the clouds, and back- ward roll the wrongful years. Glory fadeth, but this triumph is no fleeting barren glory ; Fays of healing it shall scatter on the eyes that read our story : Upon nations bound and torpid as they waken it shall shine As on Peter in his chains the Angel shone with light divine. From the unheeding, from the unholy it may hide, like Truth, its ray ; But when Truth and Justice conquer on their crowns its beam shall play : O’er the ken of troubled despots it shall trail a meteor’s glare ; For the blameless it shall glitter as the star of morning fair : Whensoever Erin triumphs then its dawn it shall renew ; Then O’Neill shall be remember’d, and Tirconnell’s chief, Fed Hugh ! THE TRUE VICTORY . A warrior by his stone-dead lord Fast bleeding sat, and heard on high THE SUGANE EARL. 67 Three Angels making of a sword, Who sang right merrily : ‘ We shape the sword of conquering days : — What jewels shall that sword emboss % Not deeds, but sufferings ; shame, not praise, The victories of the Cross/ THE SUGANE EARL. A.D. 1601. I. ’Twas the White Knight that sold him — his flesh and his blood ! A Fitz-Gerald betray’d the Fitz-Gerald : Death-pale the false friend in the ’mid forest stood ; Close by stood the conqueror’s herald ! At the cave- mouth he lean’d on his sword, pale and dumb, But the eye that was on him o’erbore him : ‘ Come forth,’ cried the White Knight * — one answer’d, ‘ I come ! ’ And the Chief of his House stood before him ! ii. ‘ Cut him down,’ said the Outlaw with cold smile and stern, ‘ ’Twas a bold stake ; but Satan hath won it ! ’ — In the days of thy father, Earl Desmond, no kerne Had heard that command, and not done it ! The name of the White Knight shall cease, and his race ! His castle down fall, roof and rafter ! This day is a day of rebuke ; but the base Shall meet what he merits hereafter ! 68 ormond’s lament. ORMOND'S LAMENT ; OR, THE FOE TURNED FRIEND. I. There clung a mist about mine eye, Or else round him a mist there clung : From war to war the years went by, And still that cloud between us hung : That, that he was I saw him not, Old friend, old comrade, fellow-man : I saw but that which chance had wrought ; A rival house, a hostile clan. ii. In vain one Face, one Faith were ours : A common Land, a common Foe : Vainly we chased through Lorha’s bowers, In boyhood paired, the flying roe : Sea-caves of Irr ! in vain by you Our horses stemmed the heaving floods While freshening gales of morning blew The sunrise o’er the mountain woods ! hi. Ah spells of Fate ! Ah Wrath and Wrong ! Ah Friend that once my dearest wert ! Where lay thine image hid so long But in the centre of my heart ? Thou fell’st ! a flash from out the past One moment showed thee as of yore : ormond’s lament. 69 Death followed fast — a midnight blast ; And that fair crest was seen no more. IV. Ah, great right hand, so brave yet kind ! Ah, sovereign eyes ! ah, lordly mirth ! Thy realm to-day — like me — sits blind : And endless winter chills thy hearth. This day I see thee in thy spring, Though seventy winters make me grey : This night my bards thy praise shall sing : This night for thee my priests shall pray.* " In Ireland there were occasions when the chief who had pur- sued an ancient enemy to the death became his sincerest mourner. A chronicler of the seventeenth century affirms that an in- stance of such a change was found in the Earl of Ormond of Elizabeth’s time, called ‘Black Thomas.’ ‘Now, good reader, let there be a truce to words, and listen to the whistling of the lash. — . . . . There was then in Ireland Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, who changed his religion in the court of Elizabeth. Brooding over the scandal he had given by his apostacy, he re- solved to be reconciled to the Church in his last days. He therefore made his peace with God, edified all by his piety, and soon after, losing the ineffable blessing of sight, was gathered to his fathers. Now, ere he died, he was heard to lament two actions of his life — first, that he had ever renounced that holy religion in his youth which in his old age he was not able to succour ; and, secondly, that he had taken up arms against the Geraldines of Desmond, who were ever the strenuous champions of the Faith, and the bulwarks of their country’s liberty. Oh, good God ! why did Ormond conspire to ruin them ? * (‘The Rise, Increase, and Exit of the Family of the Geral- dines, Earls of Desmond, and Palatines of Kerry.’ Written in Latin by Brother Dominicus de Rosario O’Daly, in the seven- teenth century, and translated by the Rev. C. P. Meahan.) 70 THE PHANTOM FUNERAL. THE PHANTOM FUNERAL; OR, TPIE DIRGE OF THE LAST DESMOND. A.D. 1601. James Fitz-Garret, son of the ‘Great Earl of Desmond, ’ had been sent to England when a child as a hostage, and was for seventeen years kept a prisoner in the Tower, and educated in the Queen’s religion. James Fitz-Thomas, the ‘ Sugane Earl, ’ having meantime assumed the title and prerogatives of Earl of Desmond, the Queen sent her captive to Ireland, attended by persons devoted to her, and provided with a conditional patent for his restoration. When he reached Kilmallock, on his way to Kerry, wheat and salt were there showered on him by the people, in testimony of loyalty. The next day was Sunday. When the young Earl left his house, it was with difficulty that a guard of English soldiers could keep a path open for him. From street and window and housetop every voice urged him to fidelity to his ancestral faith. The youth, who did not even understand the language in which he was adjured, having reached a spot where two roads separated, took that one which led to ‘ the Queen’s church,’ as it was called ; and with loud cries his clan rushed forth from Kilmallock, and abandoned his standard for ever. Shortly afterwards he returned to England, where he fell sick ; and in a few months the news of his death reached his ancient palatinate of Kerry. — See the Pacata Hibernia. THE WAIL OF THE WOMEN OF DESMOND. Strew the bed and strew the bier, (Who rests upon it was never man) With all that a little child holds dear, With violets blue and violets wan. Strew the bed and strew the bier With the berries that redden thy shores, Corann : Lay not upon it helmet or spear : — He knew them never. He ne’er was man. Far off he sleeps ; yet we mourn him here ; Their tale is falsehood ! he ne’er was man ! THE PHANTOM FUNERAL. 71 ’Tis a phantom funeral ! Strew the bier With white lilies brushed by the floating swan. They lie who say that the false Queen caught him A child asleep on the mountains wide ; A captive reared him ; a strange faith taught him ; — ’Twas for no strange faith that his father died ! They lie who say that the child return’d A man unmanned to his towers of pride ; That his people with curses the false Earl spurn’d ; Woe, woe, Kilmallock ! they lie, and lied ! The Clan was wroth at an ill report, But now the thunder-cloud melts in tears : The child that was motherless play’d. ’Twas sport ! A child must sport in his childish years ! U lulah ! Ululah ! Low, sing low ! The women of Desmond loved well that child ! Our lamb was lost in the winter snow : Long years we sought him in wood and wild. How many a babe of Fitz -Gerald’s blood In hut was foster’d though born in hall ! The whole stock burgeon’d the fair new bud, The old land welcomed them, each and all ! Glynn weeps to-day by the Shannon’s tide, And Shanid and she that frowns o’er Deal ; There is woe by the Laune and the Carra’s side, And where the Knight dwells by the woody Feale. In Dingle and Beara they chant his dirge ; Far off he faded — our child — sing low ! We have made him a bed by the ocean’s surge ; We have made him a bier on the mountain’s brow. 72 THE MARCH TO KINSALE. The Clan was bereft ! the old walls they left ; With cries they rushed to the mountains drear ! But now great sorrow their heart hath cleft ; See ! one by one they are drawing near ! Ululah ! Ululah ! Low, sing low ! The flakes fall fast on the little bier : The yew-branch and eagle-plume over them throw The Inst of the Desmond Chiefs lies here. THE MARCH TO KINSALE \ December, a.d. 1601. I. O’er many a river bridged with ice Through many a vale with snow-drifts dumb Past quaking fen and precipice The Princes of the North are come ! Lo, these are they that, year by year, Poll’d back the tide of England’s war ; Rejoice, Kinsale ! thy help is near ! That wondrous winter march is o’er. And thus they sang, ‘ To-morrow morn Our eyes shall rest upon the foe : Pass on, swift night, in silence borne, And blow, thou breeze of sunrise, blow ! ’ ii. Blithe as a boy on march’d the host With droning pipe and clear- voiced harp ; At last above that southern coast Rang out their war-steed’s whinny sharp : THE MARCH TO KINSALE. 73 And up the sea-salt slopes they wound, And airs once more of ocean quaff’d ; Those frosty woods, the blue wave’s bound, As though May touched them waved and laugh’d. And thus they sang, 4 To-morrow morn Our eyes shall rest upon our foe : Pass on, swift night, in silence borne, And blow, thou breeze of sunrise, blow ! ’ hi. Beside their watchfires couch’d all night Some slept, some danced, at cards some play’d, While, chanting on a central height Of moonlit crag, the priesthood pray’d : And some to sweetheart, some to wife Sent message kind ; while others told Triumphant tales of recent fight, Or legends of their sires of old. And thus they sang, 4 To-morrow morn Our eyes at last shall see the foe : Boll on, swift night, in silence borne, And blow, thou breeze of sunrise, blow ! ’ KINS ALE. January 3, a.d. 1602. What man can stand amid a place of tombs Nor yearn to that poor vanquished dust beneath ? Above a Nation’s grave no violet blooms ; A vanquished Nation lies in endless death. Li Br Af Mass. 74 KINSALE. ; Tis past : the dark is dense with ghost and vision ! All lost ! the air is throng’d with moan and wail : But one day more and hope had been fruition : O Athunree, thy fate o’erhung Kinsale !* What name is that which lays on every head A hand like fire, striking the strong locks grey % What name is named not save with shame and dread % Once let us breathe it, — then no more for aye ! Kinsale ! accursed be he, the first who bragg’d 4 A city stands where roam’d but late the flock ; ’ Accursed the day when, from the mountain dragg’d, Thy corner-stone forsook the mother-rock ! * The inexplicable disaster at Kinsale, when, after their marvellous winter march, the two great Northern chiefs of Tirconnell and Tyrone had succeeded in relieving their Spanish allies there, was one of those events upon which the history of a nation turns. We know little more than that it was a night-attack, the secret of which had been divulged by a deserter. O’Donnell took shipping for Spain, where he died before the promised aid was furnished, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, September 10, 1602. King Philip caused him to be buried in the Cathedral of Yalladolid, and raised there a monument in his honour. O’Neill fought his way back to Ulster. Lord Mountjoy had repeatedly wasted the country, so that a terrible famine reigned. Every day O’Neill was more strictly hemmed in ; while his allies deserted him and his retainers were starved. When the news arrived of the death of Red Hugh O’Donnell all hope was over. He agreed to the terms proposed to him by Mountjoy, surrendering his claims as a native prince, and engaging to resume his title as Earl of Tyrone. Several days previously the Queen had died ; but Mountjoy had concealed this event. A few days later the ships of O’Neill’s Spanish allies arrived. He sent them back. KOI SI N DUBII. 75 BO I SIN DUBH. DIRGE. I am black but fair, and the robe I wear Is dark as death ; My cheek is pale, and I bind my veil With a cypress wreath. Where the nightshades flower I build the bower Of my secret rest : O kind is sleep to the eyes that weep And the bleeding breast. it. My palace floor I tread no more ; No throne is mine ; No sceptre I hold, nor drink from gold Of victory’s wine ; Yet I rule a Queen in the worlds unseen By Sassanach eye ; xV realm I have in the hearts of the brave And an empery. TO NUALA IN ROME . Nuala was the sister of Red Hugh, and of Roderick O’Donnell. The latter died an exile in Rome, A. d. 1608. Nuala left her husband, on his proving a traitor to his country, and clave to her brother. It was on finding her weeping at that brother’s grave in S. Pietro Montorio, that O’Donnell’s bard addressed to her the tragic ode well known through Clarence Mangan’s translation : ‘ 0 Woman of the Piercing Wail ! ’ 76 TO NUALA IN ROME. Thy shining eyes are vague with tears Though seldom and unseen they flow ; The playmate of thy childish years — My friend — at last lies low. If I, thus late, thy love might win Withheld for his sake, brief the gain ; I live in battle’s ceaseless din : Thou pinest in silent pain. Nuala ! exile, and the bread By strangers doled thy cheek make pale ; On blue Lough Eirne that cheek was red, In western Buaidh’s gale ! The high-neck’d stag looks down no more From sunset cliffs upon thy path In Doire. Not now thou tread’st the shore By Aileach’s royal Bath. No more thou hear’st the sea-wind sing O’er cairns where Ulster monarchs sleep ; The linnets of the Latian spring They only make thee weep. To thee no joy from domes enskied, Or ruins of Imperial Borne ; Thou look’st beyond them, hungry -eyed, T’ward thy far Irish home. On green Tirconnell, now a waste, The sighs of outcasts feed thine own 3 Nuala ! soon my clarion’s blast Shall drown that mingled moan. In Spain they call us King and Prince, And plight alliance, and betray ; THE ARRAIGNMENT. 77 In Home, through clouds of frankincense Slow dawns our better day. To King or Kaiser, Prince or Pope I sue not, nor to magic spell ; Kuala ! on this sword my Hope Stands like a God. Farewell ! THE ARRAIGNMENT ; OR, FIRST AND LAST. Thus sang thy missioned Bard, O’Neill, At James’s Court a threatening guest, When Ulster died. Bound ranks of steel Ban the sharp whisper ill suppressed. Ho ! space for Judgment ! squire and groom ! Ho ! place for Judgment — and a bier ! We bear a dead man to his tomb : We ask for Judgment, not a tear. Back, beaming eyes, and cloth of gold, Back, plumes, and stars, and herald’s gear, Injustice crowned, and falsehood stoled ! There lies a lordlier pageant here ! Draw near, Sir King, and lay thy hand Upon this dead man’s breast ! Draw near ! The accusing blood, at God’s command, Wells forth ! The count is summed. Give ear ! 78 THE ARRAIGNMENT. Who, partner with a knave abhorred,* Farmed as his own that Traitor’s feud ? Vicarious fought ? By others’ sword Mangled a kingdom unsubdued h Who reigned in great Religion’ s name, Liegeman and Creedsman of the Pope ? Who vindicates his cleric claim By schism and rapine, axe and rope c l Who reads by light of blazing roofs His gospel new to Prince and Kerne ? Who tramples under horses’ hoofs A race expatriate, slow to learn ? From holy Ulster, last discrowned — ’Twas falsehood did the work, not war — Who drives her sons by scourge and hound To famished Connacht’s utmost shore ■? Beware false splendours brave to-day ! Unkingly King, and recreant peers ! Ye hold your prey ; but not for aye : The hour is yours : but ours the years ! * Dermod, King of Leinster, a.d. 1170. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAITH IN ULSTER. 79 THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAITH IN ULSTER. A BARDIC ODE. A.D. 1623. Throughout Ulster, and in most parts of Ireland, it had been found impossible to carry the Penal Laws against the CatholiG faith fully into effect until the reign of James I. The accession of that prince was hailed as the beginning of an era of liberty and peace. James had ever boasted himself a descendant of the ancient Milesian princes, had had frequent dealings with the Irish chiefs in their wars against Elizabeth, and was believed by them to be, at least in heart, devoted to the religion of his Mother. In the earlier part of his reign, though he refused to grant a legal toleration, he engaged that the Penal Laws should not be executed. In the year 1605 a proclamation was issued, commanding all Catholic priests to quit Ireland under the penalty of death. Next came the compulsory flight of Tirconnell and Tyrone, the Plantation of Ulster, and the swamping of the Irish Parliament by the creation of fictitious boroughs. In 1622 Archbishop Usslier preached before the new Deputy, Lord Faulkland, his celebrated sermon on the text, ‘He beareth not the sword in vain.’ The next year a new proclamation was published, commanding the departure of all the Catholic clergy, regular and secular, within forty days. I. Now we know that they are dead ! They, the Chiefs that kept from scaith The northern land — the sentenced Faith — Now we know that they are dead ! n. Wrong, with Rapine in her leash, Walk’d her ancient rounds afresh ! Law — late come — with leaden mace Smites Religion in the face ; — But the spoiler first had place ! 80 THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAITH IN ULSTER, III, Axes and hammers, hot work and hard ! From niche and from turret the Saints they cast ; The church stands naked as the churchyard ; The craftsman-army toils fiercely and fast : They pluck from the altars the precious stones As vultures pluck at a dead man's eyes ; Like wolves down-dragging the flesh from the bones They strip the gold from the canopies. They rifle the tombs ; they melt the bells : The foundry furnace bubbles and swells ! — Spoiler, for once thou hast err’d ; what ho ! Thou hast loos’d this shaft from an ill-strung bow ! In that Faith thou wouldst strangle, thy Mother died Who slew her? The Usurper our chiefs defied ! Thy heart was with Lome in the days of old ; Thy counsel was ours ; thy counsel and gold ! IV. A ban went forth from the regal chambers, From the Prince that courted us once with lies, From the secular synods where he who clambers, Not he that walks upright, receives the prize : 6 Go back to thy Judah, sad Prophet, go ; There wail thy wrong, and denounce thy woe ; But no longer in Bethel thy prophecy sing, ’Tis the chapel and court of Samaria’s King ! ’ — Let England renounce her church at will, The children of Erin are faithful still. For a thousand years has that church been theirs : — They are God’s, not Caesar’s, the Creeds and Prayers THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAITH IN ULSTER. 81 Y. Thou that are haughty and f ull of bread, The crown falls soon from the unwise head ! Who rear strange altars shall find anon The lion thereby and sea-sand thereon ! In the deserts of penance they peak and pine Till fulfilled are the days of the wrath divine. Thy covenant make with the cave and the brier For shelter by day and by night for fire ; When the bolt is launch'd at the craggy crest, And the cedars flame round the eagle's nest ! VI. A voice from the ocean waves, And a voice from the forest glooms, And a voice from old temples and kingly graves, And a voice from the Catacombs ! It cries, the king that warreth On religion and freedom entwined in one Down drags in his blindness the fane, nor spareth The noble's hall, nor the throne ! I saw in my visions the walls give way Of the mystic Babylon ; I saw the gold Idol whose feet are clay On his forehead lying prone ; t saw a sea-eagle defaced with gore Flag wearily over the main ; But her nest on the cliff she reached no more For the shaft was in her brain. As when some strong man a stone uplifteth And flingeth into floods far down, So God, when the balance of Justice shifteth, Down dasheth the despot's crown, v. G 82 THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FAITH IN ULSTER. Down dasheth the realm that abused its trust, And the nation that knew not pity, And maketh the image of Power unjust To vanish from out the city ! VII. Wait, my country, and be wise; — Thou art gall’d in head and breast, Pest thou needest, sleep and rest ; Pest and sleep, and thou shalt rise And tread down thine enemies. That which God ordains is best ; That which God permits is good, Though by man least understood. Now His sword He gives to those Who have wisdom won from woes ; In them fighting ends the strife : At other times the impious priest Slipping on his victim’s blood Falls in death on his own knife ! God is hard to ’scape ! His ire ! Strikes the son if not the sire ! * In a time, to God not long, Thou shalt reckon with this wrong ! * King James IPs 4 Plantation of Ulster’ was tlie loss of Ireland to his son, and again to his grandson, and consequently the permanent loss to him and his of England. king Charles's ‘ graces.' 83 KING CHARLES'S ‘ GRACES / A.D. 1626. I. Thus babble the strong ones, ‘ The chain is slacken'd ! Ye can turn half round on your side to sleep ! With the thunder-cloud still your isle is blacken’d ; But it hurls no bolt upon tower or steep. Ye are slaves in name : old laws proscribe you ; But the King is kindly, the Queen is fair; They are knaves or fools who would goad or bribe you A legal freedom to claim ! Beware ! ' ii. We answer thus : our country's honour To us is dear as our country's life ! That stigma the foul law casts upon her Is the brand on the fame of a blameless wife ! Once more we answer : from honour never Can safety long time be found apart : The bondsman that vows not his bond to sever, Is a slave by right and a slave in heart ! SIBYLLA IERNENSIS. i. I dream’d. Great bells around me peal'd ; The world in that sad chime was drown'd ; Sharp cries as from a battle-field Were strangled in that wondrous sound : SIBYLLA IERNENSIS. Had all the Kings of earth lain dead, Had nations borne them lapp’d in lead To torch-lit vaults with plume and pall, Such bells had served for funeral. II. ’I was work of phantasy ! I slept Where black Baltard overlooks the deep Plunging all night the billows kept Their ghostly vigil round my sleep. But I had fed on tragic lore That day — your annals, 6 Masters Four ! ’ And every moan of wind and sea Was as a funeral chime to me. in. I woke. In vain the skylark sang Above the breezy cliff ; in vain The golden iris flashed and swang In hollows of the sea-pink plain. As ocean shakes — no longer near — The listening heart, and haunts the ear, The Sibyl and that volume’s spells Pursued me with those funeral bells ! IV. The Irish Sibyl whispers slow To one who pass’d her tardy Lent In purple and fine linen, 4 Lo ! Thou would’st amend — but not repent ! Beware ! Long prospers fearless crime ; Half courses bring the perilous time ! His way who changes, not his will, Is strong no more, but guilty still.’ THE BALLAD OF ‘ BONNY PORTMORE.’ 85 THE BALLAD OF ‘ BONNY POET MORE 5 ; * OR, THE WICKED REVENGE. A.D. 1641. I. Shall I breathe it 1 Hush ! ’twas dark : — Silence ! — few could understand : — Needful deeds are done — not told. In your ear a whisper ! Hark ! ’Twas a sworn, unwavering band Marching through the midnight cold ; Rang the frost plain, stiff and stark : By us, blind, the river rolled. H. Silence ! we were silent then : Shall we boast and brag to-day ] Just deeds, blabbed, have found their price ! Snow made dumb the trusty glen ; Now and then a starry ray Showed the floating rafts of ice : Worked our oath in heart and brain : Twice we halted : only twice. hi. When we reached the city wall On their posts the warders slept : By the moat the rushes plained : Hush ! I tell you part, not all ! Through the water-weeds we crept ; Soon the sleepers’ tower was gained. My sister’s son a tear let fall — Righteous deeds by tears are stained. * The name of an old Irish air. 86 THE BALLAD OF 4 BONNY PORTMORE.’ IV. Round us lay a sleeping city : Had they wakened we had died : Innocence sleeps well, they say. Pirates, traitors, base banditti, Blood upon their hands undried, ’Mid their spoils asleep they lay ! Murderers ! Justice murders pity ! Night had brought their Judgment Day Y. In the castle, here and there, ’Twixt us and the dawning East Flashed a light, or sank by fits : 4 Patience, brothers ! sin it were Lords to startle at their feast, Sin to scare the dancers’ wits ! ’ Patient long in forest lair The listening, fire-eyed tiger sits ! VI. O the loud flames upward springing ! O that first fierce yell within, And, without, that stormy laughter ! Like rooks across a sunset winging Dark they dashed through glare and din Under rain of beam and rafter ! O that death-shriek heavenward ringing ; O that wondrous silence after ! The fire-glare showed, ’mid glaze and blister, A boy’s cheek wet with tears. ’Twas base That boy was firstborn of my sister ; Yet I smote him on the face ! THE INTERCESSION. 87 All ! but when the poplars quiver In the hot noon, cold o’erhead, Sometimes with a spasm I shiver ; Sometimes round me gaze with dread. Ah ! and when the silver willow Whitens in the moonlight gale, From my hectic, grassy pillow I hear, sometimes, that infant’s wail ! THE INTERCESSION * ULSTER. A.D. 1641. * Dr. Lei and and other historians relate that the Catholic clergy frequently interfered for the protection of the victims of that massacre, which took place at an early period of the Ulster rising of 1641. They hid them beneath their altars. From the landing of Owen Roe O’Neill all such crimes ceased. They disgraced a just cause, and, doubtless, drew down a Divine punishment. A lamentable list of the massacres committed in the same year, at the other side — massacres less generally known — will be found in Cardinal Moran’s ‘ Persecutions suffered by the Catholics under Cromwell and the Puritans,’ p. 168. It is compiled from a contemporary record. It was intended that Inisfail should represent in the main the songs of the old Irish Bards (if only they could have been preserved), as the best exponent of the Emotions and Imagina- tion of the Race during the centuries of her affliction, but there must have been also many Priests, like Iriel, who were exponents not less true of the Conscience of that Race. To such may be attributed the counsels urged upon them in many parts of Inisfail, and especially towards its close, respecting the forgiveness of injuries, obedience to the Divine Will, Peni- tence, especially from p. 125 to p. 129 a Hope that nothing could subdue, and those trials connected with the day of Prosperity which are more dangerous than any which Adversity knows. 88 THE INTERCESSION. Iriel the Priest arose and said : £ The just cause never shall prosper by wrong ! The ill cause battens on blood ill shed ; ’Tis Virtue only makes Justice strong. £ I have hidden the Sassanach’s wife and child Beneath the altar ; behind the porch • O’er them that believe not these hands have piled The copes and the vestments of Holy Church ! £ I have hid three men in a hollow oak ; I have hid three maids in an ocean cave : ’ As though he were lord of the thunder-stroke The old Priest lifted his hand — to save. But the people loved not the words he spake ; And their face was changed for their heart was sore : They spake no word ; but their brows grew black And the hoarse halls roar’d like a torrent’s roar. £ Has the Stranger robb’d you of house and land % In battle meet him and smite him down ! Has he sharpen’d the dagger % Lift ye the brand ! Has he bound your Princes ? Set free the clown ! £ Has the Stranger his country and knighthood shamed % Though he ’scape God’s vengeance so shall not ye ! His own God chastens ! Be never named With the Mullaghmast slaughter ! Be just and free ! ’ But the people received not the words he spake, For the wrong on their heart had made it sore ; THE SILK OF THE KINE. 89 And their brows grew black like the stormy rack And the hoarse halls roar’d like the wave-wash’ d shore. Then Iriel the Priest put forth a curse ! And horror crept o’er them from vein to vein ; — A curse upon man and a curse upon horse, As forth they rode to the battle-plain. And there never came to them luck or grace No Saint in the battle-field help’d them more Till O’Neill who hated the warfare base Had landed at Hoe on Tirconn ell’s shore. THE SILK OF THE KINE* DIRGE OF RORY o’MORE. A.D. 1642. Up the sea, -sadden’d valley at evening’s decline A heifer walks lowing ; ‘ the Silk of the Kine ; ’ From the deep to the mountain she roams, and again From the mountain’s green urn to the purple-rimm’d main. Whom seek’st thou, sad Mother 1 Thine own is not thine ! He dropp’d from the headland; he sank in the brine. ’Twas a dream ! but in dream at thy foot did he follow Through the meadow-sweet on by the marish and mallow ! One of the mystical names for Ireland used by the Bards. 90 THE BATTLE OF BENBURB. Was he thine? Have they slain him? Thou seek’st him, not knowing Thyself too art theirs, thy sweet breath and sad lowing ! Thy gold horn is theirs ; thy dark eye, and thy silk ! And that which torments thee, thy milk, is their milk ! ’Twas no dream, Mother Land ! ’Twas no dream, Inisfail ! Hope dreams, but grief dreams not — the grief of the Gael ! From Leix and Ikerren to Donegal's shore Rolls the dirge of thy last and thy bravest — O’ More ! THE BATTLE OF BENBURB . A BARDIC ODE. This battle was won by Owen Roe O’Neill over the Parlia- mentarian forces, A.D. 1646. The rebels left 3,423 of their dead on the field. I. At even I mused on the wrong of the Gael ; — A storm rushed beside me with war-blast not wail, And the leaves of the forest plague-spotted and dead Like a multitude broken before it fled ; Then I saw in my visions a host back driven Ye clansmen be true, by a Chief from heaven ! ii. At midnight I gazed on the moonless skies ; — There glisten’d, supreme of star-blazonries, A Sword all stars ; then heaven, I knew, Hath holy work for a sword to do : Be true, ye clansmen of Nial ! Be true ! THE BATTLE OF BENBURB. 91 III. At morning I look’d as the sun uprose On hills of Antrim late white with snows ; Was it morning only that dyed them red ? Martyr’d hosts, methought, had bled On their sanguine ridges for years not few ! Ye clansmen of Conn, this day be true ! IV. There is felt once more on the earth The step of a kingly man : Like a dead man hidden he lay from his birth, Exiled from his country and clan : This day his standard he flingeth forth ; He tramples the bond and ban : Let them look in his face that usurp’d his hearth ! Let them vanquish him, they who can ! Owen Hoe, our own O’Neill ! He treads once more our land ! The sword in his hand is of Spanish steel, But the hand is an Irish hand ! v. I saw in old time with these eyes that fail * The ship drop down Lough Swilly ; Lessening ’mid billows the snowy sail Bent down like a storm-rock ’d lily ! * In 1607 a conspiracy, never proved, and probably never undertaken, was suddenly charged against Tyrone and Tircon- nell. To avoid arrest the two earls, whose enforced submission had rendered them helpless, embarked on board a ship that chanced to have anchored in Lough Swilly. They found refuge in Rome, where their tombs are shown to the traveller in the church of San Pietro, on the Janiculan Hill. The Four Masters thus record the tragedy : — * They embarked 92 THE BATTLE OF BENBURB. Far, far it bore them, those Sceptres old That ruled o’er Ulster for ages untold, The sceptre of Nial and the sceptre of Conn, Thy Princes, Tirconnell and green Tyrone ! No freight like that since the mountain-pine Left first the hills for the salt sea-brine ! Down sank on the ocean a blood-red sun As westward they drifted, when hope was none, With their priests and their children o’er ocean’s foam And every archive of house and home : Amid the sea-surges their bards sang dirges : God rest their bones in their graves at Pome ! Owen Poe, our own O’Neill ! He treads once more our land ! The sword in his hand is of Spanish steel, But the hand is an Irish hand ! VI. I saw in old time through the drifts of the snow A shepherdless People dash’d to and fro, With hands toss’d up in the wintry air, With the laughter of madness or shriek of despair. Dispersed is the flock when the shepherd lies low : The sword was of parchment : a lie was the blow : on the festival of Holy Cross, in autumn. This was a princely company : and it is certain that the sea has not borne and the wind has not wafted in modern times a number of persons in one ship more eminent, illustrious, or noble in race, heroic deeds, valour, feats of arms, and brave achievements than they. Would that God had but permitted them to remain in their patrimonial inheritance until the children had arrived at the age of manhood ! Woe to the heart that meditated, woe to the counsel that recommended the project of this expedition ! ’ THE BATTLE OF BENBURB. 93 What is Time? I can see the rain beat the white hair, And the sleet that defaces the face that was fair, As onward they stagger o’er mountain and moor From the Ardes and Ratlilin to Corrib’s bleak shore : I can hear the babe weep in the pause of the wind— 4 To Connaught ! ’ The bloodhounds are baying be- hind ! — Owen Roe, our own O’JSTeill ! He treads once more our land ! The sword in his hand is of Spanish steel, But the hand is an Irish hand ! VII. Visions no more of the dreadful past ! The things that I long’d for are mine at last ! I see them and hold them with heart and eyes ; On Irish ground, under Irish skies, An Irish army, clan by clan, The standard of Ulster on leading the van ! Each chief with his clansmen, tried men like steel ; Unvanquish’d Maolmora, Cormac the leal ! And the host that meets them right well I know, The psalm-singing boors of that Scot, Munro ! — We hated you, Barons of the Pale ! But now sworn friends are Norman and Gael ; For both the old foes are of lineage old, And both the old Faith and old manners hold. Montgomery, Conway ! base-born crew ! This day ye shall learn an old lesson anew ! Thou art red with sunset this hour, Blackwater But twice ere now thou wert red with slaughter ! Another O’Neill by the ford they met ; And ‘ the bloody loaming ’ men name it yet ! 94 THE BATTLE OF BENBURB. Owen Roe, our own O’Neill ! He treads once more our land ! The sword in his hand is of Spanish steel ! But the hand is an Irish hand ! VIII. The storm of the battle rings out ! On ! on ! Shine well in their faces, thou setting sun ! The smoke grows crimson : from left to right Swift flashes the spleenful and racing light : The horses stretch forward with belly to ground : On ! on ! like a lake which has burst its bound ! Through the clangour of brands rolls the laughter of cannon : Wind-borne it shall reach thine old walls, Dun- gannon ! Armagh’s grey Minster shall chant again To-morrow at vespers an ancient strain ! On, on ! This night on thy banks, Loch Neagh Men borne in bondage shall couch them free ! On, warriors launch’d by a warrior’s hand ! Four years ye were leash’d in a brazen band ; He counted your bones, and he meted your might, This hour he dashes you into the fight ! Strong sun of the battle, great Chief whose eye Wherever it gazes makes victory, This hour thou shalt see them do or die ! — They form : there stand they one moment, still ! Now, now, they charge under banner and sign : They breast unbroken the slope of the hill, It breaks before them, the Invaders’ line ! Their horse and their foot are crush’d together Like harbour-locked ships in the winter weather, Each dash’d upon each, the churn’d wave strewing THE BATTLE OF BENBURB. 95 With wreck upon wreck, and ruin on ruin. The spine of their battle gives way with a yell : Down drop their standards : that cry was their knell ! Some on the bank and some in the river Struggling they lie that shall rally never. Twas God fought for us ! with hands of might From on high He kneaded and shaped the fight ! To Him be the praise ! What He wills must be : With Him is the future : for blind are we ! Let Ormond at will make terms or refuse them ! Let Charles the Confederates win or lose them ; Unbind the old Faith and annul the old strife, Or cheat us, and forfeit his kingdom and life ! Come hereafter what must or may Ulster, thy cause is avenged to-day : What fraud took from us and force, the sword That strikes in daylight makes ours, restored ! Owen Boe, our own O’Neill ! He treads once more our land ! The sword in his hand is of Spanish steel, But the hand is an Irish hand ! TEAD1T0R ISTE. A WAIL. I. Can it be, can it be ? Can our Great One be Traitor ? Can the child of her greatest be faithless to Eire ? 96 TRADITOR ISTE. The clown and the stranger have wronged — let them hate her ! Old Thomond well knows them ; they hate her for hire ! Can a brave man be leagued with the rebels and ranters 3 Gainst his faith, and his country, his king, and his race, Can he bear the low moanings, the curses, the banters % — There’s a scourge worse than these — the applause of the base ! ii. Was the hand that set fire to the Churches de- scended From his hand who upreared them — the strong hand, the true ? When the blood of the People and Priesthood ran blended Who was it looked on, and cried, 4 Spare them not 9 h Who t l Some Fury o’erruled thee ! Some root thou hadst eaten ! ’Twas a Demon that stalked in thy shape. ’Twas not thou ! Not tears of the Angels that blood-stain can sweeten ; That Cain-mark not death can erase from thy brow ! DIRGE OF OWEN ROE O’NEILL. 97 DIRGE OF OWEN ROE O’NEILL. A. d. 1649. So, ’tis over ! Lift the dead ! Bear him to his place of rest, Broken heart, and blighted head : Lay the Cross upon his breast. There be many die too late ; Here is one that died too soon : * ’Twas not Fortune — it was Fate After him that cast her shoon. Toll the church bells slowly : toll ! God this day is wroth with Eire : Seal the book, and fold the scroll ; Crush the harp, and burst the wire. Lords and priests, ye talked and talked In Kilkenny’s Council Hall ; But this man whose game ye baulked Was the one man ’mong you all ! ’Twas not in the field he fell ! Sing his requiem, dark-stoled choir ! Let a nation sound his knell : God this day is wroth with Eire ! * The conqueror of Benburb died (by poison as was believed at the time) just after he and Ormond had concluded terms for joint action against Cromwell. Had he not been summoned to Kilkenny when on the point of following up the victory of Benburb, the Puritan army must, within a few days, have been driven out of Ulster. V. H 98 THE BISHOP OF ROSS. THE BISHOP OF BOSS. A. d. 1650. They led him to the peopled wall : ‘ Thy sons ! ’ they said, ‘ are those within ! If at thy word their standards fall, Thy life and freedom thou shalt win ! ? Then spake that warrior Bishop old, ‘ Remove these chains that I may bear My crosier staff and cope of gold : My judgment then will I declare/ They robed him in his robes of state : They set his mitre on his head : On tower and gate was silence great : The hearts that loved him froze with dread. He spake : ‘ Bight holy is your strife ! Fight for your Country, King, and Faith, I taught you to be true in life : I teach you to be true in death. ‘ A priest apart by God is set To offer prayer and sacrifice : And he is sacrificial yet The pontiff for his flock who dies/ Ere yet he fell, his hand on high He raised, and benediction gave ; Then sank in death, content to die : Thy great heart, Erin, was his grave. DIRGE, 99 DIRGE . a.d. 1652. I. Whose were they those voices? What footsteps came near me ? Can the dead to the living draw nigh and be heard ? I wept in my sleep ; but ere morning to cheer me Came a breeze from the woodland, a song from the bird. O sons of my heart ! the long-hair’d, the strong- handed ! Your phantoms rush by me with war-cry and wail : Ye too for your Faith and your Country late banded My sons by adoption, mail’d knights of the Pale ! ii. Is there sorrow, O ye that pass by, like my sorrow ? Of the Kings I brought forth there remaineth not one ! Each day is dishonour’d ; disastrous each morrow : In the yew-wood I couch till the daylight is done. At midnight I lean from the cliff o’er the waters, And hear, as the thunder comes up from the sea Your moanings, my sons, and your wailings, my daughters : With the sea-dirge they mix not : they clamour to me ! 100 THE WHEEL OF AFFLICTION. THE WHEEL OF AFFLICTION . Bright is the Dream-land of them that weep ; Of the outcast head on the mountains bare : Thy Saints, O Eire, I have seen in sleep ; Thy Queens on the battle-plain, fierce yet fair. Three times I dreamed on Tyrawley’s shore : Through ranks of the Vanished I paced a mile : On the right stood Kings, and their crowns they wore : On the left stood Priests without gold or guile. But the vision I saw when the deep I crossed, When I crossed from lorras to Donegal By night on the vigil of Pentecost Was the saddest vision yet best of all. From the sea to the sky a Wheel rolled round : It breathed a blast on the steadfast stars ; ’Twas huge as that circle with marvels wound — The marvels that reign o’er the Calendars. Then an Angel spake, 6 That Wheel is Earth ; It grinds the wheat of the Bread of God : ’ And the Angel of Eire, with an Angel’s mirth, ‘ The mill-stream from Heaven is the Martyrs’ blood.’ EPILOGUE . Like dew from above it fell, from beyond the limits of ether ; From above the courses of stars, and the thrones of angelical choirs ; EPILOGUE. 101 ‘ It* God afflicts the Land, then God of a surety is with her ; Her heart-drops counts like beads, and walks with her through the fires. ‘Time, and a Time, and Times ! Earth's noblest birth was her latest : That latest birth was Man ; his flesh her Redeemer wears : Time, and a Time, and Times ! one day the least shall be greatest : In glory God reaps, but sows below in the valley of tears.' It was no Seraph's song nor the spheral chime of creation, That Yoice ! To earth it stooped as a cloud to the ocean flood : It had ascended in sighs from the anguished heart of a nation ; — The musical echo came back from the boundless bosom of God. INISFAIL A LYRICAL CHRONICLE OF IRELAND. THE ELEGY. PART III. 1. The Penal Laws. 2. The Victory of Endurance. PART III. prologue. PARVULI EJUS. In the night, in the night, O my Country, the stream calls out from afar : So swells thy voice through the ages, sonorous and vast : In the night, in the night, O my Country, clear flashes the star : So flashes on me thy face through the gloom of the past. I sleep not ; I watch : in blows the wind ice-wing’d, and ice-finger’ d : My forehead it cools and slakes the fire in my breast ; Though it sighs o’er the plains where oft thine exiles look’d back, and long linger’d, And the graves where thy famish’d lie dumb and thine outcasts find rest. For up from those vales wherein thy brave and thy beautiful moulder, And on through the homsteads waste and the temples defiled, 106 IN RUIN RECONCILED. A voice goes forth on that wind, as old as the Islands and older, ‘ God reigns : at His feet earth’s Destiny sleeps like a child.’ IN RUIN RECONCILED. a.d. 1660 . 1 heard a Woman’s voice that wailed Between the sandhills and the sea : The famished sea-bird past me sailed Into the dim infinity. I saw on boundless rainy moors Far off I saw a great Kock loom ; The grey dawn smote its iron doors ; And then I knew it for a Tomb. Two queenly shapes before the grate Watched, couchant on the barren ground ; Two regal Shades in ruined state, One Gael ; one Norman ; both discrowned. THE CHANGED MUSIC. i. The shock of meeting clans is o’er : The knightly or the native shout Pursues no more by field or shore From rath to cairne, the ruined rout. THE MINSTREL OF THE LATER DAY. 107 O’er dusty stalls old banners trail In mouldering fanes : while far beneath At last the Norman and the Gael Lie wedded in the caves of death. ii. No more the Bard-song ! dead the strains That mixed defiance, grief, and laugh : Old legends haunt no more the plains, Half saintly and barbaric half. Changed is the music. Sad and slow Beyond the horizon’s tearful verge The elegiac wailings flow The fragments of the broken dirge. THE MINSTREL OF THE LATER DAY. i. What art thou, O thou Loved and Lost That, fading from me, leav’st me bare h The last trump of a vanquished host Far off expiring on the air So cheats in death the listener’s ear As thou dost cheat this aching heart : — To me thy Past looked strangely near ; Distant and dim seems that thou art. ii. O Eire ! the things I loved in thee Were dead long years ere I was born : 108 THE 1 CURSE OF CROMWELL.’ Yet still their shadows lived for me An evening twilight like the morn ; But daily now with vulgarer hand The Present sweeps those phantoms by Like annals of an alien land Thy history 7 s self appears to die. ODE. THE ‘ CURSE OF CROMWELL' OR, THE DESOLATION OF THE WEST. In trance I roamed that Land forlorn, By battle first, then famine worn ; I walked in gloom and dread : The Land remained : the hills were there The vales : but few remained to share That realm untenanted. Far -circling wastes, far-bending skies ; Clouds as at Nature’s obsequies Slow trailing scarf and pall : In whistling winds on creaked the crane : Grey lakes upstared from moor and plain Like eyes on God that call. Turn where I might, no blade of green Diversified the tawny scene : Bushless the waste, and bare : A dusky red the hills as though Some deluge ebbing years ago Had left but seaweed there. THE ‘ CURSE OF CROMWELL.’ 109 Dark red the vales : that single hue O’er rotting swamps an aspect threw Monotonous yet grand : Long-feared — for centuries in decay — Like a maimed lion there it lay, What once had been a Land. Yet, day by day, as dropt the sun A furnace glare through vapours dun Illumed each mountain’s head : Old tower and keep their crowns of flame That hour assumed ; old years of shame Like fiends exorcised, fled. That hour, from sorrow’s trance awaking, My soul, like day from darkness breaking With might prophetic fired To those red hills and setting suns Returned antiphonal response As gleam by gleam expired. And in my spirit grew and gathered Knowledge that Ireland’s worst was weathered Her last dread penance paid ; Conviction that for earthly scath In world-wide victories of her Faith Atonement should be made. That hour as one who walks in vision Of God’s ‘ New Heavens ’ I had fruition And saw, and inly burned : And I beheld the multitude Of those whose robes were washed in blood Saw chains to sceptres turned ! 110 THE 6 CURSE OF CROMWELL.’ And I saw Thrones, and Seers thereon Judging, and Tribes like snow that shone And diamond towers high-piled, Towers of that City theirs at last Through tribulations who have passed, And theirs, the undefiled. A Land became a Monument ! Man works ; but God’s concealed intent Converts his worst to best : The first of Altars was a Tomb — Ireland ! thy grave-stone shall become God’s Altar in the West ! PEACE : Seraph that from the blue abyss O’erlook’st the storms round earth that roll While we, by fragments wildered, miss The dread perfection of the whole Draw near at last ! A moment lean Upon that earth’s tumultuous breast Thy hand heart-healing, and serene And grant the anguished planet rest ! THE BALLAD OF THE LADY TURNED BEGGAR. Ill THE BALLAD OF TLLE LADY TURNED BEGGAR. The Irish who fought for Charles I., and whose estates were confiscated on that account, looked in vain, with a few exceptions, for their restoration on the accession of Charles II. The widow of one of these Royalists, Lord Roche, in her old age used to be seen begging in the streets of Cork. I. ‘ Drop an alms on shrunken fingers/ faintly with a smile she said ; But the smile was not of pleasure, and unroselike was the red : ‘ Fasts wear thin the pride fantastic * — one I left at home lacks bread/ ii. Lady ! hard is the beginning — so they say — of shameless sinning : Ah but, loss disguised in winning, easier grows it day by day, May thy shamefaced, sinless pleading to the unhearing or the unheeding Lacerate less an inly bleeding bosom ere those locks grow grey ; Locks whose midnight once was lighted with the diamond’s changeful ray ! hi. Silks worn bare with work’s abusing ; cheek made wan with hailstorm’s bruising ; Eye its splendour slowly losing ; state less stately in decay ; 112 THE BALLAD OF THE LADY TURNED BEGGAR. Chanting ballad or old ditty year by year she roam’d the city : Love at first is kin to pity ; pity to contempt, men say; Wonder lessen’d, reverence slacken’d, as the raven locks grew grey. IV. What is that makes sadness sadder ? What is that makes madness madder ? Shame, a sharper-venomed adder, gnaws when looks once kind betray ! ‘ She is poor : the poor are common ! ’Twas a countess : ’tis a woman ; Looks she has at times scarce human : England ! there should be her stay : ’Twas for Charles the old lord battled — Charles and England — so men say.’ v. Charles ! Whitehall ! the wine, the revel ! No, she sinks not to that level ! Mime or pander ; king or devil ; she will die on Ireland’s shore ! Ne’er, till Portsmouth’s brazen forehead grows with virtuous blushes florid Will she pass that gate abhorred, climb that stair- case, tread that floor ; Let that forehead wear the diamond which Lord Roche’s widow wore ! THE IRISH SLAVE IN JBARBADOES. 113 VI. Critic guest through Ireland wending, careless praise with cavil blending, Wonder not, in old man bending, or in beggar boys at play, Wonder not at aspect regal, princely front or eye of eagle : Common these where baying beagle, or the wire- hair ’d wolf-hound grey Chased old nobles once through woodlands which the ignoble made their prey. Centuries three that sport renewed they — thrice a century — so men say. THE IRISH SLAVE IN BARBADOES. Beside our shieling spread an oak, Close by, a beech, its brother : Between them rose the pale blue smoke ; They mingled each with other. The gold mead stretched before our door Beyond the church-tower taper ; The river wound into the moor In distance lost and vapour. Amid green hazels, cradle-swung, Our babe with rapture dancing, Watched furry shapes the roots among, With beaded eyes forth glancing, v. i 114 THE IKISH ISLAYE IN BAKBADOES. Ah, years of blessing ! Rich no more Yet grateful and contented, The lands that Stafford from us tore No longer we lamented. So fared it till that night of woe When, from the mountains blaring. The deep horns rang ‘ The foe, the foe ! ’ And fires were round us glaring. He went : next day our hearth was cold, Then came that week of slaughter : — 1 woke within the ship’s black hold And heard the rushing water. Ah ! those that seemed our life can die Yet we live on and wither ! Fling out thy fires, thou Indian sky : Toss all thy torches hither ! Send, salt morass and swamps of cane Send forth your ambushed fever ! O death, unstrain at last my chain And bid me rest for ever ! ARCHBISHOP PLUNKET . (the LAST VICTIM OF THE ‘ POPISH PLOT.’) July 11 , a.d. 1681 . ‘ The Earl of Essex went to the king (Charles II.) to apply for a pardon, and told his Majesty “the witnesses must needs be perjured, as what they swore could not possibly be true.” But his Majesty answered in a passion, “Why did you not declare this, then, at the trial ? I dare pardon nobody — his blood be upon your head, and not mine ! ” * — Haverty’s History of Ireland . See also Cardinal Moran’s Life of Arch- bishop Plunket. archbishop plunket. 11 Why crowd ye windows thus, and doors 1 Why climb ye tower and steeple 1 What lures you forth, 0 senators % What goads you here, O people ? Here there is nothing worth your note — ’Tis but an old man dying : The noblest stag this season caught And in the old nets lying ! Sirs, there are marvels, but not here : Here’s but the threadbare fable Whose sense nor sage discerns, nor seer ; Unwilling is unable ! That prince who lurk’d in bush and brake While bloodhounds bay’d behind him Now, to his father’s throne brought back, In pleasure’s mesh doth wind him. The primate of that race, whose sword Stream’d last to save that father, To-day is reaping such reward As Irish virtues gather. His Faith King Charles partakes — and hides ! Ah, caitiff crowned, and craven ! Not his to breast the rough sea tides ; He rocks in peaceful haven. Great heart ! Pray well in heaven this night From dungeon loosed, and hovel, For souls that blacken in God’s light, That know the Truth, yet grovel. 116 A BALLAD OF SARSFIELD. A BALLAD OF SARSFIELD; OR, THE BURSTING OF THE GUNS. A.D. 1690. Sarsfield rode out the Dutch to rout, And to take and break their cannon ; To mass went he at half -past three, And at four he cross’d the Shannon. Tirconnel slept. In dream his thoughts Old fields of victory ran on ; And the chieftains of Thomond in Limerick’s towers Slept well by the banks of Shannon. He rode ten miles and he cross’d the ford, And couch’d in the wood and waited ; Till, left and right, on march’d in sight That host which the true men hated. ‘ Charge ! ’ Sarsfield cried ; and the green hi 11- side As they charged replied in thunder ; They rode o’er the plain and they rode o’er the slain, And the rebel rout lay under ! He burn’d the gear the knaves held dear, For his King he fought, not plunder ; With powder he cramm’d the guns, and ramm’d Their mouths the red soil under. The spark flash’d out like a nation’s shout The sound into heaven ascended ; The hosts of the sky made to earth reply And the thunders twain were blended ! A BALLAD OF ATHLONE. 117 Sarsfield rode out the Dutch to rout, And to take and break their cannon ; — A century after, Sarsfield’s laughter Was echoed from Dungannon. A BALLAD OF ATHLONE ; OR, HOW THEY BROKE DOWN THE BRIDGE. Does any man dream that a Gael can fear ? Of a thousand deeds let him learn but one ! The Shannon swept onward, broad and clear Between the leaguers and worn Athlone. ‘ Break down the bridge ! ’ Six warriors rushed Through the storm of shot and the storm of shell : With late, but certain, victory flushed The grim Dutch gunners eyed them well. They wrenched at the planks ’mid a hail of fire : They fell in death, their work half done : The bridge stood fast ; and nigh and nigher The foe swarmed darkly, densely on. ‘ O who for Erin will strike a stroke ^ Who hurl yon planks where the waters roar ? ’ Six warriors forth from their comrades broke And flung them upon that bridge once more. Again at the rocking planks they dashed ; And four dropped dead ; and two remained : The huge beams groaned, and the arch down- crashed • — Two stalwart swimmers the margin gained. 118 THE REQUITAL. St. Ruth in his stirrups stood up and cried, ‘ I have seen no deed like that in France ! ’ "With a toss of his head Sarsfield replied ‘ They had luck, the dogs ! ’Twas a merry chance ! ’ O many a year upon Shannon’s side They sang upon moor and they sang upon heath Of the twain that breasted that raging tide, And the ten that shook bloody hands with Death ! THE REQUITAL. i. We too had our day ; it was brief : it is ended — • When a King dwelt among us ; no strange King but ours ! When the shout of a People delivered ascended And shook the broad banner that hung on his towers. We saw it like trees in a summer breeze shiver ; We read the gold legend that blazoned it o’er : ‘ To-day ; now or never ! To-day and for ever ! ’ O God, have we seen it to see it no more ? ii. How fared it that season, our lords and our masters, In that spring of our freedom how fared it with you ? Did we trample your Faith? Did we mock your disasters ? We restored but his own to the leal and the true. THE LAST MAC CARTHYMORE. 119 Ye had fallen ? ’Twas a season of tempest and troubles : But against you we drew not that knife ye had drawn ; In the war-field we met ; but your prelates and nobles Stood up ’mid the senate in ermine and lawn ! THE LAST MAC CARTHYMORE. On thy woody heaths, Muskerry — Carbery, on thy famish’d shore, Hands hurl’d upwards, wordless wailings, clamour for Mac Carthymore ! He is gone ; and never, never shall return to wild or wood Till the sun burns out in blackness and the moon descends in blood. He, of lineage older, nobler, at the latest Stuart’s side Drew once more his father’s sword for Charles in blood of traitors dyed : Once again the stranger fattens where Mac Carthys ruled of old, For a later Cromwell triumphs in the Dutchman’s muddier mould. Broken boat and barge around him, sea-gulls piping- loud and shrill, Sits the chief where bursts the breaker, and laments • the sea-wind chill 120 THE LAST MAC CARTHYMORE. In a barren northern island dinn’d by ocean’s endless roar Where the Elbe with all his waters streams between the willows hoar. Earth is wide in hill and valley; palace courts and convent piles Centuries since received thine outcasts, Ireland, oft with tears and smiles : Wherefore builds this grey-hair’d Exile on a rock- isle’s weedy neck 1 ? Ocean unto ocean calleth ; inly yearneth wreck to wreck ! He and his, his Church and Country, King and kins- men, house and home, Wrecks they are like broken galleys strangled by the yeasty foam : Nations past and nations present are or shall be soon as these — Words of peace to him come only from the breast of raging seas. Clouds and sea-birds inland drifting o’er the sea-bar and sand-plain ; Belts of mists for weeks unshifting ; plunge of de- vastating rain ; Icebergs as they pass uplifting aguish gleams through vapours frore, These, long years, were thy companions, O thou last Mac Carthymore ! When a rising tide at midnight rush’d against the downward stream Bush’d not then the clans embattled meeting in the Chieftain’s dream 1 A HUNDRED YEARS. 121 When once more that tide exhausted died in mur- murs towards the main Died not then once more his slogan, ebbing far o’er hosts of slain ? Pious river ! let us rather hope the low monotonies Of thy broad stream seaward toiling and the willow- bending breeze Charm’d at times a midday slumber, tranquillised tempestuous breath, Music last when harp was broken, requiem sad and sole in death. A HUNDRED YEARS; OR, RELIGIO NOVISSIMA. There is an Order by a northern sea, Far in the West, of rule and life more strict Than that which Basil reared in Galilee, In Egypt Paul, in Umbria Benedict. Discalced it walks ; a stony land of tombs A strange Petrcea of late days, it treads ! Within its court no high-tossed censer fumes ; The night-rain beats its cells, the wind its beds. Before its eyes no brass-bound, blazon’d tome Deflects the splendour of a lamp high-hung : Knowledge is banish’d from her earliest home Like wealth : it whispers psalms that once it sung. It is not bound by the vow celibate Lest, through its ceasing, anguish too might cease ; 122 QUOMODO SEDET SOLA. In sorrow it brings forth ; and Death and Fate Watch at Life’s gate, and tithe the unripe in- crease. It wears not the Franciscan’s cord or gown ; The cord that binds it is the Stranger’s chain : Scarce seen for scorn, in fields of old renown It breaks the clod ; another reaps the grain. Year after year it fasts ; each third or fourth So fasts that fasts of men to it are feast ; Then of its brethren many in the earth Are laid unrequiem’ d like the mountain-beast. Where are its cloisters ? Where the felon sleeps ! Where its novitiate 1 Where the last wolf died ! From sea to sea its vigil long it keeps — Stern Foundress ! is its Rule not mortified ? Thou that hast laid so many an Order waste, A Nation is thine Order ! It was thine Wide as a realm that Order’s seed to cast, And undispensed sustain its discipline. QUOMODO SEDET SOLA . How sits the City lonely and uncrowned ; (Thus the old Priests renewed that Hebrew song) * She sits a widowed queen in weepings drowned ; Her friends revile her who should mourn her wrong. Behold, her streets are silent and her gate ; And as the sea her sorrows are increased. " ‘ The Lamentations. ’ SPES UNICA. 123 The Daughter of my People, desolate ; And no man mounteth to her solemn feast. To them that brought her comfort she hath said, 4 My children strove, and each by each is slain : I turned from Him to Whom my youth was wed : Therefore the heathen hosts my courts profane. ‘ The bruised reed He brake not ; neither cried, Nor strove, nor smote : He set the prisoners free : But sons of mine oppressed His poor, and lied, Nor walked in judgment and in equity.’ Thus sang the Priests, and ended, ‘ Christ was led Lamb-like to death. His mouth He opened not : He gave His life to raise from death the dead : That God Who sends our penance shared our lot.’ SPSS UNICA. i. Between two mountains’ granite walls one star Shines in this sea-lake quiet as the grave; The ocean moans against its rocky bar ; That star no reflex finds in foam or wave. ii. Saints of our country : if — no more a Nation — Yain are henceforth her struggles, from on high Fix in the bosom of her desolation So much the more that Hope which cannot die ! 124 SEDERUNT IN TERRA. SEDERUNT IN TERRA. ‘ The Lord hath spread His net about her feet And down hath hurled her wall in heaps around ; ’ Thus sang her Elders, as their breasts they beat, Her virgins with their garlands on the ground, ‘ The head of Sion to the dust is brought : Her Kings are slain or scattered by the sword : Her ancient Law is made a thing of nought : Her Prophets find not Vision from the Lord. ‘ Because they showed thee not thy sin of old, Servants this day have lordship o'er thy race : From thine own wells thou draw’st thy drink for gold; And Gentile standards mock thy Holy Place, ‘ Thy little children made an idle quest — “ Where — where is bread ? ” As wounded men they lay In every street. Upon their mothers’ breast At last they breathed their souls in death away.’ The Priests made answer, ‘ Christ on Olivet Prayed to His Father. Pray thou well this day. His chalice passed Him not. Therefore thy debt Is cancelled. Watch with Him one hour, and pray.’ DEEP CJttlETH UNTO DEEP. 125 DEEP CRIETH UNTO DEEP. i. Beside that Eastern sea — there first exalted — Thus sang, not Bard, but Priest, ‘ The Cross lies low ! 7 Sad St. Sophia, neath thy roofs gold- vaulted Who kneels this hour? the blind and turban’d Foe ! ii. O Eire ! a sister hast thou in thy sorrow ! If thine the earlier, hers the bitterer moan : She weeps to-day ; great Home may weep to- morrow ! Claim not that o 7 er-proud boast — to weep alone. ADHJEBIT LINGUA LAG TAN TIB. 1 Thy woes have made thy heart as iron hard : Lo ! the sea-monsters yield their young the breast ; But thou the gates of thine increase hast barred ; And scorn 7 st to grant thine offspring bread or rest. ‘ Thy lordly ones within thy womb conceived And nursed in scarlet, wither is thy drouth ; The tongue of him, thy suckling babe, hath cleaved To that dry skin which roofed his milkless mouth. 6 Put down thy lips into the road-side dust ; And whisper softly through that dust, and say, “ Although He slay me, yet in God I trust ; He made, and can re-make me. Let Him slay ! 77 126 THE PROMISE. ‘ Behold ! to tarry for the Lord is good ; His faithfulness for ever shall remain ; His mercies as the mornings are renewed : The man that waits Him shall not wait in vain. ‘ Within thy bones He made His fire to burn That thou might 7 st hate the paths thy feet have trod : Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return ; 7 Thus sang the Priests. ‘ Thy refuge is thy God . 7 THE PROMISE. i. As the church-bells rolled forth their sonorous Evan- gel, Their last ere the Stranger usurped the old pile, I heard 7 mid their clangour the voice of an Angel Give words to that music which rushed o 7 er the Isle: ‘ In thousand-fold echoes, thy God, unforsaking, That peal shall send back from the heavenly bourne : O hearts that are broken, O hearts that are breaking, Be strong, for the glories gone by shall return . 7 ii. Thenceforth in the wood and the tempests that din it In the thunder of mountains the moan of the shore, That chime I can hear and the clear song within it The voice of that Angel who sings evermore, THE PROMISE. 127 ‘ The Faith shall grow vast though the Faithful grow fewer ; By sorrow uplifted ascend eth their Throne Who resist the ill deed but not hate the ill-doer, Who forgive, unpartaking, all sins but their own.’ Only a reed that sighed — And the Poplar grove hard by From a million of babbling mouths replied, ‘ Who cares, who cares % Not I ! ’ Only a dove’s low moan — And the new-gorged raven near Let fall from the red beak the last white bone, And answered, half croak, half sneer. Only the Silk of the Kine Far driven on the foot that bled : And only old Argial’s bleeding pine ; And the Black Bose that once was red. ODE. THE CYCLIC RENOVATION. I. The un vanquish’d Land puts forth each year New growth of man and forest ; Her children vanish ; but on her, Stranger, in vain thou warrest ! 128 ODE. She wrestles, strong through hope sublime, Thick darkness round her pressing Wrestles with God’s great Angel, Time And wins, though maim’d, the blessing. ii. As night draws in what day sent forth As Spring is born of Winter As flowers that hide in parent earth Re-issue from the centre, Our Land takes back her wasted brood, Our Land in respiration, Breathes from her deep heart unsubdued A renovated nation ! in. A Nation dies : a People lives : — Through Signs Celestial ranging A Race’s Destiny survives Unchanged, yet ever changing : The many-centuried Wrath goes by ; But while earth’s tumult rages ‘ In ccelo quies.’ Burst and die Thou storm of temporal ages ! IV. Burst, and thine utmost fury wreak On things that are but seeming ! First kill ; then die : that God may speak, And man surcease from dreaming ! That Love and Justice strong as love May be the poles unshaken Round which a world new-born may move And Truth that slept may waken ! THE SPIRITUAL RENOVATION. 129 THE SPIRITUAL RENOVATION i. The Watchman stood on the turret : He looked to the south and the east : But the Kings of the south were sleeping, And the eastern Kings at feast. Not yet is thy help : not yet Hast thou paid the uttermost debt : Not reached is the worst, thou Weeper : — Though thy feet — God meteth their tread — Have dinted the green sea’s bed, There are depths in the mid sea deeper ! Not all God’s waves and His billows As yet have gone over thy head, That Penance and Faith should be lords o’er Death, And that Hell should be vanquished. ii. I heard thine Angel that sighed Three times, ‘ Descend to the deep.’ I heard at his side the Archangel that cried ‘To the depth that is under the deep.’ Who made thee and shaped thee of old It is He in the darkness that lays thee W ith the cerements around thee ninefold ; That Earth, when the waking is thine, May look on His Hand divine, And answer, i None other might raise thee hi. Noble, and Chieftain and Prince, They were thine in thy day, and died : v. K 130 A SONG OF THE BRIGADE. The head and the members were scattered long since ! — Shall a sinew, or nerve abide % So long as of that dead clay Two atoms together cleave God’s trumpet that calls thee thou canst not obey, His promise receive and believe. So long as the seed, the husk, The body of death, and the prison, Holds out, undissolved, in the dusk So long in his pains and his chains The unglorified Spirit remains ; The New Body unrisen. A SONG OF THE BRIGADE . Tlie Irish Brigade, consisting originally of soldiers of James IT., took service with more than one continental sovereign. In many a land it made the name of Ireland famous. The Brigade was recruited from Ireland till the latter part of the eighteenth century, and it is said that, from first to last, nearly 500,000 men belonged to it. I snatched a stone from the bloodied brook And hurled it at my household door ! No farewell of my love I took : I shall see my friend no more. I dashed across the churchyard bound : I knelt not by my parents’ graves : There rang from my heart a clarion’s sound That summoned me o’er the waves. No land to me can native be That strangers trample and tyrants stain : A SONG OF THE BRIGADE. 131 When the valleys I loved are cleansed and free They are mine, they are mine again ! Till then, in sunshine or sunless weather, By Seine and Loire, and the broad Garonne, My war-horse and I roam on together Wherever God wills. On ! on ! A SONG OF THE BRIGADE. River that through this purple plain Toilest — once redder — to the main Go, kiss for me the banks of Seine ; Tell him I loved, and love for aye, That his I am though far away, More his than on the marriage-day. Tell him thy flowers for him I twine When first the slow sad mornings shine In thy dim glass ; for lie is mine. Tell him when evening’s tearful light Bathes those dark towers on Aughrim’s height There where he fought in heart I fight. A freeman’s banner o’er him waves ! So be it ! I but tend the graves Where freemen sleep whose sons are slaves. Tell him I nurse his noble race Nor weep save o’er one sleeping face Wherein those looks of his I trace. 132 SONG. For him my beads I count when falls Moonbeam or shower at intervals Upon our burn’d and blacken’d walls : And bless him ! bless the bold Brigade — May God go with them, horse and blade, For Faith’s defence, and Ireland’s aid ! SONG . i. Not always the winter ! not always the wail ! The heart heals perforce where the spirit is pure ! The apple smells sweet in the glens of Imayle ; The blackbird sings loud by the Slane and the Suir ! There are princes no more in Kincora and Tara, But the gold-flower laughs out from the Mague at Athdara ; And the Spring-tide that wakens the leaf in the bud, Sad Mother, forgive us, shoots joy through our blood ! II. Not always the winter ! not always the moan ! Our fathers, they tell us, in old time were free : Free to-day is the stag in the woods of Idrone, And the eacde that fleets from Loch Lene o’er the Lee! The blue-bells rise up where the young May hath trod ; The souls of our martyrs are reigning with God ! Sad Mother, forgive us ! yon skylark no choice Permits us ! From heaven he is crying ‘ Rejoice ! ’ A SONG OF THE BRIGADE. 133 A SONG OF TEE BRIGADE . a.d. 1706. I. What sound goes up among the Alps ! The shouts of Irish battle ! The echoes reach their snowy scalps ; From cliff to cliff they rattle ! In vain he strove — the Duke — Eugene : — That flying host to rally : The squadrons green, they swept it clean Beyond Marsiglia’s valley. ii. Who fixed their standards on thy wall, Long-leaguer ed Barcelona ! Unfallen, who saw the bravest fall % Beply, betrayed Cremona ! O graves of Sarsfield and of Clare ! O Bamillies and Landen,* Their brand we bear : their faith we share Their cause we’ll ne’er abandon ! hi. Years passed : again went by the Bard The law that banned him braving : Where blood of old had stained the sward Summer corn was waving : * O’Brien, Lord Clare, fell at the battle of Ramillies, a.d. 1706 ; Sarslield, Earl of Lucan, on the field of Landen, a.d. 1693. Catching in his hand the blood that trickled from his death-wound, he exclaimed, * 0 that this had been for Ireland ! ’ 134 : THE SEA- WATCH EE. The tempest of a sudden joy Uplifting stave and stanza, The valleys echoed 4 Fontenoy/ The wild sea-shore 4 Almanza ! ’ THE SEA-WATCHER i. The crags lay dark in strange eclipse : From waves late Hushed the glow was gone The topsails of the far-off ships Alone in lessening radiance shone : Against a stranded boat a maid Stood leaning gunwale to her breast, As though its pain that pressure stayed : Her large eyes rested on the west. ii. 4 Beyond the sea ! beyond the sea ! The weeks, the months, the years go by ! Ah ! when will some one say of me “ Beyond the sky ! beyond the sky ! ” And yet I would not have thee here To look upon thy country’s shame : For me the tear : for me the bier : For thee fair field, and honest fame. THE FRIENDLY BLIGHT. 135 THE FRIENDLY BLIGHT . i. A maroh-wind sang in a frosty wood J Twas in Oriel's land on a mountain brown While the woodman stared at the hard black bud, And the sun through mist went down : 4 Not always/ it sang, 4 shall triumph the wrong For God is stronger than man, they say : ’ Let no man tell of the March-wind's song, Till comes the appointed day. ii. 4 Sheaf after sheaf upon Moira's plain, And snow upon snow on the hills of Mourne ! Full many a harvest-moon must wane Full many a Spring return ! The Light shall triumph at last o'er wrong : Yet none knows how, and none the day : ’ — The March- wind sang ; and bit 'mid the song The little black bud away ! hi. 4 Blow south-wind on through my vineyard blow ! ' So pray'd that land of the palm and vine ; O Eire, 'tis the north wind and wintry snow That strengthen thine oak and pine ! The storm breaks oft upon Uladh's hills ; Oft bursts the wave on the stones by Saul ; In God’s time cometh the thing God wills For God is the Lord of all ! 136 THE NEW RACE. THE NEW RACE . i. 0 ye who have vanquish’d the Land and retain it, How little ye know what ye miss of delight ! There are worlds in her heart, could ye seek it or gain it, That would clothe a true Noble with glory and might. What is she, this Isle which ye trample and ravage, Which ye plough with oppression and reap with the sword, But a harp, never strung, in the hall of a savage Or a fair wife embraced by a husband abhorr’d ? ii. The chiefs of the Gael were the People embodied ; The chiefs were the blossom, the People the root ! Their conquerors the Normans, high-soul’d, and liigh- blooded, Grew Irish at last from the scalp to the foot. But ye ! ye are hirelings and satraps not Nobles ! Your slaves, they detest you ; your masters, they scorn ! The river lives on ; but its sun-painted bubbles Pass quick, to the rapids insensibly borne. THE IRISH EXILE AT FTES0LE. 137 THE IRISH EXILE AT FIE SOLE. i. Here to thine exile rest is sweet : Here, Mother-land, thy breath is near him ! Thy pontiff, Donat, raised his seat On these fair hills that still revere him ; Like him that thrill’d the Helvetian vale, St. Gall’s, with rock-resounded anthem : For their sakes honour’d is the Gael : The peace they gave to men God grant them ! ii. Far down in pomp the Arno winds By domes the boast of old Religion ; The eternal azure shining blinds Serene Ausonia’s queenliest region. Assunta be her name ! for bright She sits, assumed ’mid heavenly glories ; But ah ! more dear, though dark like night, To me, my loved and lost Dolores ! hi. The mild Franciscans say — and sigh — ‘ Weep not except for Christ’s dear Passion ! ’ They never saw their Florence lie, Like her I mourn, in desolation ! On this high crest they brood in rest, The pines their Saint and them embowering, While centuries blossom round their nest Like those slow aloes seldom flowering. 138 THE IRISH EXILE AT F1ES0LE. IV. 4 Salvete, fiores Marty rum ? ’ Such was the Roman Philip's greeting In banner’d streets with myrtles dumb The grave-eyed English college meeting : There lived an older martyr-land ! All realms revered her 3 none would aid her ; Or reaching forth a tardy hand Enfeebled first, at last betrayed her ! v. Men named that land a ‘ younger Rome ! ’ She lit the north with radiance golden ; Alone survives the Catacomb Of all that Roman greatness olden ! Her Cathall at Taranto sate : Virgilius ! Saltzburgh was thy mission ! Who sow’d the Eaith fast long, feast late ; Who reap’d retain unvex’d fruition. VI. Peace settles on the whitening hair ; The heart that burned grows cold and colder My Resurrection spot is there Where those Etrurian ruins moulder. Foot-sore, by yonder pillar’s base My rest I make, unknown and lowly : And teach the legend-loving race To weep a Troy than theirs more holy. WINTER SONG. 139 WINTER SONG . The high-piled cloud drifts on as in scorn Like a ghost, half pining, half stately. Or a white ice-island in silence borne O’er seas congeal’d but lately. With nose to the ground like a wilder ’d hound O’er wood-leaves yellow and sodden On races the wind but cannot find One sweet track where Spring hath trodden. The moor is black ; with frosty rime The wither’d brier is beaded ; The sluggard Spring hath o’erslept her time, The Spring that was never more needed. What says the oak-leaf in the night- cold noon, And the beech-stock scoffing and surly ? ‘ Who comes too soon is a witless loon Like the clown that is up too early.’ But the moss grows fair when the trees are bare, The dumb year finds a pillow there ; And beside it the fern with its green crown saith 4 Best bloometh the Hope that is rooted in death.’ GAIETY IN PENAL DAYS . BEATI IMMACULATE 4 The storm has roar’d by ; and the flowers reappear Like a babe on the battle-field born, the new year Through wrecks of the forest looks up on the skies With a smile like the windflower’s, and violet eyes. 140 DIRGE. ‘ There’s warmth in the sunshine ; there’s song in the wood : There’s faith in the spirit, and life in the blood ; We’ll dance though the Stranger inherits the soil : We’ll sow though we reap not ! For God be the toil ! ‘ O Earth that renewest thy beautiful youth ! “The meek shall possess thee ! ” Unchangeable Truth ! A childhood thou giv’st us ’mid grey hairs reborn As the gates we approach of perpetual morn ! ’ In the halls of their fathers an alien held feast ; Their church was a cave and an outlaw their priest ; The birds have their nests and the foxes have holes — What had these % Like a sunrise God shone in their souls ! DIRGE. i. Ye trumpets of long-buried hosts Peal, peal no longer in mine ears ! No more afflict me, wailing ghosts Of princedoms quell’d and vanished years ! Freeze on my face, forbidden tears : And thou, O heart whose hopes are dead Sleep well, like hearts that sleep in lead Embalmed ’mid royal sepulchres. II. The stream that one time rolled in blood A stainless crystal winds to-day : UNA. 141 Fresh scions of the branded wood Detain the flying feet of May : The linnet chants ’mid ruins grey ; The young lambs bound the graves among : — O Mother-land ! he does thee wrong Who with thy playmates scorns to play. UNA . To the knee she stood ’mid rushes And the broad, dark stream swept by her : Smiles went o’er her, smiles and blushes As the stranger’s bark drew nigh her ; Near to Clonmacnoise she stood : Shannon past her wound in flood. By her side a wolf-hound wrestled With a bright boy bold as Mars ; On her breast an infant nestled Like to her, but none of hers ; A golden iris graced her hand— All her gold was in that wand. O’er the misty, moorish margin Frown’d a ruin’d tower afar ; Some one said, 6 This peasant virgin Comes from chieftains great in war ! Princes once had bow’d before her : Now the reeds alone adore her ! ’ Refluent dropt, that bark on gliding, The wave it heaved along the bank : 142 DOUBLE-LIVED. Like worldings still with fortune siding The reed-beds with it backward sank. Farewell to her ! The rushing river Must have its way. Farewell for ever ! DO UBLE-LIVED ; OR, RACES CROWNED. Before the award, in those bright Halls That rest upon the rolling spheres, Like kingly patriarchs God instals Long-suffering Baces proved by years ; They stand, the counterparts sublime Of shapes that walk this world of woe, Triumphant there in endless prime While militant on earth below. ii. As earth-mists build the snowy cloud So Spirits risen, that conquered Fate, Age after age up-borne in crowd, That counterpart Assumed create : Some form the statue’s hand or head : Some add the sceptre or the crown : Till the great Image, perfected, Smiles on its mortal semblance down. hi. There stand the Nations just in act, Or cleansed by suffering, cleansed not changed : ADDUXIT IN TENEBRIS. 143 They stand of martyr Souls compact, Round heaven’s crystalline bastions ranged. Among those Gods Elect art thou, My Country — loftier hour by hour ! The earthly Erin bleeds below : The heavenly reigns and rules in power. ADDUXIT IN TENEBRIS . They wish thee strong : they wish thee great ! Thy royalty is in thy heart ! Thy children mourn thy widow’d state In funeral groves. Be what thou art ! Across the world’s vainglorious waste, As o’er Egyptian sands, in thee God’s hieroglyph, Ills shade is cast, A bar of black from Calvary. Around thee many a land and race Have wealth or sway or name in story ; But on that brow discrown’d we trace The crown expiatory. DIRGE ; i. O woods that o’er the waters breathe A sigh that grows from morn till night ; O waters with your voice like death, And yet consoling in your might ; 144 IRISH AIRS. Ye draw, ye drag me with a charm, As when a river draws a leaf, From silken court and citied swarm To your cold homes of peace in grief. ii. In boyhood’s pride I trod the shore While slowly sank a crimson sun Revealed at moments, hid once more By rolling mountains gold or dun : But now I haunt its marge when day Hath laid his fulgent sceptre by, And tremble over waters grey Long windows of a hueless sky. IRISH AIRS i. On darksome hills thy songs I hear : — Nor growths they seem of minstrel art Nor wanderers from Urania’s sphere, But voices from thine own deep heart ! They seem thine own sad oracles Not uttered by thy sons but thee, Like waters forced through stony cells Or winds from cave and hollow tree. ii. From thee what forced them ? Futile quest ! What draws to widowed eyes the tears ? The milk to Rachel’s childless breast 1 The blood to wounds unstaunched of years ? HOPE IN DEATH. 145 Long cling the storm-drops — cling yet shake — On cypress-spire and cedar's fan : Long rust upon the guilty brake The heart-drops of the murdered man. HOPE IN DEATH. i. Descend, O Sun, o'er yonder waste, O’er moors and meads and meadows : Make gold a world but late o’ercast ; With purple tinge the shadows ! Thou goest to bless some happier clime Than ours ; but sinking slowly To us thou leav'st a hope sublime Disguised in melancholy. ii. A Love there is that shall restore What Death and Fate take from us ; A secret Love whose gift is more Than Faith's authentic promise, A Love that says, ‘ I hide awhile For sense, that blinds, is round you : ' O well-loved dead ! ere now the smile Of that great Love has found you ! v. L 146 THE DECREE. THE DECREE . Hate not the Oppressor ! He fulfils Thy destiny decreed — no more : What cometh, that the Eternal wills : Be ours to suffer and adore. O Thou the All-Holy, Thou the All-J ust ! Thou fling’st Thy plague upon the blast : We hide our foreheads ’mid the dust In penance till the wrath be past. ii. The nations sink, the nations rise On the dread fount of endless Being, Bubbles that burst beneath the eyes Of Him the all-shaping and all-seeing. Thou breath’ st, and they are made ! Behold, Thy breath withdrawn they melt, they cease Our fathers were Thy Saints of old, O grant at last their country peace ! SAINT BRIGID OF THE LEGENDS . A BARD SONG. A soft child-saint she lit the shade With brightness more than human : Her little hand was soft, they said, As any breast of woman. SAINT BKIGID OF THE LEGENDS. 14 Through ways bemirecl to haunts of woe She sped, nor hindrance heeded : Yet still her foot retained its snow ; Yo stream her white robe needed. It chanced one eve she moved, foot-bare, Among the kine sweet-breathing, With boughs the insect tribe to scare Their horned foreheads wreathing. Slowly on her their dark eyes grave They rolled in sleepy pleasure Like things by music charmed, and gave Their milk in twofold measure. That hour there passed a beggar clan Through sultry fields on faring : 6 Come drink/ she cried, 4 from pail and pan ! ’ That small hand was unsparing. In wrath her Mother near them drew : Those pails that late held nothing, Like fountains tapped foamed up anew And buzzed with milk-floods frothing ! O Saint, the favourite of the poor, The afflicted, weak, and weary ! Like Mary’s was that face she bore : Men called her 4 Erin’s Mary.’ In triple vision God to her Revealed her country’s story : She saw the cloud its greatness blur She saw, beyond, its glory ! 148 SAINT COLUMBA’S STORK. Kildare of Oaks ! thy quenchless Faith, Her gift it was : she taught it ! The shroud Saint Patrick wore in death, ; Twas she, ’twas she that wrought it ! Thus sang they on the sunburnt land Among the stacks of barley ; And singing, smiled, by breezes fanned From Erin’s dream-land early. SAINT COLUMBA’S STORK . A MINSTREL SONG. Columba dashed into the war : Heart-stricken then for penance prayed : ‘ See thou thy native land no more : 7 — The Hermit spake : the Saint obeyed. He sailed : he reached an island green ; Alone he clomb its grassy steep : Though dimly, Eire could still be seen : Once more he launched into the deep. Iona’s soil at last he trod ; There, there once more, they say he mixed His hymns of Eire with hymns of God Standing with wide eyes southward fixed. Three years went by. One stormy morn He grasped a Monk that near him stood : ‘ Go down to yonder beach forlorn O’er which the northward sea -mists scud. THE GRAVES. 149 ‘ There, bleeding thou shalt find ere long A Stork from Eire that loves her well Sore wounded by the tempest’s wrong : Uplift and bear her to thy cell. ‘ Three days that Stork shall be thy guest : The fourth o’er yonder raging main The exile, strong through food and rest, Will seek her native Eire again.’ The Monk obeyed. The Stork he found, And fed, three days. Those three days o’er The exile, soaring, gazed around, Then winged her to her native shore. The Harper ended. Loud and shrill They raised their shout and praised that Stork, And praised the Saint that, exiled, still Could sing for Eire ; for God could work. THE GRAVES . In the Cambrian valleys with sea-murmurs haunted The grave-yards at noontide are fresh with dawn- dew ; On the virginal bosom white lilies are planted ’Mid the monotone whisper of pine-tree and yew. In the dells of Etruria, where all day long warbles The night-bird, the faithful ’mid cloisters repose : And the long cypress shadow falls black upon marbles That cool aching hearts like the Apennines’ snows. 150 THE LONG DYING. In Ireland, in Ireland the wind ever sighing Sings alone the death-dirge o'er the just and the good ; In the abbeys of Ireland the bones are round lying Like blocks where the hewer stands hewing the wood. THE LONG DYING. The dying tree no pang sustains ; But, by degrees relinquishing Companionship of beams and rains, Forgets the balmy breath of Spring : From off the enringed trunk that keeps His annual count of ages gone TIT embrace of Summer slowly slips : Still stands the giant in the sun : His myriad lips, that suck'd of old The dewy breasts of heaven, are dry ; His root remit the crag, the mould ; Yet painless is his latest sigh : He falls ; the forests round him roar ; — Ere long on quiet bank and copse Untrembling moonbeams rest ; once more The startled babe his head down-drops : But ah for one who never drew From age to age a painless breath ! And ah the old wrong ever new ! And ah the many-centuried death A bard’s LOVE FOR ERIN, 151 A BARD'S LOVE FOR ERIE , i. I thought it was thy voice I heard ; — Ah no ! the ripple burst and died ; Among cold reeds the night-wind stirr’d ; The yew-tree sigh’d ; the earliest bird Answer’d the white dawn far descried. ii. I thought it was a tress of thine That grazed my cheek and touched my brow ; — Ah no ! in sad but calm decline ’Twas but my ever grapeless vine Slow-waving from the blighted bough. hi. O Eire, it is not ended ! Soon, Or late, thy flower renews its bud ! In sunless quarries still unhewn Thy statue waits ; thy sunken moon Shall light once more the autumnal flood ! IV. Memory for me her hands but warms O’er ashes of thy greatness gone ; Or lifts to heaven phantasmal arms, Muttering of talismans and charms, And grappling after glories flown. v. Tired brain, poor worn-out palimpsest ! Sleep, sleep ! man’s troubles soon are o’er ; — 152 UNREVEALED. When in dark crypts my relics rest Star-high shall flash my Country’s crest, Where birds of darkness cannot soar ! UNREVEALED. Grey Harper, rest ! — O maid, the Fates On those sad lips have press’d their seal ! Thy song’s sweet rage but indicates That mystery it can ne’er reveal. Take comfort ! Yales and lakes and skies, Blue seas, and sunset-girded shore, Love-beaming brows, love-lighted eyes, Contend like thee. What can they more ? SHANIUS KEEP. i. A Conqueror stood upon Shanid’s brow And, ‘ Build me aloft,’ he cried, * A castle to rule o’er the meads below From the hills to the ocean’s side ! ’ In green Ardineer, far down, alone A beggar girl sang her song, A sorrowful dirge for a roof o’erthrown And a fire stamped out by wrong. ii. The beggar girl’s song in the wind was drowned : A moment it lived : no more : SAINT BRIGID OF THE CONVENTS. 153 The Conqueror’s castle went back to the ground, Went back after centuries four : The great halls crumbled from roof to moat ; The grey Keep alone remains : But echoes still of the girl’s song float All over the lonely plains. SAINT BRIGID OF THE CONVENTS . She looked not on the face of man : Nor husband hers, nor brother : But where she passed the children ran And hailed that Maid their Mother ! In haste she fled soft mead and grove For Virtue’s region hilly : They called her, ’mid the birds, the Dove, Among the flowers, the Lily. In woods of Oriel — Leix’s vales — Her convent homes she planted Where Erin’s cloistered nightingales Their nocturns darkling chanted. By many a Scottish moorland wide, By many an English river, Men loved of old their ‘ good Saint Bride ; ’ But Erin loves for ever ! A sword went forth ; thy fanes they burn’d ! Sweet Saint, no anger fret thee ! There are that ne’er thy grace have spurned : There are that ne’er forget thee ! 154 IN FAR LANDS. Thus sang they while the autumnal glade Exchanged green leaf for golden ; And later griefs were lighter made By thought of glories olden. IN FAB LANDS . I see, I see the domes ascend 0 Seville, o’er thy Guadalquiver : I see thy breeze-touched cypress bend ; 1 hear thy moonlit palm-grove shiver : I know that honour here to those Who suffered for the Faith is given ; I know, I know that earthly woes Are secret blessings crowned in heaven : But ah ! against Dunluce’s crags To watch our green sea-billows swelling ! And ah ! once more to hear the stags In Coona’s stormy oakwoods belling ! SAINT COLTJMBAl S FAREWELL . A MINSTREL SONG. The exiles gazed on headlands theirs no more, Lough S willy’s mountain portals dimly seen : Sing us that song Columba sang of yore Then sang the Minstrel, ’mid the sad, serene. SAINT COLUMBA’s FAB, EWELL, 155 Farewell to Aran Isle, farewell ! I steer for Hy : * my heart is sore : The breakers burst, the billows swell ’Twixt Aran Isle and Alba’s f shore. Thus spake the Son of God, ‘ Depart ! 9 0 Aran Isle, God’s will be done ! By Angels thronged this hour thou art : 1 sit within my bark alone. 0 Modan, well for thee the while ! Fair falls thy lot, and well art thou ! Thy seat is set in Aran’s Isle : Northward to Alba turns my prow. 0 Aran, Sun of all the West ! My heart is thine ! As sweet to close Our dying eyes in thee as rest Where Peter and where Paul repose ! O Aran, Sun of all the West ! My heart in thee its grave hath found : He walks in regions of the blest The man that hears thy church-bells sound ! O Aran blest, O Aran blest ! Accursed the man that loves not thee ! The dead man cradled in thy breast — No demon scares him : well is he ! Each Sunday Gabriel from on high For so did Christ our Lord ordain Thy Masses come to sanctify With fifty angels in his train. * Iona. t Scotland. 156 ARBOR NOBILIS. Each Monday Michael issues forth To touch with blood each sacred fane : Each Tuesday cometh Raphael To bless the hearth and bless the grain Each Wednesday cometh Uriel, Each Thursday Sariel, fresh from God ; Each Friday cometh Ramael To bless thy stones and bless thy sod. Each Saturday comes Mary, Comes Babe in arm, ’mid heavenly hosts ! O Aran, near to heaven is he That hears God’s angels bless thy coasts ! The Minstrel sang, and ceased ; while women’s tears Shone, sunset-brightened, on pure cheeks and pale And dreadful less became in children’s ears The hoarse sea-dirges, and the rising gale. ARBOR NOBILIS. i. Like a cedar our greatness arose from the earth ; Or a plane by some broad-flowing river ; Like arms that give blessing its boughs it put forth : We thought it would bless us for ever. The birds of the air in its branches found rest ; The old lions couched in its shadow ; Like a cloud o’er the sea was its pendulous crest ; It murmur’d for leagues o’er the meadow. ST. COLUMBA OF THE LEGENDS. 157 II. Was a worm at its root ? Was it lightning that charr’d What age after age had created ? Not so ! ’Twas the merchant its glory that marr’d And the malice that, fearing it, hated. Its branches lie splintered ; the hollow trunk groans Like a church that survives desolations ; But the leaves, scatter’d far when the hurricane moans, For the healing are sent to the nations ! ST. COLUMBA OF THE LEGENDS. A week ere yet her Saint was born Columba’s mother prayed alone — Thus sang the Bard on Ascension Morn — Then the Angel of Eire before her shone. He lifted a Veil snow-white, yet red With Boses wrought around and around : And £ These are the Wounds of Love/ he said. ‘ That heal the wounded, and wound hearts sound. He dropped that Veil on her head ; and lo ! A wind from God outstretched it wide ; And a golden glory suffused its snow ; And the heart of its Boses grew deeplier dyed. Like a cloud of dawn on the breeze it flew ; Yet it clung to her holy head the while ; It spanned the woods, and the headlands blue ; It circled and girdled with joy the Isle ! 158 THE HERMIT^ COUNSEL. And this was a sign that, come what might, In gloom or glory, in good or ill, Columba’s Gospel with love and light Should clasp and comfort his Erin still : A sign, and a pledge, and a holy troth That hath not failed her, and never can ; For God to Columba sware an oath That Eire should be dear to the God made Man ; More dear as the centuries onward rolled, When her bread should be shame, and grief her wine ; And mantled more closely with fold on fold Of healing radiance and strength divine. Thus sang to the vanquished the Bard Maeimire, As the tide swelled up on the grassy shore And the smooth sea filled with the sunset’s fire : He sang ; and the weepers wept no more. THE HERMITS COUNSEL . i. Thus spake the hermit : Count it gain, The scoff, the stab, the freezing fear : Expiate on earth thine earthly stain ; The fire that cleanseth, find it here ! Nearest we stand to heavenly light When girt by Purgatorial glooms : That Church which crowns the Roman height Three centuries trod the Catacombs ! EVENING MELODY. 159 II. But when thy God His Hand withdraws, And all things round seem glad and fair, Unchallenged Faith, impartial laws, And wealth and honour, then beware ! Beware lest sin in splendour deck’d Make null the years of holy sighs, And God’s great People, grief -elect, Her birthright scorning, miss the prize. EVENING MELODY . Fkesh eve, that hang’st in yon blue sky On breeze-like pinions swaying, And leav’st our earth reluctantly Departing, yet delaying ! Along the beach the ripples rake ; Dew-drench’d the thicket flushes : And last year’s leaves in bower and brake Are dying ’mid their blushes. Is this the world we knew of yore, Long bound in wintry whiteness Which here consummates more and more Its talismanic brightness h To music wedded well-known lines Let forth a hidden glory : Thus, bathed in sunset, swells and shines Lake, woodland, promontory. 160 CARO REQUIESCET. New Edens pure from Adam’s crime Invite the just to enter ; The spheres of wrongfull Life and Time Grow lustrous to their centre. Rejoice, glad planet ! Sin and Woe, The void, the incompleteness, Shall cease at last ; and thou shalt know The mystery of thy greatness ! CARO REQUIESCET. Look forth, O Sun, with beam oblique O’er crags and lowlands mellow ; The dusky beech-grove fire, and strike The sea-green larch-wood yellow : All round the deep, new-flooded meads Send thy broad glories straying ; Each herd that feeds ’mid flowers and weeds In golden spoils arraying : Flash from the river to the bridge Red glance with glance pursuing ; Fleet from low sedge to mountain ridge, Whatever thou dost undoing : Kiss with moist lip those vapoury bands That swathe yon slopes of tillage ; Clasp with a hundred sudden hands The gables of yon village : THE SECRET OF POWER. 161 But O, thus sharping to a point 0, brightening thus while dying, Ere yet thou diest the graves anoint Where my beloved are lying ! Ye shades that mount the moorland dells Ascend, the tree tops dimming ; But leave those amethystine hills Awhile in glory swimming ! THE SECRET OF POWER. Dark, dark that grove at the Attic gate By the sad Eumenides haunted Where the Theban King in his blindness sat While the nightingales round him chanted ! In a grove as dark of cypress, and bay Upgrown to a forest’s stature In vision I saw at the close of day A Woman of godlike feature. She stood like a Queen, and her vesture green Shone out as a laurel sun-lighted ; And she sang a wild song like a Mourner’s keen With an Angel’s triumph united. She sang like one whose grief is done ; Who has solved Life’s dread enigma ; A beam from the sun on her brow was thrown And I saw there the conquering Stigma. v. 31 162 EVENING MELODY. EVENING MELODY, O that the pines which crown yon steep Their fires might ne’er surrender ! O that yon fervid knoll might keep While lasts the world, its splendour ! Pale poplars on the breeze that lean And in the sunset shiver O that your golden stems might screen For aye yon glassy river ! That yon white bird on homeward wing Soft-sliding without motion And now in blue air vanishing Like snow-flake lost in ocean Beyond our sight might never flee, Yet forward still be flying, And all the dying day might be Immortal in its dying ! Pellucid thus in saintly trance Thus mute in expectation What waits the Earth ? Deliverance ? Ah no ! Transfiguration ! She dreams of that ‘ Yew Earth ’ divine Conceived of seed immortal ; She sings ‘ Yot mine the holier shrine, Yet mine the steps and portal ! ’ THE ‘OLD LAND.’ 163 THE ‘ OLD LAND: i. Ah, kindly and sweet, we must love thee perforce ! The disloyal, the coward alone would not love thee : Ah, Mother of heroes ! strong Mother ! soft nurse ! We are thine while the large cloud swims onward ■ above thee ! By thy hills ever-blue that draw Heaven so near ; By thy cliffs, by thy lakes, by thine ocean-lull’ d highlands ; And more — by thy records disastrous and dear, The shrines on thy headlands, the cells in thine islands ! ii. Ah, well sings the thrush by Lixnaw and Traigh-li ! Ah, well breaks the wave upon Umbhall and Brandon ! Thy breeze o’er the upland blows clement and free And o’er fields, once his own, which the hind must abandon. A caitiff the noble who draws from thy plains His all, yet reveres not the source of his greatness; A clown and a serf ’mid his boundless domains His spirit consumes in the prison of its straitness. hi. Through the cloud of its pathos thy face is more fair: In old time thou wert sun-clad ; the gold robe thou worest ! To thee the heart turns as the deer to her lair Ere she dies — her first bed in the gloom of the forest. 164 TO ETHNEA BEADING HOMER. Our glory, our sorrow, our Mother ! Thy God In thy worst dereliction forsook but to prove thee ! Blind, blind as the blindworm ; cold, cold as the clod Who seeing thee see not, possess but not love thee ! TO ETHNEA READING HOMER. Ah, happy he who shaped the words Which bind thee in their magic net ; Who draws from those old Grecian chords The harmonies that charm thee yet ! Who waves from that illumined brow The dark locks back ; — upon that cheek Pallid erewhile as Pindan snow Makes thus the Pindan morning break ! ’Tis he that fringes lids depress’d With lashes heavier for a tear And shakes that inexperienced breast With womanhood. Upon the bier Lies cold in death the hope of Troy ; Thou hear’st the Elders sob around, The widow’d wife, the orphan’d boy, The old grey King, the realm discrown’d. Hadst thou but lived that hour by thee Well wept had been the heroic dead ; The heroic hands well kissed ; thy knee Had propp’d the pallid princely head ! TO ETHNEA READING HOMER. 165 From thee Andromache had caught Dirges more sweet ; and she who burn’d With self -accusing grief shame-fraught A holier woe from thee had learn’d ! Ah child ! Thy Troy in ruin lies Like theirs ! Her princes too are cold : Again Cassandra prophesies Vainly prophetic as of old. Brandon to Ida’s cloudy verge Responds. Tirawley’s kingless shore Wails like the Lycian when its marge Saintly Sarpedon trod no more. Not Gods benign, like Sleep and Death Who bore that shepherd-monarch home But famine’s tooth and fever’s breath Our exiles hunt o’er ocean’s foam. Peace reigns in heaven. The Fates each hoar Roll round earth’s wheel through darkness vast : Alone survives the Poet’s power, A manlike Art that from the past Draws forth that line whose sanguine track The wicked fear, the weak desert; That clue which leads through centuries back The patriot to his Country’s heart. 166 GRATTAN. GRATTAN. i. God works through man, not hills or snows ! In man, not men, is the godlike power ; The man, God’s potentate, God foreknows ; He sends him strength at the destined hour : His Spirit He breathes into one deep heart : His cloud He bids from one mind depart : A Saint ! — and a race is to God re-born ! A Man ! One man makes a Nation’s morn ! ii. A man, and the blind land by slow degrees Gains sight ! A man, and the deaf land hears A man, and the dumb land like wakening seas Thunders low dirges in proud, dull ears ! A man, and the People, a three days’ corse, Stands up, and the grave-bands fall olf perforce One man, and the nation in height a span To the measure ascends of the perfect man. hi. Thus wept unto God the land of Eire : Yet there rose no man and her hope was dead In the ashes she sat of a burn’d-out fire ; And sackcloth was over her queenly head. But a man in her latter days arose ; A Deliverer stepp’d from the camp of her foes : He spake ; the great and the proud gave way, And the dawn began which shall end in day ! THE SECRET JOY, 167 THE SECRET JOY. 0, blithesome at times is life perforce When Death is the gate of Hope not Fear ; Rich streams lie dumb; over rough stones course The runlets that charm the ear. 4 Her heart is hard ; she can laugh/ men say ; ‘ That light one can jest who has cause to sigh ! ’ Her conscience is light ; and with God are they She loves : they are safe — and nigh. God’s light shines brightest on cheeks grief-pale ! The song of the darkling is sad and dark : That proud one boasts of her nightingale ! 0 Eire, keep thou thy lark ! INSIGHT. Sharp stretch the shades o’er the sward close-bitten Which the affluent meadows receive but half ; Truth lies clear-edged on the soul grief-smitten Congeal’d there in epitaph. A vision is thine by the haughty lost ; An Insight reserved for the sad and pure : On the mountain cold in the grey hoar frost Thy Shepherd’s track lies sure ! 168 SONG. SONG. The Little Black Bose * shall be red at last ! What made it black but the East wind dry And the tear of the widow that fell on it fast i It shall redden the hills when June is nigh ! The Silk of the Kine * shall rest at last ! What drave her forth but the dragon-fly ] In the golden vale she shall feed full fast With her mild gold horn, and her slow dark eye The wounded wood-dove lies dead at last : The pine long-bleeding, it shall not die ! - — This song is secret. Mine ear it pass’d In a wind o’er the stone-plain of Athenry. THE GLUE. To one in dungeons bound there came, The last long night before he died, An Angel garlanded with flame Who raised his hand and prophesied : 4 Thy life hath been a dream : but lo ! This night thine eyes shall see the truth : That which thou thoughtest weal was woe ; And that was joy thou thoughtest ruth. 4 Thy Land hath conquer’d through her loss ; With her God’s chief of Creatures plain’d, * Mystical names applied to Ireland by her Bards. ODE ON THE FIRST REPEAL OF THE PENAL LAWS. 169 The same who scaled of old the Cross When Mary’s self beneath remain'd.* ‘ Thou fought’st upon the righteous side : Yet, being dust, thou wroughtest sin : Once — twice — thy hand was raised in pride : The Promised Land thou may’st not win ; ‘ But they, thy children, shall.’ Next morn Around the Patriot-martyr press’d A throng that cursed him. He in turn, The sentenced, bless’d them — and was bless’d. ODE ON THE FIRST REPEAL OF THE PENAL LAWS. a. d. 1778. The hour has struck ! at last in heaven The golden shield an Angel smites ! On Erin’s altars thunder-riven A happier Destiny alights. ’Tis done that cannot be undone The lordlier ages have begun ; The flood that widens as it flows Is loosed ; fulfilled the Triple Woes ! ii. Once more the Faith uplifts her forehead Star-circled to the starry skies : * Dante’s description of Holy Poverty. 170 ODE ON THE FIRST REPEAL OF THE PENAL LAWS. Fangless at last, a snake abhorred, Beneath her foot Oppression lies : Above the waning moon of Time The Apparition stands sublime From hands immaculate, hands of light Down scattering gifts of saintly might. hi. Long for her martyrs Erin waited : They came at last. Bejoice this hour Ye tonsured heads, or consecrated That sank beneath the stony shower ! Thou Land for centuries dark and dumb Arise and shine ! thy light is come ! Beturn 3 for they are dead their knife Who raised, and sought the young child’s life. IV. Again the wells of ancient knowledge Shall cheer the thirsty lip and dry : Again waste places, fane and college, The radiance wear of days gone by ! Once more shall rise the Minster porch ; Once more shall laugh the village church O’er plains that yield the autumnal feast Once more to industry released ! v. Once more the far sea-tide returneth And feeds the rivers of the Land : Once more her heart maternal yearneth With hopes the growth of memories grand. Immortal longings swell her breast Quickened from dust of Saints at rest : ODE ON THE FIRST REPEAL OF THE PENAL LAWS. 1 7 1 Once more six centuries bud and flower To share the triumph of this hour ! VI. Who was it called thee the Forsaken ? A consort judged ? a Wife put by? He at whose nod the heavens are shaken ’Tis He Who hails thee from on high. ‘ I loved thee from of old : I saved : Upon My palms thy name is graved : With blood were sealed the bridal vows; For lo, thy Maker is thy Spouse ! ’ VII. Who, who are those like clouds of morning That sail to thee o’er seas of gold ? That fly, like doves, their exile scorning, To windows known and loved of old ? To thee the Isles their hands shall raise ; Thy sons have taught them songs of praise ; And Kings rebuild thy wall, or wait Beside thy never-closing gate. VIII. As from the fig-tree, tempest-wasted The untimely fruitage falletli crude, So dropp’d around thee, blighted, blasted Age after age thy sentenced brood. To thee this day thine own are given : Yet what are these to thine in heaven ? They left thee in thy years of pain : Thy cause they pleaded — not in vain. 172 THE CAUSE. IX. Those years are o’er : made soft by distance Old wars like war-songs soon will seem, The aggression dire, the wild resistance Put on the moonlight of a dream. Ah, gentle Foes ! If wholly past — That Norman foe was friend at last ! Like him, the ill deed redress, recall — In Erin’s heart is room for all. THE CAUSE. i. The Kings are dead that raised their swords In Erin’s right of old ; The Bards that dash’d from fearless chords Her name and praise lie cold : But fix’d as fate her altars stand ; Unchanged, like God, her Faith; Her Church still holds in equal hand The keys of life and death. ii. As well call up the sunken reefs Atlantic waves rush o’er As that old time of native chiefs And Gaelic Bards restore ! Things heavenly rise : things earthly sink : God works through Nature’s laws ; Sad Isle, ’tis He that bids thee link Thine Action with thy Cause ! MEMORY. 173 MEMORY. ‘ They are past, the old days : let the past be for- gotten : Let them die the old wrongs and old woes that were ours Like the leaves of the winter down-trampled and rotten That light in the spring-time the forest with flowers/ So sings the sweet voice ! But the sad voice replieth ; ‘ Unstaunch’d is the wound while the insult re- mains ; The Tudor’s black banner above us still flieth ; The Faith of our fathers is spurned in their fanes ! ‘ Distrust the repentance that clings to its booty ! Give the people their Church and the priesthood its right : Till then, to remember the past is a duty, For the past is our Cause, and our Cause is our might.’ ALL-HALLOWS; OR , THE MONK'S DREAM, A PROPHECY. I. I trod once more that place of tombs : Death-rooted elder full in flower Oppress’d me with its sad perfumes, Pathetic breath of arch and tower : 174 all-hallows; or, the monk’s dream. The ivy on the cloister wall Waved, gusty with a silver gleam : The moon sank low : the billows’ fall In moulds of music shaped my dream. ii. In sleep a funeral chant I heard A ‘ De profundis ’ far below ; On the long grass the rain-drops stirr’d As when the distant tempests blow : Then slowly, like a heaving sea, The graves were troubled all around ; And two by two, and three by three, The monks ascended from the ground, hi. From sin absolved, redeem’d from tears There stood they, beautiful and calm, The brethren of a thousand years With lifted brows and palm to palm ! On heaven they gazed in holy trance ; Low stream’d their beards and tresses hoar And each transfigured countenance The Benedictine impress bore. IV. By Angels borne the Holy Bood Encircled thrice the church-yard bound ; They paced behind it, paced in blood, With bleeding feet, but foreheads crown’d ; And thrice they breathed that hymn benign, Which angels sang when Christ was born ; And thrice I wept, ere tower or shrine Had caught the first white beam of morn. all-hallows; or, the monk’s dream, 1 Y. Down on the earth my brows I laid ; In these, His Saints, I wor shipp’d God : And then return’d that grief which made My heart since youth a frozen clod : 4 0 ye,’ I wept, c whose woes are past Look round on all these prostrate stones ! To these can Life return at last 1 Can Spirit lift once more these bones ? ’ VI. The smile of him the end who knows Went, luminous, o’er them as I spake ; Their white locks shone like mountain snows O’er which the orient mornings break : They stood : they pointed to the West : And lo ! where darkness late had lain .Rose many a kingdom’s citied crest Reflected in a kindling main ! VII. ‘ Not only these, the fanes o’erthrown, Shall rise,’ they said, ‘but myriads more ; The seed, far hence by tempests blown, Still sleeps on yon expectant shore. Send forth, sad Isle, thy reaper bands ! Assert and pass thine old renown : Not here alone — in farthest lands For thee thy sons shall weave the crown,’ VIII. They spake ; and like a cloud down sank The just and filial grief of years ; all-hallows; or, the monk’s dream. And I that peace celestial drank Which shines but o’er the seas of tears. Thy Mission flashed before me plain, O thou by many woes anneal’d ! And I discern’d how axe and chain Had thy great destinies sign’d and seal’d ! IX. That seed which grows must seem to die : In thee, when earthly hope was none, The heaven-born hope of days gone by By martyrdom matured, lived on ; Conceal’d, like limbs of royal mould In some Egyptian pyramid, Or statued shape ’mid cities old Beneath Yesuvian ashes hid. x. For this cause by a power divine Each temporal aid was frustrated : Tyrone, Tirconnell, Geraldine — In vain they fought ; in vain they bled : Successive, ’neath th’ usurping hand Sank ill-starr’d Mary ; erring James : Nor Spain nor France might wield the brand Which, for her own, Beligion claims ! XI. Arise, long stricken ! mightier far Are they who fight for God and thee Than those that head the adverse war ! Sad prophet ! lift thy face and see ! Behold, with eyes no longer wrong’d By mists the sense exterior breeds, all-hallows; or, the monk’s dream. 177 The hills of heaven around thee throng’d With fiery chariots and with steeds ! XII. The years baptized in blood are thine ; The exile’s prayer from many a strand ; The woes of those this hour who pine Poor aliens in their native land ; Angels and Saints from heaven down-bent Watch thy long conflict without pause ; And the most Holy Sacrament From all thine altars pleads thy cause ! XIII. O great through Suffering, rise at last Through kindred Action tenfold great ! Thy future calls on thee thy past Its soul survives to consummate ! Let women weep ; let children moan : Pise, men and brethren, to the fight : One cause hath Earth, and one alone : For it, the cause of God, unite ! XIV. Let others trust in trade and traffic ! Be ours, O God, to trust in Thee ! Cherubic Wisdom, Love Seraphic, Beseem that land the Truth makes free. The earth-quelling sword let others vaunt ; Such toys allure the youth, the boy : Be ours for loftier wreaths to pant, The Apostles’ crown of Faith and Joy ! V. N 178 HYMN. XV. Hope of my country 4 House of God ! All-Hallows ! Blessed feet are those By which thy courts shall yet be trod Once more as ere the spoiler rose : Blessed the winds that waft them forth To victory o’er the rough sea foam : That race to God which conquers earth Can God forget that race at home ? HYMN. ECCLESIA DEI. I. Who is She that stands triumphant Bock in strength upon the Bock, Like some city crown’d with turrets Braving storm and earthquake shock ? Who is she her arms extending ; Blessing thus a world restored ; All the anthems of creation Lifting to creation’s Lord h Hers that Kingdom, hers the Sceptre ! Fall, ye nations, at her feet ! Hers that Truth whose fruit is freedom ; Light her yoke ; her burden sweet. ii. As the moon its splendour borrows From a sun unseen all night HYMN. 1 So from Christ, the Sun of Justice, Draws His Church her sacred light. Touch’d by His her hands have healing, Bread of Life, absolving Key : Christ Incarnate is her Bridegroom ; The Spirit hers ; His Temple she. Hers the Kingdom, hers the Sceptre ! Fall, ye nations, at her feet ! Hers that Truth whose fruit is freedom ; Light her yoke : her burden sweet ! hi. Empires rise and sink like billows ; Vanish and are seen no more ; Glorious as the star of morning She overlooks their wild uproar : Hers the Household all-embracing, Hers the Vine that shadows earth ; Blest thy children, mighty Mother ! Safe the stranger at thy hearth. Hers the Kingdom ; hers the Sceptre ! Fall, ye nations, at her feet ! Hers that Truth whose fruit is freedom ; Light her yoke ; her burden sweet ! IV. Like her Bridegroom, heavenly, human, Crown’d and militant in one, Chanting Nature’s great Assumption And the Abasement of the Son, Her magnificats, her dirges Harmonise the jarring years ; Hands that fling to heaven the censer Wipe away the orphan’s tears. 180 ELECTA. Hers the Kingdom, hers the Sceptre ! Fall, ye nations, at her feet ! Hers that Truth whose fruit is freedom Light her yoke ; her burden sweet ! ELECTA. i. The Hour must come. Long since, and now The shaft decreed is on the wing : Loosed from the Eternal Archer’s bow The flying fate shall pierce the ring : The Hour that comes to seal the right ; The Hour that comes to judge the wrong ; To lift the vales, and thunder-smite Those cliffs the full-gorged eagles throng. ii. Eejoice, Elect of Isles ! Kejoice Pale image of the Church of God ! Like her afflicted, lift thy voice Like her, and hail, and hymn the rod ! Thou warr’st on earth : at each new groan In heaven thy Guardian claps his hands ; And glitters o’er the expectant Throne A crown inwoven of angel bands ! SONG. 181 SONG. i. While autumn flashed from woods of gold Her challenge to the setting sun And storm-clouds, breaking, seaward rolled O’er brightening waves, their passion done, The linnets on a rain-washed beech So thronged I saw not branch for bird : My skill is scant in forest speech But thus they sang or thus I heard. ii. ’Twas all a dream — the wrong, the strife, The scorn, the blow, the loss, the pain ! Immortal Gladness, Love and Life Alone are lords by right and reign : The Earth is tossed about as though Young Angels tossed a cowslip ball ; But, rough or level, high or low, What matter? God is all in all. THE CHANGE . i. Was it Truth; was it Vision? The old year was dying; Clear rang the last chime from the turret of stone ; The mountain hung black o’er the village low-lying ; O’er the moon, rushing forward, loose vapours were blown ; 182 SEMPER EADEM. When I saw an angelical choir with bow’d faces Wafting on, like a bier, upon pinions outspread An angel-like Form that of death had no traces : — Without pain she had died in her sleep ; but was dead. II. Was it Truth ; was it Vision ? The darkness was riven ; Once more through the infinite breast of pure night From heaven there looked downward, more beauteous than heaven, A visage whose sadness was lost in its light : — ‘ Why seek’st thou, my son, ’mid the dead for the living ? Thy Country is risen, and lives on in thy Faith ; I died but to live ; and now, Life and Life-giving, Where’er the Cross triumphs I conquer in death,’ SEMPER EADEM, \ i. The moon, freshly risen from the bosom of ocean, Hangs o’er it suspended, all mournful yet bright ; And a yellow sea-circle with yearning emotion Swells up as to meet it, and clings to its light : The orb unabiding grows whiter, mounts higher ; The pathos of darkness descends on the brine : O Erin ! the North drew its light from thy pyre : Thy light woke the nations ; the embers were thine ! EPILOGUE, 183 II. Tis sunrise ! The mountains flash forth ; and, new- redden’d, The billows grow lustrous, so lately forlorn ; From the orient with vapours long darken’d and deaden’d The trumpets of Godhead are pealing ‘ the Morn ! ’ He rises, the Sun, in his might re-ascending ; Like an altar beneath him lies blazing the sea ! O Erin ! Who proved thee returns to thee, blending The future and past in one garland for thee ! EPILOGUE. With spices and urns they come : ah me, how sorrow can babble ! Nothing abides save Love ; and to Love comes gladness at last ; Sad was the legend yet sweet ; though its truth was mingled with fable ; Dire was the conflict and long ; but the rage of the conflict is past. They are past, the three great Woes ; and the days of the dread Desolation ; To amethyst changed are the stones blood-stain’d of the temple-floor : A Spiritual Power she lives who seem’d to die as a Nation ; Her story is that of a Soul : — and the story of Earth is no more. 184 EPILOGUE. Endurance it was that won ; Suffering, than Action thrice greater ; For Suffering humbly acts. Away with sigh and with tear ! She has gone before you and waits : She has gifts for the blinded who hate her ; And that bright Shape by the death-cave in music answers, c Not here/ “THE IRISH SISTERS. IPibicaitb TO MY EARLIEST FRIEND AND KINSMAN STEPHEN E. SPRING RICE. THE SISTERS; OR , WEAL IN WOE, First Published in 1861, This Tale, written in happier times, was intended to be the first of a series illustrating the Ireland of the latter day, and especially that side of Irish life and character which is too often ignored, and which remains the hope of Ireland’s true friends in her darkest days. — January, 1884. From nine to twelve my guest was eloquent In anger, mixed with sorrow, at the things He saw around us ; lands half marsh, half weeds, Gates from the gate-posts miserably divorced, Hovels ill-thatched, wild fences, fissured roads — 4 Your people never for the future plan ; They live but for the moment/ Thus he spake, A youth just entering on his broad domains, A senator in prorogation time Travelling for knowledge, Oxford’s accurate scholar, A perfect rider, clean in all his ways, But by traditions narrowed. As the moon Turns but one side to earth, so showed that world Whereon he gazed, for stubborn was his will And Ireland he had never loved. ‘ You err ’ I answered, taking in good part his wrath, ‘ Our peasant too has prescience ; far he sees ; Earth is his foreground only rough or smooth ; In him from seriousness the lightness comes : Too serious is he to make sacrifice For fleeting good ; the battles of this world 188 THE SISTERS ; OR, WEAL IN WOE. He with the left hand fights and half in sport ; He has his moment — and eternity/ ‘ Ay, ay/ exclaimed my guest, ‘ your Church, she does it ! Your feasts and fasts and wakes and social rites, With “ Sir,” and “ Ma’am,” and usages of Court : — I’ve seen a hundred men leave plough and spade To hale a three weeks’ infant to its grave, A cripple pay two shillings for a cart To bear him to the Holy Well. Sick Land ! Look up ! the proof is round you written large ! Your Faith is in the balance wanting found : Your shipless seas confess it ; bridgeless streams ; Your wasted wealth of ore, and moor, and bay ! Beneath the Upas shade of Faith depraved All things lie dead — wealth, comfort, freedom, power ; All that great Nations boast ! ’ ‘ Such things,’ I answered, ‘ The Gentiles seek ; and you new tests have found ; “ Ecclesise stantis vel cadentis,” friend ; “ Blessed the rich : blessed whom all men praise : ” New Scriptures, these ; the Irish keep the old ! Say, are there not diversities of gifts ? Are there not virtues — Industry is one — Which reap on earth, whilst others sow for heaven ? Faith, hope, and love, and purity, and patience, Humility, and self-forgetfulness, These too are virtues ; yet they rear not States. What then ? Of many Nations earth is made : Each has its function ; each its part for others : If all were hand, where then were ear or eye 2 If all were foot, where head? You rail, my friend, Not at my country only but your own. THE SISTERS ; OR, WEAL IN WOE. 189 The land that gave us birth our service claims, The suffering land our love. Yet England, too, They love, and they the most, who flatter not. A thousand years of nobleness she lived Whereof you rob her ! In this isle are men By ancient lineage hers. Such men might say, u My England was entombed ere yours had birth. 7 ’ Dates she from Arkwright only '? Bose the Nation With Alfred, or those Tudor Kings who built The Golden Gate of England’s modern time, But built it upon liberties annulled, Old glories quenched, the old Nobles dead or quelled — Ay, wrecks more sad % ’ His host, I could not use Words rough as his albeit to shield a land For every shaft a targe ; so changed the theme To her he knew — thence loved. He loved his country ; An older man than he for things less great Had loved that land. Yet who could gaze, unmoved, From Windsor’s terraced heights o’er those broad meads Lit by the pomp of silver-winding Thames Dropping past templed grove, and hall, and farm, Toward the great City % Who, unthrilled, could mark Her Minsters, towering far away, with heads That stay the sunset of old times ; or these, Oxford and Cambridge, England’s anchors twain, That to her moorings hold her ? Fresh from them Who, who could tread, O Wye, thy watery vale Where Tintern reigns in ruin ; who could rest Where Bolton finds in Wharf a warbling choir, Or where the sea- wind fans thy brow discrown’d, Furness, nor love and wonder'? Who untouch’d, 190 THE sisters ; or, weal in woe. When evening creeps from Sea wf ell toward Black Combe, Could wander by thy darkly gleaming lakes Embayed ’mid sylvan garniture and isles From saint or anchoret named, within the embrace Of rural mountains green, or sound, scent, touch, Of kine-besprinkled, soft, partitioned vales Almost domestic ? Shadow-haunted land ! By Southey’s lake Saint Herbert holds his own ! The knightly armour now by Yew-dale’s crag Bings loud no longer : Grasmere’ s reddening glass Beflects no more the on-rushing clan : yet still Thy Saxon Kings, and ever-virgin Queens Possess thee with a quiet pathos ; still, Like tarnished path forlorn of moon that sets Over wide- watered moor and marsh, thy Past A spiritual sceptre though deposed, extends From sea to sea — from century- worn St. Bees To Cuthbert’s tomb under those eastern towers On Durham’s bowery steep ! He loved his country : That love I honoured. Great and strong he called her : But well I knew that had her greatness waned, His love had waxed. As thus we talk’d the sun Launched through the hurrying clouds a rainy beam That smote the hills. My guest exclaimed, ‘ Come forth : We waste the day ! Yon ridge my fancy takes ; Climb we its crest ! ’ The wolf-hound at our feet Oar drift divining, bounded sudden on us In rapture of prospective gratitude. We passed the offending gate ; a plank for bridge THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 191 We passed the offending stream which dashed its spray Contemptuous on us, proud of liberty. I laughed ; ‘ Our passionate Ireland is the stream ; Seven hundred years at will it mocks or chides ; You have not made it turn your English mill % 1 We scaled the hills ; we pushed through miles of trees Which, sire and son, had held their own since first The tall elk trod their ways. Lightning and storm Had left large wrecks: election wars, not less, Or hospitalities as fierce, when home A thousand chiefless clansmen dragged the bride, Or danced around a cradle, — ah, brave hearts ! Loyal where cause for loyalty was scant ! Vast were those woods and fair ; rock, oak, and yew, Grey, green, and black, in varying measures striking That three-stringed lyre which charms not ear but eye. Long climbing, from the woodland we emerged And paced a rocky neck of pale green pasture The limit of two counties. Full in face Rushed, ocean-scented, the harmonic wind : Round us the sheep-bells chimed ; a shower late past With jewelry had hung the blackberry bush, And gorse-brake half in gold. On either side Thin-skinned, ascetic, slippery, the descent Down slanted toward the creeping mists. Our goal We reached at last — a broad and rocky mass Forth leaning lordly unto lands remote The lion’s head of all those feebler hills That cowering slunk behind it. Far around Low down, subjected, stretched the sea-like waste Shade-swept, unbounded, like infinity. 192 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. An hour before his time the sun had dropped Behind a mountain-wall of barrier cloud Wide as the world : but five great beams converged Toward the invisible seat of his eclipse ; And over many a river, bay, and mere Lay the dull red of ante-dated eve. That summit was a churchyard. Cross-engraven Thronged the close tomb-stones. Each one prayed for peace ; And some were raised by men whose heads were white Ere selfless toil had won the hoarded coins That honoured thus a parent. In the midst A tomb-like chapel, thirty feet by ten, Stood monumental with stone roof and walls The wrestling centuries slid from. Nigh we sat While, by the polished angle split, the wind Hissed like a forked serpent. Silent long My friend remain’d ; his sallies all had ceased, A man of tender nerve though stubborn thought. The scene weighed on him like a Prophet’s scroll Troubling some unjust City. Far and near He scanned the desolate region, and at last Prayed me the hieroglyphic to expound. 6 Yon tower which blurs the lonely lake far oil, What is it h ’ And I answered, ‘ Know you not 'l He built it, he that Norman horsed and mailed, Who, strong in Henry’s might and Adrian’s bull, Bent from the Gaelic monarch half his realm ; The rest came later, dowry of the bride.’ Once more he mused ; then, westward pointing, spake : THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 193 ‘ Yon lovely hills, yet low, with Phidian line That melts into the horizon : — on their curve A ruined castle stands ; the sky glares through it, Bed, like a conflagration % ’ I replied : ‘ Four hundred years the Norman held his own : He spake the people’s language ; they in turn His war-cry had resounded far and wide ; Their history he had grown impersonate, The land rejoiced in him, and of his greatness Uplifted, glorying, on a neck high held The beautiful burden, as the wild stag lifts O’er rocky Tore his antlers ! Would you more % The Desmond was unloved beside the Thames ; The right of the great Palatine was trampled ; His Faith by law proscribed. O’er tombs defaced, In old Askeaton’s Abbey, of his sires He vowed unwilling war. Long years the realm Peel’d like a drunken man. Behold the end ! Yon wreck speaks all ! ’ Thus question after question Dragged, maimed and mangled, dragged reluctant forth Time’s dread confession ! Crime replied to crime : Whom Tudor planted Cromwell rooted out ; For Charles they fought ; — to fight for Kings, their spoilers, The rebel named rebellion ! William next ! Once more the Nobles were down hurled ; once more Nobility as in commission placed By God among the lowly. Loyalty To native Princes, or to Norman chiefs Their lawless conquerors, or to British Kings, Or her the Mother Church that ne’er betrayed, v. o 194 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. Had met the same reward. The legend spake Words few but plain, grim rubric traced in blood ; While, like a Fury fleeting through the air, History from all the octaves of her lyre Struck but one note ! What rifted tower and keep Witnessed of tyrannous and relentless wars, That shipless gulfs, that bridgeless streams and moors, Black as if lightning-scarred, or banned of God, Proclaimed of laws blacker than brand or blight — Those Penal Laws. The tale was none of mine ; Stone railed at stone ; grey ruins dumbly frowned Defiance, and the ruin-handled blast Scattered the fragments of Cassandra’s curse From the far mountains to the tombs close by Which muttered treason. That sad scene to me Had lost by use its pathos as the scent That thrills us while we pass the garden palls On one within it tarrying. To my friend It spake its natural language : and as he Who, hard through habit, reads with voice unmoved A ballad that once touched him, if perchance Some listener weeps, partakes that listener’s trouble Even so the stranger’s sorrow struck on mine, And I believed the things which I beheld, There sitting silent. When at last he spake The spirit of the man in part was changed ; The things but heard of he had seen : the truths Coldly conceded now he realized : Justice at last with terrible recoil Leap’d up full-armed, a strong man after sleep, And dashed itself against the wrong ! I answered : THE SISTERS ; OR, WEAL IN WOE. 1 95 ‘ Once more you speak the words you spake this morn, 44 Look up, the proof is round you written large : 55 But in an altered sense.’ I spake, and left him : Left him to seek a tomb which three long years Holds one I honoured. Half an hour went by ; Then he rejoined me. With a knitted brow, And clear vindictiveness of speech, like him Who, loving, hates the sin of whom he loves, He spake against the men who, having won By right or wrong the mastery of this isle (For in our annals he was versed, nor ran In custom’s blinkers save on modern roads), Could make of it, seven hundred years gone by, No more than this ! Then 1 : 4 No country loved they Her least, the imperial realm ! ’Tis late to mourn ; Let past be past.’ 4 The Past,’ he said 4 is present ; And o’er the Future stretches far a hand Shadowy and minatory.’ 4 Come what may,’ I said, 4 no pang to Ireland can be new ; No shadow fail to dew some soul with grace. The history of a Soul holds in it more Than doth a Nation’s ! In its every chance Eternity lies hid ; from every step Branch forth two paths piercing infinity. These things look noblest from their spiritual side : A statesman, on the secular side you see them, And doubt a future based on such a past. ’Tis true, with wrong dies not the effect of wrong, Or sense thereof : ’tis true stern Power with time Changes its modes, not instinct : true it is That hollow peace is war that wears a mask : 196 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. Yet let ns quell to-day unquiet thoughts : She rests who lies in yonder tomb : sore pains She suffered : yet within her there was peace : In God’s high Will she rests ; and why not we? ’ Thus we conversed till twilight, thickening, crept Compassionate, o’er a scene to which we said Twilight seemed native, day a garish vest Worn by a slave. Returning, oft my friend Cast loose in wrath the arch-rebel Truth ; I an- swered : ‘ She rests ; and why not we ? O suffering land ! Thee, too, God shields ; and only for this cause Can they that love thee sleep.’ — Holy were all as she, the wrongs long past Would rack our age no longer : for that cause The blinder they who mock her country’s Faith. Thousands are like her ! Ireland’s undergrowths — Her hope is there, and not in cloud or sunshine That beat her mountain-tops. The maiden’s tale He sought with instance. ’Twas not marvellous, I told him : yet to calm his thoughts perturbed, Thus, while the broad moon o’er the lonely moor Rose, blanching as she soared, till pools, at first With trembling light o’erlaid, gave back her face, And all the woodland waves as eve advanced Shone bright o’er sombre hollows, I recounted The fragments of a noteless Irish life, Hot strange esteemed among us. Such a theme I sought not. Ill it were to forge for friend A providence, or snare him though to Truth. Yet I was pleased he sought that tale. ’Twas sad But in its dusky glass — and this I hid not — THE SISTERS ) OR, WEAL IN WOE. 197 Shadowed a phantom image of my country, Vanquished yet victor, in her Weal and Woe. The father in the prime of manhood died ; The mother followed soon ; their children twain, Margaret Mac Carthy, and her sister Mary, The eldest scarcely ten years old, survived To spread cold hands upon a close-sealed grave, And cry to those who answered not. The man Who, in that narrow spot to them the world, Stood up and seemed as God ; that gentler one Who overhung like Heaven their earliest thought, And in the bosom of whose sleepless love Reborn they seemed each morning, both were dead. In grief’s bewilderment the orphans stood Like one by fraud betrayed : nor moon, nor sun, Nor trees, nor grass, nor herds, nor hills appeared To them what they had been. In saddened eyes, Frightened yet dull, in voice subdued, and feet That moved as though they feared to wake the dead, Men saw that nowhere loneliness more lives Than in the breasts of children. Time went by ; The farm was lost ; and to her own small home Their father’s mother led them. ’Twas not far ; They still could see the orchard they had loved ; Behind the hedge could hear the robin sing, And the bees murmur. Slowly, as the trance Of grief dissolved, the present lived once more ; The past became a dream ! I see them still ! Softly the beauty-making years on went, And each one as he passed our planet’s verge Looked back, and left a gift. A darker shade 198 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 1 )ropped on the deepening hair ; a brighter gleam Forth Hashed from sea-blue eyes with darkness fringed. Like, each to each, their stature growing kept Unchanged gradation. To her grandmother A quick eye and a serviceable hand Endeared the elder most ; she kept the house ; Hers was the rosier cheek, the livelier mind, The smile of readier cheer. In Mary lived A visionary and pathetic grace Through all her form diffused, from those small feet Up to that beauteous-shaped and netted head, Which from the slender shoulders and slight bust Lose like a queen’s. Alone, not solitary, Full often half an autumn day she sat On the high grass-banks, foot with foot enclasped, Now twisting osiers, watching cloud-shades now, Or rushing vapours through whose chasms there shone Far off an alien race of clouds like Alps O’er Courmayeur white-gleaming, and like them To stillness frozen. Well that orphan knew them, Those marvellous clouds that roof our Irish wastes ; Spring’s lightsome veil out blown, sad Autumn’s bier, And Winter’s pillar of electric light Slanted from heaven. A spirit-world, so seemed it, In them was imaged forth to her. With us The childish heart betroths itself full oft In vehement friendship. Mary’s was of these ; And thus her fancy found that counterweight Which kept her feet on earth. With her there walked Two years a little maiden of the place, Her comrade, as men called her. Eve by eve THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 199 Homeward from school we saw them as they passed, One arm of each about the other’s neck, Above both heads a single cloak. She died, To Mary leaving what she valued most, A rosary strung with beads from Olivet. Daily did Mary count those beads ; from each The picture of some Christian Truth ascending, Till all the radiant Mysteries shone on high Like constellations, and man’s gloomy life For her to music rolled on poles of love Through realms of glory. Hope makes Love im- mortal ! That friend she ne’er forgot. In later years Working with other maidens equal-aged, (A lady of the land instructed them,) In circle on the grass, not them she saw, Heard not the song they sang : alone she sat, And heard ’mid sighing pines and murmuring streams The voice of the departed. Smoothly flowed Till Margaret had attained her eighteenth year The tenor of their lives ; and they became, Those sisters twain, a name in all the vale For beauty, kindness, truth, for modest grace, And all that makes that fairest flower of all Earth bears, heaven fosters — peasant nobleness : — For industry the elder. Mary failed In this, a dreamer ; indolence her fault, And self-indulgence, not that coarser sort Which seeks delight, but that which shuns annoy. And yet she did her best. The dull red morn Shone, beamless, through the wintry hedge while passed That pair with panniers, or, on whitest brows 200 THE SISTERS | OR, WEAL IN WOE. The balanced milk-pails. Margaret ruled serene A wire-fenced empire smiling through soft glooms, The pure, health-breathing dairy. Softer hand Than Mary’s ne’er let loose the wool ; no eye Finer pursued the on-flowing line : her wheel Murmured complacent joy like kitten pleased : With us such days abide not. Sudden fell Famine, the Terror never absent long, Upon our land. It shrank — the daily dole ; The oatmeal trickled from a tighter grasp ; Hunger grew wild through panic ; infant cries Maddened at times the gentle into wrong : Heath’s gentleness more oft for death made way ; And like a lamb that openeth not its mouth The sacrificial People,, fillet-bound, Stood up to die. Amid inviolate herds Uot few the sacraments of death received, Then waited God’s decree. These things are known Strangers have witness’d to them ; strangers writ The epitaph again and yet again : The nettles and the weeds by the way-side Men ate : from sharpening features and sunk eyes Hunger glared forth, a wolf more lean each hour ; Children seemed pigmies shrivelled to sudden age ; And the deserted babe too weak to wail But shook if hands, pitying or curious, raised The rag across him thrown. In England alms From many a private hearth were largely sent, As ofttimes they have been. ’Twas vain. The land Wept while her sons sank back into her graves Like drowners ’mid still seas. Who could escaped : And on a ghost-thronged deck, amid such cries As from the battle-field ascend at night THE SISTEKS j OK, WEAL IN WOE. 201 When stumbling widows grope o’er heaps of slain, Amid such cries stood Mary, when the ship Its cable slipped and, on the populous quays Grating, without a wind, on the slow tide, Dropped downward to the main. For western shores Those emigrants were bound. At Liverpool, Fann’d by the ocean breeze the smouldering fire Of fever burst into a sudden flame ; The stricken there were left ; among them Mary. How long she knew not in an hospital, A Babel of confused distress, she lay, Dinned with delirious strife. But o’er her brow God shook the dew of dreams wherein she trod The shadowed wood-walks of old days once more, And dabbled in old streams. Ere long, still weak, Abroad she roamed, a basket on her arm, With violets heaped. The watchman of the city Laid his strong hand upon her drooping head Banning the impostor. ’Twas her rags, she thought, Incensed him, and in meekness moved she on. When one with lubrique smile toyed with her flowers, And spake of violet eyes and easier life, She understood not, but misliked, and passed. In Liverpool an aged priest she found, A kinsman of her mother’s. Much to her Of emigrants he spake, and of their trials, Old ties annull’d, and ’mid temptations strange Lacking full oft the Bread of Life. She wept ; Before the tabernacle’s lamp she prayed Freshly-absolved and lieavenliest, with prayer That showered God’s blessing o’er the wanderers down : But dead was her desire to cross the main. 202 THE SISTERS ; OR, WEAL IN WOE. Her strength restored, beyond the city-bound With others of her nation she abode, Amid the gardens labouring. A rough clan Those outcasts seemed : not like their race at home : Nor chapel theirs, nor school. Their strength was prized ; Themselves were so esteemed as that sad tribe Beside the Babylonian streams that wept, By those that loved not Sion. Weeks grew months ; And, with the strength to suffer, sorrow came. Hard by their nomad camp a youth there lived Of wealthier sort, who looked upon this maid : Her country was his own : he loved it not : Had rooted quickly in the stranger’s land ; And versatile, cordial, specious, seeming-frank, Contracting for himself a separate peace, Had prosper’d, but had prospered in such sort As they that starve within. Her confidence He gained. To love unworthy, still he loved her : Loved with the love of an unloving heart, That love which either is in shallows lost, Or in its black depth breeds the poison weed. She knew him not ; how could she i He himself Knew scantly. Near her what was best within him Her golden smile sunned forth ; but, dark and cold, Like a benighted hemisphere abode A moiety of his being which she saw not. His was a superficial nature, vain, And hard, to good impressions sensitive, And most admiring virtues least his own ; A mirror that took in a seeming world, And yet remained blank surface. He was crafty, Followed the plough with diplomatic heart ; THE SISTERS j OR, WEAL IN WOE. 203 His acts were still like the knight’s move at chess, Each a surprise ; not less, to nature’s self Who heard him still ref err’d them. 4 What ! ’ men said, 4 Marry the portionless ! ’ Strange are fortune’s freaks ! The wedding-day was fixed, the ring brought home, When from a distant uncle tidings came : His latest son was dead. 4 Take thou my farm, And share my house ’ — So spake the stern old man— 4 And wed the wife whom I for thee have found.’ He showed the maid that letter. Slowly the weeds Made way adown the thick and stifled stream, And others followed ; slowly sailed the cloud Through the dull sky, and others followed slowly : At last he spake. Low were his words and thin, Many, but scarcely heard. He asked — her counsel ! Her cheek one moment burned. Heath-cold, once more A little while she sat ; then rose and said ; 4 You would be free ; I free you ; go in peace.’ ’Twas the good angel in his heart that loved her ; ’Twas not the man himself ! He wept, but went. The woman of the house that night was sure The girl had loved him not. She thought not so When, four months past, she mark’d her mouth, aside, Tremble, his name but uttered. Sharp the wrong ! Yet they on Life’s bewildered book would force A partial gloss it bears not who assume The injured wholly free from blame. The world Is not a board in squares of black and white, Or else the judgment-executing tongue Would lack probation. Wronged men are not angels; 204 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. Wrong’s chief est sin is this — it genders wrong ; So stands the offender in his own esteem Exculpate ; while the feebly- judging starve The just cause, babbling ‘ mutual was the offence ! ’ The man was weak ; not wholly vile. ’Twas well, Doubtless, to free him ; yet in after years, When early blight had struck his radiant head, The girl bewailed the pride that left thus tempted The man she loved ; arraigned the wrath that left him Almost without farewell. His letter too, Unopen’d she returned. ’Twas strange ! so sweet — Not less there lived within her, down, far down, A fire-spring seldom wakened ! When a child, At times, by some strange jealousy disturbed From her still dream she flashed in passion quelled Ere from her staider sister’s large blue eyes The astonishment had passed. Such moods remained Though rare — that wrath of tender hearts, which scorns Kevenge, which scarcely utters its complaint, And yet forgives but slowly. In those days Within the maiden’s bosom there arose Sea-longings, and desire to sail away She knew not whither ; and her arms she spread, Weeping, to winds and waves, and shores unknown, Lighted by other skies ; and inly thus She reasoned self-deceived. ‘ What keeps thee here 1 ’Tvvas for a farther bourne thou bad’st farewell To those at home, and here thou art as one That hangs between two callings.’ In her heart Tempests low-toned to ocean-tempests yearned, And ever when she marked the shipmast forest That on the smoky river swayed far off, THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 205 Her wish became a craving. Soon once more Alone ’mid hundreds on a rain-washed deck She stood, and saw the billows heave around And all the passions of that headlong world. Dark-visaged ocean frowned with hoary brows Against dark skies; huge, lumbering water- weights Went shouldering through the abysses : streaming clouds Ran on the lower levels of the wind ; And in the universe of things she seemed An atom random blown. Full many a morn Rose red through mists, like babe that weeps to rise ; Full many an evening died from wave to wave ; Then gradual peace possessed her. Love may wound But ’tis self-love exasperates that wound ; A noble nature casts out bitterness, And o’er the scar, like pine-tree incorrupt, Weeps healing gums. Heart-whole she gazed at last, On the great city chief est of that realm Which wears the Future’s glory. Landed, soon Back to old duties with a mightier zest Her heart, its weakening sadness passed, returned : Kindness made service easier, and the tasks At first distasteful smiled on her ere long : There she was loved once more ; there all went well And there in peace she might have lived and died ; Yet in that region she abode not long : In part a wayward instinct drave her forth ; In part a will that from the accomplished end Unstable swerved ; in part a hope forlorn : She sought a site their sojourn who had left Long since her native village. Thence old names, Faces unknown, yet recognized, thronged round her In unconsummate union, (hearts still like, 206 THE SISTERS ; OR, WEAL IN WOE. Yet all beside so different,) not like Souls Re-met in heaven — more like those Shades antique That, ’mid the empurpled fields, of other airs Mindful, in silence trod the Elysian land, Or flocked around the latest guest of Death With question sad of home. Imperfect ties Rub severance into soreness. Mary passed, Thus urged, ere long to lonelier climes : she tracked Companioned sometimes, sometimes without friend, The boundless prairie, sailed the sea-like lake, Descended the broad river as it rushed Through immemorial forests : lastly stood Sole, ’mid that city by the southern sea. There sickness fell upon her : there her hand Dropt, heavier daily, on her task half done ; Her feet wore chains unseen. The end, she thought, Was coming. Ofttimes, in her happier days, She wished to die and be with God : yet now, Wearied by many griefs, to life she clung, Upbraiding things foregone and inly sighing ‘ None loves to die.’ Sorrow, earth-born, in some Breeds first the Earth-infection ; in them works, Like those pomegranate seeds that barred from light For aye sad Ceres’ child ! Alas ! how many, The ill-honoured ecstasies of youth surceased, Exchange its clear spring for the mire ! Hope sick, How oft Faith dies ! How few are they in whom Virgin but yields to Vestal; casual pureness Merged in essential ; childhood’s matin dew Fixed, ere exhaled, in the Soul’s adamant ! Mary with these had part ; to her help came, That help the proud despise. One eve it chanced Upon the vast and dusking quays she stood Alone and weeping. She that morn had sent THE SISTERS ; OR, WEAL IN WOE. 207 Her latest hoardings to her grandmother, And half was sorry she had naught retained : The warm rain wet her hair : she heard within The silver ringing of its drops commingling With that still mere beside her childhood’s home, And with the tawny sedge that girt it round, And with its winter dogwood far away Reddening the faint, still gleam. As thus she stood Upon her shoulder sank a hand. She turned : It was a noble lady clothed in black, And veiled. That veil thrown back, she recognized At once the luminous stillness and the calm Ethereal which the sacred cloister breeds. A voice as pure and sweet as if from heaven, Toned as friend speaks to friend, addressed her thus : ‘ You lack a home : our convent is hard by.’ The lady, Spanish half, and Irish half, No answer sought, but with compulsion soft Drew her, magnetic, as the tree hard by Draws the poor creeper on the ground diffused, And lifts it into light. The child’s cold hand Lurked soon in hers : and in that home which seemed An isle of heaven she lived a meek lay sister, Ere long by healthier airs to strength restored, A rapturous life of Christian freedom masked In what but servitude had been to one Lacking vocation true. The Life Divine, 4 Hidden with God/ is hidden from the world Lest Virtue should be dimmed by Virtue’s praise. Heroic V irtue least by men is prized : The hero in the Saint the crowd can honour, The Saint at best forgive. To this world’s ken Convents, of sanctity chief citadels, 208 THE SISTERS j OR, WEAL IN WOE. Though sanctity in every place is found, The snowy banners and bright oriflambs Of that resplendent realm by Counsels ruled Not Precept only, spread in vain, despised Or for their earthly good alone revered Not for their claims celestial. Different far The lesson Mary learned. The poor were fed, The orphan nursed ; around the sick man’s couch Gentle as light hovered the healing hand ; And beautiful seemed on mountain-tops of Truth, The foot that brought good tidings ! Times of trial To Sabbaths changed ; and many a rude, rough girl, Waiting another service, found a home Where that which years had marred returned once more Like infant flesh clothing the leprous limb. Yet these things Mary found were blossoms only : The tree’s deep root was secret. From the Yow Which bound the Will’s infinitude to God Upwelled that peaceful strength whose fount was God: From Him behind His sacramental veil In holy passion for long hours adored Came that great Love which made the bonds of earth Needless, thence irksome. Wondering, there she learned The creature was not for the creature made But for the sole Creator ; that His kingdom, Glorious hereafter, lies around us here, Its visible splendour painfully suppressing, And waiting its transfigurance. Was it strange If while those Brides of Christ around her moved Her heart sang hymns to God h Much had she suffered : THE SISTERS ; OK, WEAL IN WOE. 209 Much of her suffering gladly there she learned Came of her fault ; and much had kindliest ends Not yet in her fulfilled. A light o’ershone her Which slays Illusion, that white snake which slimes The labyrinth of self-love’s more tender ways Virtue’s most specious mimic. She was loosed : The actual by the seeming thraldom slain ; Her life was from within and from above ; And as, when Winter dies and Spring new-born Her whisper breathes o’er earth, the earlier flowers — Unlike the wine-dark growths of Autumn dipped In the year’s sunset — rise in lightest hues An astral gleam, white, green, or delicate yellow More light than colour, so the maiden’s thoughts Flashed with a radiance that permitted scarce Human affections tragic. Oft, she told me, As faithless to old friends she blamed herself : One hand touched Calvary, one the Eternal Gates ; The present nothing seemed. The years passed on : The honeymoon of this heart-bridal waned ; But nothing of its spousal truth was lost, Nor of its serious joy. If failures came — And much she marvelled at her slow advance, And for the first time, pierced by that stern grace Wherein no sin looks trivial, feared ; — what then ? Failures that deepened humbleness but sank Foundations deeper for a loftier pile Of virtue: transports homeward heavenward summoned For more disinterested love made way, More perfect made Obedience. If a Soul, Half-way to heaven, death past, once more to earth Were sent, it could but feel as Mary felt When on the convent grates a letter smote v. p 210 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. Loud, harsh, with summons from the outward world. Her sister, such its tidings, was a wife, (That matron whom you praised : — ay, comely is she, And good ; laborious, kindly, faithful, true ; Yet Time has done Time’s work, her spiritual beauty Transposing gently to a lower key ;) Her grandmother bereft, and weak through age, Needed her tendance. Would the younger come 1 Alas ! what could she h Duty stretched from far An iron hand that stayed her mounting steps ; The little novices wept loud, ‘ Abide ! 7 Long on her neck the saintly sisterhood Hung ere they blessed her : then she turned and went. And so once more she trod this rocky vale, And scarcely older looked at twenty- six Than at sixteen. Before so gentle, now A humbler gentleness was o’er her thrown ; Nor ruffled was she ever as of yore With gusts of flying spleen : nor feared she now Hindrance unlovely, or the word that jarred. The sadness hers at first dispers’d ere long, And such strange sweetness came to her, men said A mad dog would not bite her. Lowliest toils Were by her hand ennobled : Labour’s staff Beneath it burst in blossom. In the garden, ’Mid earliest birds, and singing like a bird, She moved, her grandmother asleep. She mixed The reverence due to years with tenderness The infant’s claim. ’Twas hers to bring the crutch, Nor mark the lameness ; hers with question apt To prompt, not task, the memory. Tales twice-told Wearied not her, nor orders each with each At odds, nor oauseless blame. Wiles she had many THE SISTERS; UR, WEAL IN WOE. 211 To anticipate harsh moods, lest one rash word Might draw a cloud ’twixt helpless eld and heaven, Blotting the Eternal Vision felt not seen By hearts in grace. With works of gay caprice Needless — yet prized — she made the spectre Want Seem farther off. Thus love in narrow space Built a great world. The grandmother preferred To her, that dreamful girl of old, the woman Who from the mystic precinct first had learned Humanity, yet seemed a human creature O’erruled by some angelic guest. At heart Ever a nun, she ministered with looks That healed the sick. The newly-widowed door Its gloom remitted when she passed ; grey foes Downtrod their legend of old wrongs. To her Sacred were those that grieved ; — those tearless yet Sacred scarce less because they smiled nor knew The ambushed fate before them. When a child, Grey-haired companionship or solitude Had pleased her more than childish mates ; but now All the long eves of summer in the porch The children of her sister and the neighbours A spotless flock, sat round her. From her smiles The sluggish mind caught light, the timid heart Courage and strength. Unconscious thus, each day Her soft and blithesome feet one letter traced In God’s gold Book above. So passed her life ; — Sorrow had o’er it hung a gentle cloud ; But, like an autumn-mocking day in Spring Dewy and dim yet ending in pure glory, The sweets were sweeter for the rain, the growth Stronger for shadow. You have seen her tomb ! Upon the young and beautiful it closed : 212 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. Her grandmother yet lingers ! What is Time f Shut out the sun, and all the summer long The fruit-tree stands as barren as the rock ; May’s offering March can bring us. Of the twain The younger doubtless in the eyes of God Had inly lived the longest. She had learned From action much, from suffering more, far more, For Earth-experience is a sword whose point Makes way for Truth. Her trials, great and little, And trials ever keep proportion just With high vocations and the spirit’s growth, Had done their work till all her inner being, Freed from asperities, in the light of God Shone like the feet of some old crucifix Kissed into smoothness. Here I fain would end, Leaving her harboured ; but her stern, kind fates Not thus forewent her. Like her life her death, Not negative or neutral ; great in pains, In consolations greater. Many a week Much ailed her ; what the cause remained in doubt ; When certainty had come she trembled not : Fixed was her heart. Those pangs that shook her frame Like tempests roaring round a mountain church Shook not that peace within her ! She was thank- ful ; 4 More pain if such Thy Will, and patience more,’ This was her prayer ; or wiping from moist eyes The trembling tear, she whispered, 4 Give me, Lord, On earth Thy cleansing fire that I may see Sooner Thy Face, death past ! ? Alleviations, Many and great, God granted her. Once more Her sister was her sister ! Unlike fortunes THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 213 Had placed at angles those two lives that once Basked side by side ; and love that could not die Had seemed to sleep. It woke : and, as from mist, Once more shone out their childhood ! Laughed and flashed Once more the garden-beds whose bright accost Had cheered them for their parents mourning. Tears Remembered stayed the course of later tears ; The prosperous from the unprosperous sister sought Heart-peace ; nor wealth nor care could part them more ; And sometimes Margaret’s children seemed to her As children of another ! Greetings sweet Cheered her from distant regions. Once it chanced The nuns a relic sent her ne’er before Seen in our vales, a fragment of that Cross Whereon the world’s Redeemer hung three hours : The neighbours entering knelt and wept, and smote Their breasts ; her hands she raised in prayer ; and straight Such Love, such Reverence in her heart, there rose Her anguish, like a fiend exorcised, fled ; And for an hour at peace she lay as one Imparadised. A solace too was hers Known but to babes. Her body, not her mind, Was racked ; the pang to come she little feared, Nor lengthened out morose the pang foregone ; Once o’er, to sleep she sank in thankful prayer. A week ere Mary died all suffering left her ; And from the realms of glory beams, as though Further restraint they brooked not, fell on her Yet militant below, as there she lay In monumental whiteness, spirit-lit. 214 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. The anthems of her convent charmed once more Her dreams ; and scents from woods where she had sat In tears. Oft spake she of her wandering days ; Herself she scarcely seemed to see in them ; Plainly thus much I saw : When all went well, Danger stood nigh ; but soon as sorrow came Within that darkness nearer by her side Walked her good Angel. In that latest week Some treasures hidden ever near her heart She showed me — faded dowers ; her mother’s hair ; Gold pieces that have raised our chapel’s Cross ; A riband by her youthful comrade worn : Upon its cover some few words I found There traced when first beyond the western main She heard the homeless cuckoo’s cry well-known : ‘ W hen will my People to their land return ? ’ Prom the first hour her grandchild sank, once more She that for years bed-ridden lay had risen, And, autumn past, put forth a wintry strength, Ministering. Her frame was stronger than her mind ; O’er that at times a dimness hung, like cloud That creeps from pine to pine. Inly she missed Her wonted place of homage lost ; she mused Sadly upon the solitary future ; But in her there abode a rock-like will, And from her tearless service night or day ISTo man might push her. Seldom spake the woman : She called her grandchild by her daughter’s name, Her daughter buried thirty years and more, And once she said in wrath, 4 Why toil they thus Nora is dead.’ She laboured till the end : It came — that mortal close ! ’Twa.s Christmas Eve ; THE SISTERS^ OR, WEAL IN WOE. 215 Far, far away were heard the city hells : The sufferer slept. At midnight I went forth ; Along the ice-filmed road a dull gleam lay, And a sepulchral wind in woods far off Sang dirges deep. Upon her crutches bent The aged woman stood beside the door, With that long gaze intense which is an act Silently looking toward that hill of graves We trod this day ; a sinking moon shone o’er it : Then whispered she — the light of buried years Edging once more her eyes — ‘ Each Saturday, Of those that in that churchyard sleep three Souls, Their penance done, ascend, and are with God.’ Thus as she spake a cry was heard within, And many voices raised the Litany For a departing Soul. Long time — too long — Had seemed that dying ! Now the hour was come And change ineffable announced that Death At last was standing on the floor. O hour ! When in brief space our life is lived again ! Down cast its latest stake ! when fiends ascend, Beckoning the phantoms of forgotten wrong Conscience to scare, or launching as from slings Temptations new ; while Angels hold before us The Cross unshaken as the sun in heaven,* And whisper, 4 Christ.’ 0 hour ! when prayer is all ; And they that clasp the hand are drawn apart By the world’s breadth from that they love ! The act Sin’s dread bequest that makes an end of sinning, Long lasted, while the heart-strings snapt, and all The elements of the wondrous sensuous world Slid from the fading sense, and those poor fingers, As the loose precipice of life down crumbled, 216 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. Plucked as at roots. Storm-winged the hours rushed by; There lay she like some bark on midnight seas Now toiling through the windless vale, anon Hurled on and up to meet the implacable blast Upon the rolling ridge, when not a foot Can tread the decks, and all the sobbing planks Tremble overspent. The morning dawned at last Whitening the frosty pane ; the lights removed, Save that tall candle in her hand sustained By others, she descried it : ‘ Ah ! ’ she said, ‘ Thank God ! another day ! ’ Then, noting one Who near her knelt, she said ‘ The night is sped And you have had no sleep ; alas ! I thought Ere midnight I should die.’ Her eyelids closed ; Into a sleep as quiet as a babe’s Gradual she sank ; and while the ascending sun Shot ’gainst the western hill his earliest beam, In sleep, without a sigh, her spirit passed. I would you could have seen her face in death ! I would you could have heard that last dread rite, The mighty Mother’s, o’er the stormy gulf And all the moanings of the unknown abyss Flinging victorious anthems or the strength Of piercing prayer : ‘ Oh ! ye at least, my friends, Have pity on me ! plead for me with God ! ’ That Bite complete, the dark procession wound Interminably through the fields and farms, While wailing like a midnight wind, the keen Expired o’er moor and heath. At eve we reached The graveyard ; slowly, as to-day, the sun Behind a tomb-like bank of leaden cloud Dropt while the coffin sank, and died away The latest Miserere THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 217 More than once I would have ceased ; but he, my friend and guest, Or touched or courteous, willed me to proceed. Perhaps that tale the wild scene harmonized By sympathy occult ; perhaps it touched him, Contrasting with his recent life — with England, With Oxford, long his home ; its ordered pomp ; Its intermingled groves, and fields, and spires, Its bridges spanning waters calm and clear ; The frequentation of its courts ; its chimes ; Its sunset towers, and strangely youthful gardens That breathe the ardours of the budding year On the hoar breadth of grove-like cloisters old, Chapels, and libraries, and statued halls, England’s still saintly City ! Time has there A stone tradition built like that all round Woven by the inviolate hedges, where the bird Her nest has made and warbled to her young, May after May secure, since the third Edward Held his last tournament, and Chaucer sang To Blanche and to Philippa lays of love — Hot like Iernian records. Sad we rose, That tale complete ; and, after silence long, As homeward through the braided forest -skirt We trod the moonlight-spotted rocks, my friend Resumed, with pregnant matter oft more just In thought than application ; yet his voice Was softer than it wont to be. At last, After our home attained, we turned, and lo ! With festal fires the hills were lit ! Thine eve, Saint John, had come once more ; and for thy sake, As though but yesterday thy crown was won, Amid their ruinous realm uncomforted 218 THE sisters; or, weal in woe. The Irish people triumphed. Gloomy lay The intermediate space : thence brightlier burned The circling fires beyond it. ‘ Lo ! ’ said I, 4 Man’s life as viewed by Ireland’s sons ; a vale With many a pitfall throng’d, and shade, and briar, Yet over-blown by angel-haunted airs, And by the Light Eternal girdled round.’ Brief supper passed, within the porch we sat As fire by fire burned low. We spake ; were mute Resumed ; but our discourse was gently toned, Touched by a spirit from that wind-beaten grave, Which breathed among its pauses, as of old That converse Bede records, when by the sea, ’Twixt Tyne and Wear, facing towards Lindisfarne, Saxon Ceolfrid and his Irish guest, Evangelist from old Iona’s isle, ’Mid the half Pagan land in cloisters dim Discuss’d the Tonsure, and the Paschal time, Sole themes whereon, in sacred doctrine one, They differed ; but discussed them in such sort That mutual reverence deeper grew. We heard The bridgeless brook that sang far off, and sang Alone : for not among us builds that bird Which changes light to music, haply ill-pleased That Ireland bears not yet, in song’s domain To Spenser worthy fruit. Our beds at last, Wearied, yet glad, we sought. Ere long the wind, Gathering its manifold voices and the might Of all its wills in valleys far, and rolled From wood to wood o’er ridge and ravine, woke Those Spectres which o’erhang my sleep in storm, A hundred hills to me by sound well known, That stand dark clustered in the night, and bend With rainy skirt o’er lake and prone morass, THE sisters; or, weal in woe. 219 Or by sea-bays lean out procumbent brows, Waiting the rising sun. At morn we met Once more, my friend and I. The evening's glow Had from his feelings passed : in their old channels They flowed, scarce tinged. But still his thoughts retained The trace of late impressions quaintly linked With kindred thought-notes earlier. Half his mind Scholastic was ; his fancy deep : the age Alone had stamped him modern. Much he spake Of England wise and wealthy — now no more, He said, ‘ a haughty nation proud in arms/ Nor, as in Saxon times, a crowned child Propped 'gainst the Church's knee ; but Ocean’s Queen, Spanning the world with golden zone twin-clasped By Commerce and by Freedom ! But no less Of pride and suffering spake he, and that frown Sun -pressed on brows once pure. Of Ireland next ‘ How strange a race, more apt to fly than walk ; Soaring yet slight ; missing the good things round them, Yet ever out of ashes raking gems ; In instincts loyal, yet respecting law Far less than usage : changeful, yet unchanged ! Timid, yet enterprising : frank, yet secret : Untruthful oft in speech, yet living truth, And Truth in things divine to life preferring : — Scarce men ; yet possible angels ! “ Isle of Saints ! ” Such doubtless was your land — again it might be — Strong, prosperous, manly never ! ye are Greeks In intellect, and Hebrews in the soul : The solid Roman heart, the corporate strength 220 THE SISTERS ; OR, WEAL IN WOE. Is England’s dower ! ’ ‘ Unequally if so,’ I said, 1 in your esteem the Isles are matched : — They live in distant ages, alien climes ; Native they are to diverse elements : Our swan walks awkwardly upon dry land ; Your boasted strength in spiritual needs so helps you As armour helps the knight who swims a flood.’ He laughed. ‘ At least nor siren streams for us, Nor holy wells ! We love “ the fat of the land,” Meads such as Bubens painted ! Strange our fates ! Our feast is still the feast of fox and stork, The platter broad, and amphora long-necked ; — Ill-sorted yoke-mates truly. Strength, meanwhile, Lords it o’er weakness ! ’ ‘ Never yet,’ I answered, 6 Was husband vassal to an intricate wife But roared he ruled her ; ’ ere his smile had ceased, Continuing thus : — 4 Ay ! strength o’er weakness rules ! Strength hath in this no choice. But what is Strength ? Two Strengths there are. Club-lifting Hercules, A mountained mass of gnarled and knotted sinews, How shows he near the intense, Phcebean Might That, godlike, spurns the ostent of thews o’er- grown ; That sees far off the victory fixed and sure, And, without effort, wings the divine death Like light, into the Python’s heart % My friend, Justice is strength ; union on justice built : — Good-will is strength — kind words — silence — that truth Which hurls no random charge. Your scribes long time the sisters; or, weal in woe. 221 Blow on our island like a scythed wind : The good they see not, nor the cause of ill ; They tear the bandage from the wound half- healed : — Is not such onset weakness i Were it better, Tell me, free-trader staunch, for sister Nations To make exchange for aye of scorn for scorn, Or blend the nobler powers and aims of each, Diverse, and for that cause correlative, True commerce, noblest, holiest, frankest, best, And breed at last some destiny to God Glorious, and kind to man i — If torn apart One must her empire lose, and one her all/ Thus as we spake, the hall clock vast and old, A waif from Spain’s Armada chimed eleven : And from the stables drew a long-hair’ d boy Who led a horse as shaggy as a dog, A splenetic child of thistles and hill-blast, Bock-ribbed, and rich in craft of every race From weasel to the beast that feigns to die. Mounting — alas ! that friends should ever part, — My guest bade thus adieu : ‘ For good or ill Our lands are linked.’ And I rejoined, ‘ For which 2 This shall you answer when, your pledge fulfilled, Before the swallow you return, and meet The unblown Spring in our barbaric vale.’ EARLY POEMS: MEDITATIVE OR DEVOTIONAL. Ipclutanou. TO THE MEMORY OF SOUTHWELL AND CRASHAN. ODE TO JERUSALEM. i. Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! If any love thee not, on them May all thy judgments fall ; For every hope that crowns our earth, All birth-gifts of her heavenly birth To thee she owes them all ! ii. Deep was thy guilt, and deep thy woe ; The brand of Cain upon thy brow Each shore has felt thy tread : No Altar now is thine ; no Priest ; Upon thy hearth no paschal feast : The paschal moon is dead. hi. When from their height the Nations fall The kind grave o’er them strews her pall ; They die as mortals die : But He who looked thee in the face Stamped there that look no years erase His own on Calvary. IV. Awe-struck on thee men gaze, and yet Confess thy greatness, own our debt v. Q 226 ODE TO JERUSALEM. And trembling still revere The Royal Family of Man Supporting thus its blight and ban With constancy austere. v. Those Sciences by us so prized The sternness of thy strength despised, Devices light and vain Of men who lack the might to live In that repose contemplative Which Asian souls maintain. VI. By thee the Book of Life was writ ; And, wander where it may, with it Thy soul abroad is sent : Wherever towers a Christian Church Palace of Earth, Heaven’s sacred Porch It is thy monument. VII. Thy minstrel songs, like sounds wind-borne From harps on Babel boughs forlorn O’er every clime have swept ; And Christian mothers yet grow pale With echoes faint of Rachel’s wail ; Our maids with Ruth have wept. VIII. Thou bind’st the Present with the Past The prime of ages with the last ; The golden chain art thou Whereon alone all fates are hung ODE TO JERUSALEM. 227 Of nations springing, or upsprung Earthward once more to bow. IX. Across the World's tumultuous gate Thou flingest thy shadow's giant weight ; The mightiest birth of Time For all her pangs she may not bear Until her feast she bids thee share And mount her throne sublime. x. Far other gaze than that he pours On empires round thee sunk, and shores That once in victory shone, Far other gaze and paler frown The great Saturnian star bends down On cedared Lebanon. XI. He knows that thou, obscured and dim Thus wrestling all night long with him Shall victor rise at last : Destined thy mystic towers to rear More high than his declining sphere When, downward on the blast XII. God’s mightiest Angel leaps and stands, A Shape o’er-shadowing seas and lands ; And swears by Him who swore A faithful oath and kind to Man Ere worlds were shaped or years began, That ‘Time shall be no more.' 228 PERSECUTION, PERSECUTION. AN ODE. I. There was silence in the heavens When the Son of Man was led From the Garden to the J udgment ; Sudden silence, strange, and dread ! All along the empyreal coasts On their knees the immortal hosts Watched with sad and wondering eyes That tremendous sacrifice. ii. There was silence in the heavens When the priest his garment tore ; Silence when that Twain accursed Their false witness faintly bore. Silence — though a tremor crept O’er their ranks — the Angels kept While that Judge, dismayed though proud, Washed his hands before the crowd. hi. But when Christ His cross was bearing, Fainting oft, by slow degrees, Then went forth the angelic thunder Of legions rising from their knees. Each bright Spirit grasped a brand ; And lightning flashed from band to band : An instant more had launched them forth Avenging terrors to the earth. THE MAETY11D0M. 229 IY. Then from God there fell a glory Hound and o’er that multitude ; And by every fervent angel With hushing hand another stood : Another, never seen before, Stood one moment and no more ! — Peace, brethren, peace ! to us is given Suffering ; vengeance is for Heaven. THE MARTYRDOM. ANGELS. Bearing lilies in our bosom Blessed Agnes, we have flown, Missioned from the Heaven of Heavens Unto thee and thee alone : We are coming, we are flying, To behold thy happy dying. AGNES. Bearing lilies far before you, Whose fresh odours backward blown Light those smiles upon your faces Mingling sweet breath with your own Ye are coming, smoothly, slowly, To the lowliest of the lowly. ANGELS. Unto us the boon was given — One glad message, holy maid, 230 THE MARTYRDOM, On the lips of two blest Spirits Like an incense-grain was laid ; As it bears us on like lightning Cloudy skies are round us brightening. AGNES. I am here, a mortal maiden : If our Father aught hath said Let me hear His words and do them — Ought I not to feel afraid As ye come your shadows flinging O'er a breast to meet them springing ? ANGELS. Agnes, there is joy in Heaven ! Gladness like the day is flung O’er the spaces never measured ; And from every angel's tongue Swell those songs of impulse vernal All whose echoes are eternal. Agnes, from the depth of Heaven Joy is rising like a spring Borne above its grassy margin Borne in many a crystal ring ; Each o'er beds of wild flowers gliding, Over each low murmurs sliding. When a Christian lies expiring Angel choirs, with plumes outspread, Bend above his death-bed singing That when Death’s mild sleep is fled There may be no harsh transition While he greets the heavenly vision. ODE. 231 AGNES. Am I dreaming, blessed angels 1 Late ye floated two in one ; Now a thousand radiant Spirits Round me weave a glistening zone, Lilies as they wind, extending, Roses with those lilies blending. See ! the horizon’s ring they circle ! Now they gird the zenith blue ; And now o’er every brake and billow Float like mist, and flash like dew. All the earth with life o’erflowing Into heavenly shapes is growing ! They are rising : they are rising : As they rise the veil is riven ! They are rising ; I am rising : Rising with them into heaven ; Rising with those shining legions Into Life’s eternal regions. ODR The marvels of the seas and earth Their works and ways, are little worth Compared with man their lord : He masters Nature through her laws And therefore not without a cause Is he by all adored. 232 ODE. Lord of the mighty Eye and Ear, Each centring an immortal sphere Of empire and command : Lord of the heavenly Breast and Brow, That step which makes all creatures bow, And the earth-subduing hand. And yet, not loftier swells the state Of Man o’er shapes inanimate In majesty confest Than among men, that man by Eaith Assured in life, confirmed in death Uptowers above the rest ! For God is with him ; and the end Of all things, downward as they tend Toward their term and close A sov’reign throne for him prepares ; And makes of vanquished pains and cares A couch for his repose ! While kingdoms lapse, and all things range He rules a world exempt from change ; He sees as Spirits see : And garners ever more and more While years roll by, an ampler store Of glorious liberty ; Yea, ten times glorious when at last The enfranchised Soul, her trials past, Stands up, prepared to die ; And, fanning wide her swan-like plumes A glory flings across the glooms Through which her course must lie. VESPER HYMN. 233 VESPER H YMN. The lights o’er yonder snowy range Shine yet, intense yet tender ; Or, slowly passing, only change From splendour on to splendour. Before the dying eyes of Day Immortal visions wander ; Dreams prescient of a purer ray And morn spread still beyond her. Lo ! heavenward now those gleams expire In heavenly melancholy ; The barrier mountains, peak and spire, Relinquishing them slowly. Thus shine, O God ! our mortal Powers, While grief and joy refine them ; And when in death they fade be ours Thus gently to resign them ! NOCTURN HYMN. Now God suspends its shadowy pall Above the world, yet still A steely lustre plays o’er all With evanescent thrill. Softly, with favouring footstep, press Among those yielding bowers ; Over the cold dews colourless Damp leaves and folded flowers. 234 NOCTURN HYMN. Sleep, little birds in bush and brake ! ’Tis surely ours to raise Our hymns ere humbler choirs awake Their anthem in God’s praise. The impatient zeal of faithful love Hath forced us from our bed ; But doubly blest repose will prove After our service said. How dim, how still this slumbering wood And 0 how sweetly rise From clouded boughs and herbs bedewed Their odours to the skies ! Sweet as that mood of mystery Where thoughts that hide their hues And shapes are only noticed by The fragrance they diffuse. But hark ! o’er all the mountain verge The night-wind sweeps along ; O haste, and tune its echoing surge To a prelusive song ; A song of thanks and laud to Him Who makes our labour cease ; Who feeds with love the midnight dim And hearts devout with peace. ADAM REFUSES THE GIFTS OF THE RACE OF GAIN. 235 ADAM REFUSES THE GIFTS OF THE RACE OF GAIN. A FRAGMENT. I. Enthroned, and mantled in a snow-white robe Man’s sire I saw, the Lord of all the globe ; High-priest of all the Church, and Prophet sure Of Him whose promised kingdom shall endure Until the last of Adam’s race is dead. Nor crown, nor mitre rested on his head ; Yet kings with awe had viewed him ! Deep and slow His speech ; the words I knew not nor could know 3 But sighed to hear amid their golden sound A melancholy echo from the ground. Ages were flown since Adam’s lifted hand Had plucked, insurgent ’gainst Divine command, That Fruit, a sacrament of death which gave Perpetual life a forfeit to the grave : Yet still those orbs their Maker once that saw Governed the nations of the world with awe. Mournful they looked, as though their sorrowing weight Deposed for aye on Eden’s closing gate ; Mournful, yet lustrous still those lordly eyes First mortal mirror of the earth and skies And still with piercing insight filled as when God’s new-made creatures passed beneath their ken While he decreed, in his celestial speech, Prophetic names symbolical for each. All round, checkering the steep with giant shade His mild and venerable race were laid, 236 ADAM REFUSES THE GIFTS OF THE RACE OF CAIN. For dance and song no wreaths as yet had won : Many their strong eyes bent upon the sun, Some on a sleeping infant’s smiling face, Wherein both Love and Faith were strong to trace The destined Patriarch of a future race ! ii. Then through the silent circle, winged with joy, A radiant herald moved, a shepherd boy. Wondering he stepped ; ere long, like one afraid A tribute at those feet monarchal laid, A Lyre, gem-dowered from many a vanished isle. Thereon the Father gazed without a smile : But some fair children with the bright toy played ; While sound so rapturous thrilled the echoing glade That Seers, cave-hid, looked up with livelier cheer ; And the first childless mother wiped away a tear ! in. Later there came, as one who comes from far A branded warrior, gloomy from the war : Dark was his face, yet bright, and stern as though It bent o’er that of an expiring foe, Retorting still with sympathetic glare The imprecating anguish imaged there ! A tribute too that warrior brought, a shield Graven with emblems of a death-strewn field And placed it at the Patriarch’s feet, and spoke ; 4 Certain Oppressors reared an impious yoke And passed beneath it brethren of their race ; Therefore we rose and hewed them from their place.’ All pale the Patriarch sat — long time his eye Fixed on the deepening crimson of the sky THE PLANETS, 237 Where sanguine clouds contended with the dun : Then turned, and whispered in the ear of one Who, on his death-bed, whispered to his son — That son beheld the Deluge ! THE PLANETS; OR, OLD AND NEW. The Legend of the last of Grecian dreams — A wandering Bard’s. As silver stream that bounds Singing, from rock to rock, when through dark pines The moonbeams break their javelins on its mail, Gloom-loving splendour fairer for that gloom, So bright so sweet his Pagan songs, poured forth Full oft at rural festival : but Grace Came to him, that he scorned his country’s Gods And lived, though late, true bondsman of the Cross, Spurning those beauteous Fables fair but false, All that in youth the mythic Seers had taught him, For Beauty deathless, sacred and eterne. On Asian shores he strayed while Polycarp Puled yet at Smyrna ; from that Martyr old First heard of Christ. ’Twas there his lyre he brake : This was the last of all the songs he sang. Of Love, whose golden chain makes all things one ; Of Zeal, that keeps earth pure ; of Majesty, Which, like a crown, steadies the world’s great head ; Of Wisdom, which all these tempers and guides, Of Love, and Zeal, and Majesty, and Wisdom, Which light as stars our mortal night, and give Limits to Empire, and free space to Good, 238 THE PLANETS. Had been my thoughts. Within a bark I lay And in a book was reading of the Gods. Heading, I marvelled how that record old Fabled of Truth : how Song, not yet corrupt Like a great wave lifted the mind of man, And gave him ampler prospect. While I mused The setting sun flamed on the deep, the bells Pealed from a Church hardby and songs went forth : Then waned that radiance and the anthem died ; My brow dropped on the volume ; and I dreamed. Methought it was the vigil of tflfe day Of Hesurrection ; when the kings alone Shall throng as nations. In a murmuring field Of harvests by autumnal suns embrowned, Declining softly to the Western sea I lay ; then night fell, cloud-like, o’er the deep. An Angel caught me by the hands, and bore me Far up, and on. Ere long I stood alone Upon the point of a great promontory : A Cross was on the edge : from thence a bay Went back oblique into the heart of Heaven : Heaven’s phantom mountains girt it marble-black, Though streaked with flying heralds of the dawn. I on that Cross had leaned methought an hour, When from the bosom of that darkness old A glorious semblance momently more large, Emerged with speed divine : beneath his feet, Which scarcely touched it, was a Planet bent ; I marked it not at first, but deemed him flying, Such joy was from his lustrous forehead poured While his bright hair streamed back, both hands upheld THE PLANETS, 239 As though expectant of some heavenly crown ! Like homeward bark he wound into that bay. A milder Star came next ; and he thereon Was like a youthful god : high as his lips He held a golden Shell ; calm-faced as one Who late hath sung, and for the echo waits. Into that haven wound he. Next I saw A lovely Yirgin standing in white robes That shone like silver on the Morning Star. She, with one hand into her bosom pressed A dove : the other more than lily white Was ever smoothing down its snowy wings, And yet on it she gazed not but on Heaven. I turned — in minstrel’s garb beside me stood That Youth who last had vanished ; ‘ Well/ he sang, ‘ Doth Love, without the aid of eyes assure His heart ; upon some other heart reposing With beatings undistinguished from his own.’ She too had passed, when loud I cried, ‘ Declare The Vision ! 9 6 She loved much/ the youth replied, ‘ Therefore to her the star of Love is given. But see ’ — and Mars towards us moved — the fourth ! A shield was on his breast ; and, raised to Heaven, Both hands held high a Sword of God that beamed From hilt to point with blood incarnadine, The Cross upon his heart. His helm thrown back The warrior’s eyes were fixed on that Sword’s point, Which from pure ether drew a stream of fire, And, blazing like an amethystine star Poured beatific splendour on his face. ‘No other Spirit with a deeper joy/ Thus spake the Youth, 6 from out those crimson urns That stand beside the everlasting Altar Shall rlrink the sacramental wine of Life.’ 240 THE PLANETS. Thus while he spake the Planet disappeared ; And instant o’er his track great Jove advanced A kingly shape, and crowned with diamond : All round his loins a jewelled zone, inwrought With many symbols, like the zodiac clung ; The brightest sphere of Heaven beneath his feet : And He was sceptred. ‘ Lo ! how soon,’ thus sang That joyous Youth, ‘ doth Empire, crowned by Death, Tread in the bloody steps of Martyrdom ! Go forth, great King ! ’ and Jupiter passed by. Then all was hushed : till slowly like a sound So faint we know not when began its tremor Forth from the darkness the Saturnian star Began to move. An old man knelt thereon With prophet robes and face depressed and pale In hue like that which vaporous Autumn breathes On the dim gold of her discoloured woods. He bent his plaited brow and tawny beard O’er a short bar clasped tight in both his hands — ‘ Lo,’ cried that youth, ‘ the hoary might of Time ! The Linker of the End to the Beginning ! Ever his iron sceptre thus he bends Into a cirque, type of Eternity, And crown for the most worthy : when ’tis wrought, Time’s hard and iron sway is gone for ever, His boast to crown a mightier than himself.’ As Saturn passed, methought a smile there lay Hid in his sallow cheek. ‘ Declare,’ I cried, ‘ The mystery — what these are, and what art thou ? ’ ‘ These are the Planets,’ spake the Youth, ‘and they Who ride them are the loftiest Soul of each, By Virtue raised to rule those glittering orbs. The first that passed was Earth, thine ancient home. THE PLANETS. 241 The third was Venus, in the solar beam That bathes as water-lily in clear lake ; Her children are a choir of loving Spirits Lying on violet banks by tuneful streams ; There on the plume-like trees the wind blows gently For ever gently : not a mother there Would fear to rock her new-born infant’s cot Upon the topmost bough. Of these but few Have sojourned on the earth and striven to lure By gentleness your race to gentleness ; Oftenest not long their exile — by the sword Hewn down, or trampled under foot of men. The fourth was Mars : there dwell a hero race Warring on evil. Ofttimes to the earth Oppressed by tyrants, one of these was sent Breaker of chains. The Star of Jupiter Unto imperial Spirits doth belong : There, o’er its sea-like levels rise their thrones Like pyramids o’er Nilus kenned : on earth Men stare in wonder at their haughty feet, That tread your Planet like a thing foredoomed. In Saturn dwell the Prophets, far apart, ’Mid groves, and caves in sequence hollowed out Within the walls of the precipitous mountains. Before them, like a veil, from heights unknown The noiseless torrents stream scarce pierced by beams From seven broad moons : their wrinkled foreheads old They bend o’er emblemed scrolls and books of Fate. Of these but few have ever dwelt on earth. Mortal ! in Heaven was concord thus with men ! Love, Zeal heroic, Majesty, and Wisdom, There where ye guessed not lived and wrought and reigned : v. R 242 THE PLANETS. In seats by Pagan fancies long usurped They wound their choral dances thus round earth : Men their own greatness knew not, but exchanged For dust, celestial sympathy/ He spake, And light flashed from him making all things plain ! 4 Tell me thy name.’ 4 1 am,’ the Youth replied 4 The Shaping Instinct of the universe By bards of old named Hermes. I bestow Voice on all being; I of every Art Am father ; earlier, in lone wastes I cry Scaring those demons which in dance obscene Trample to mire of clay the heart of man Which should be singing ever, like this Shell Whose warbling but the echo is of strains Yon vanished Planets ever sang. Henceforth They rest : — but hark their sabbath song ! ’ He raised That Shell, and straight a harmony so rich It seemed the blending of all lovely voices, Moved o’er us like one wave that fills a bay : And ’mid that Psean murmuring I could hear A low deep music tremulent though sweet With that Eolian anthem sink and rise. 4 My task is done,’ it said ; 4 My wrinkled hands have rest ; the Crown is made : But who of earth can wear it 1 Whose brows are strong and broad enough to bear it ? Let him speak, let him speak, For my veins are waxing weak ; These eyes no longer can their vigil keep, My lids are growing heavy — I must sleep.’ A sound that quelled all other sounds, as stars At sunrise, shook my heart ; and I beheld Upon another and a larger sphere THE PLANETS. 243 Than all which yet had passed — a sphere unguessed By them of Pagan times — an Old Man standing : Older than all the Prophets seemed that Man, Older, methought than Time himself ; sea-sands Had numbered not his childhood’s years. His hair And beard rolled down athwart his breast, more white Than snows when Boreal lights from polar skies Shine keen on icy streams, or lies the Moon Dead on the glacier’s lap — O’er his calm face bright thoughts went sweeping ever Like gleams from rippling waters heaved o’er rocks : His eyes seemed yet to hold those vanished stars. I closed my own ; and when I dared to look He had not wound into that bay but passed Far to the North. That Youth beside me still Fixed on him eyes with awe distent, as though In garden-haunt long-loved a man at ease Up glancing o’er the lily and the rose, Confronted stood by some white mountain range Marvel till then unkenned, though ever there, Dwarfing a subject w^orld. At last he spake ; 4 Him knew I not of old : Him, knowing now, I fear to name : Old Bard of Grecian Pace The time of Finite Beauty is gone by : The time of all the Infinitudes is come And Beauty throned mid all. Lay down thine ear Down to this Shell, and hear Him what He speaks With that crystalline bass which like a sea Ingulfs all other sounds or lets them float As bubbles on the surface.’ I replied, 4 Not so ! I will not hear Him lest I die ; ’ And in that terror woke. 244 A TALE OE THE MODERN TIME. A TA LE OF THE MODERN TIME . June 1840. PART I. i. An old man once I knew whose aged hair A summer brilliance evermore retained : Youthful his voice and full not hawed nor spare ; His cheek all smooth and like a child’s engrained, Or marble altar innocently stained With roses mirrored in its tablet white — Like May his eye ; his foot-fall slow but light. ii. Yet no one marvelled at him : of his ways Rarely men spake as of the buried dead ; And dropped him from their lips with trivial phrase : ‘ Gentle he was, and kind/ the neighbours said, ‘ Albeit an idle life and vain he led.’ Odours he loved from flowers at twilight dim ; And breath and song of morn : children loved him. hi. I have beheld him on a wintry plant An eye delighted bending full an hour ! As though the Spring o’er every tendril scant Crept ’neath his ken. Methought he had the power To see the growing root plain as the flower. O’er a leaf’s margin he would pore and gaze As o’er some problem of the starry maze ! A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME, 245 IV. Over a rose his palm he loved to curve As though it brought him warmth from out the ground. Instinctively his step would often swerve Following slow streams that down in darkness wound : His body there he bent above the sound Heard but by him. A virgin world he trod As though it were the precinct of some god. v. I wondered at him long : but youth and awe Restrained me from demanding of his story. At last, it chanced one day this man I saw Reclining ’neath an oak rifted and hoary Last tree of a wild, woodland promontory. Far round, below, the forest deep and warm Lay waving in the light of an illumined storm. VI. I placed me at his feet : his eyes were closed ; Celestial brightness hung upon his mien, And all his features, tranquilly composed : I gazed on him, and cried, 4 Where hast thou been In youth? What done, what read, what heard, what seen ? ’ Irreverent was the inquest : yet the man Looked on me with a smile, and thus began. VII. The Tale, true told, of every Human Being Were awful ; yet upon each new-born child, 246 A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. As though none else there lived, the Eye All-seeing Rested in glory ! Heaven looked down and smiled : And choirs of joyful Angels undefiled Around the cradle sang and evermore In youth walked near him, after, and before. VIII. Stranger ! the veil of Sense in mercy hides The perils round us, as the mercies ! Say, Amid the forest on the mountain sides What miles of mazes hast thou tracked to-day ? Had some black chasm girt visibly thy way Oouldst thou secure have wandered thus ? Not so — The danger is not ours while danger none we know. IX. My life hath been a marvel. Thine no less. If thou that marvel hast not yet discerned Lament not therefore. Unto wretchedness That knowledge grew for which our parents yearned. The best and happiest ofttime least have learned Of Man’s dread elements — what dust — what spirit — That which w T e are, what have, what make, and what inherit. x. Action in trance, in panic Thought were lost, If all we are we knew ourselves to be. O’er a great deep, now calm, now tempest-tossed Rises one rock ; but, hid below the sea That rock slants down — a mountain ! Such are we — Our being’s summit only o’er the deeps Ascends : the rest is blind, and in the abysses sleeps. A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. 247 XI. In Man the Finite from the Depth ascends : Centre is Man of all men hear or see ; Chapel where Time with Incorruption blends Where Dust is wedded to Divinity. All but omnipotent in Will is he. Freedom his awful privilege ! Like a God He walks at noon ; at night lies cold beneath the sod, XII. Thou seekest Knowledge : every lore we prize But as a lamp thereby ourself to know. Stranger ! ’tis well within to turn our eyes If we look heavenward having turned them so. Horror unnamed and phantom forms of woe Rebuke the haughtier quest. With single aim If thou my tale require receive in joy the same. PART II. i. Happy my childhood was ; devout and glad : My youth was full of glory, joy, and might, Like some volcanic morn, and tempest-clad, In tropic regions, when from gulfs of night Day leaps at once to the empyreal height. Strength without bound in spirit, body, and soul, I felt : and in my rapture mocked control. ii. In the madness of that strength I went abroad Where’er Ambition called, or Passion led : 248 A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. Full many a deep my ploughing bark hath scored : Full many a plain hath echoed to my tread : All enterprise I sought : all books I read : All thoughts I pondered murmuring in my mirth That text, ‘ Be thou, 0 Man, the Lord of Earth. 7 iii. Deeply I studied in all tomes and tongues .The Historic legend, Philosophic page : More deeply yet those earlier mythic songs Built up by Bard for legislative Sage Himself a builder up, from age to age, Of States — true poems — Policies sublime, Wherein well-balanced Functions metre make, and rhyme. IV. All Art and Science at the Gentile feast Of Western pride advanced, I knew right well : And laughed to mark the great Book of the East Push on through all as through a garden dell Bright with frail flowers and paved with glittering shell Some Asian Elephant. I sought within For God, and there alone ; and recked not of my sin. v. Corporeal instincts only I denied : My larger concupiscence temperance feigned. Humble oft seemed I through the excess of pride And calm of conscious strength. No muscle strained ; That which the eye desired, the hand attained : A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. 249 Too proud for Pride’s less triumphs I had sworn To shun them ; or, first won, to fling them back in scorn. VI. Was I then wicked % Child ! applauding nations Such question asked, had called me great and good. I loved my kind — but more their acclamations : My thoughts were birds of prey and snatched that food Prom weak and strong to gorge their infant brood : — Much knowing, this I knew not. But the hour Was come that proved at last my fancied power. VII. One day a mountain’s summit I was pacing : Through cloudy chasms the sunbursts fell thereon ; Over its plain the mighty winds were racing Quiring Eolian anthems in loud tone. Long time I walked in pride and walked alone : And what I was revolved — and turned again, To mark the far off towns and visible main. VIII. Man I considered then : and I looked forth Upon the works and wonders of his hand : The deep his beaten road, his palace earth ; Commanding all things ; yet beneath command Of Mind — whereof I grasped the magic wand. — Fronting the sun, that set in blood, I saw Man’s shape against its disk ; and yet I felt not awe. IX. All treasures of my Thought again I spread Unrolled as in a map before my eyes ; 250 A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. And walked among them with a conqueror’s tread That moves o’er fields of hard- won victories, Dreaming of mightier yet. A long disguise Fell from me in that rapture ; and I trod A worshipper no longer but a God ! x. Towards me a throne descended through the air — Then lo ! the crown of my demoniac Pride Updrawn, raised up my horror-stricken hair ! For, wheresoe’er I wandered, by my side Another step appeared to tread and glide : No mortal form was near : and in the abyss Of heaven, the mountain floors are echoless. XI. I stopped ; it stopped : I walked ; it walked : I turned : My fears I mocked, unworthy of a man. Then a cold poison from that heart self-spurned Welled forth: and I, with eyes unfilmed, began Once more my life and inmost heart to scan : Till suddenly what shape in soul I was Before me I beheld plainly as in a glass. XII. Then my disease I knew ; but not the cure. Lightning, sent flaming from the breast of heaven, Revealed my sins long-hid from lure to lure : Beams from the eyes of God, like shafts were driven Against me : to her depth my soul was riven Whereof each portion, conscious and amazed, In stupor of despair upon the other gazed. A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. 251 XIII. Thus on my throne, that marble mountain height, My Soul I saw ! I went I know not whither. Down like a tempest fell from heaven the night : I heard the sea and rushed in panic thither ; By ghost-like clouds, and woods my step made wither, And rock, and chasm that seemed to gape and sever, I rushed — and rushed, methought, for ever and for ever. PART III. I woke in a great cavern of the main. The wave rolled in upon its strong breast bearing A storm of icy wind and cloudy rain With sound as if of souls that died despairing : The billows, that rough beach harrowing and tearing, Thundered far oft* : while morning, just begun, Peered dimly through the spray, and through the shadows dun. II. That shore was piled with death, like Nature’s bier. There, whitening spread a sea-beast’s mouldering bones : The rifted wings of some dead eagle here. Over the wet cliff went funereal moans. Yet calm at first I paced those wave- washed stones. Whose crash the deadlier sound awhile could quell Of that low step close by, my spirit’s knell. 252 A TALE OF THE MODERN TTME. III. Still, still, where’er I turned that step would follow. My fate above me hung as by a thread : Beneath me yawned the earth, a vast veiled hollow ! To battle-fields athirst for death I fled. Yet there, while headlong hosts beside me sped, That footstep still I heard and knew from all ; Now harsh, now dull as moth fretting a codin’ s pall. IV. Thick, thick like leaves from autumn’s skeleton woods The shafts went by me, and as idly went. Then back I turned into my solitudes As slow, in sullen cloud of rage o’er-spent, As mountain beast into dim forest tent, With hunger unabated, when the night Melts ; and the eastern wolds spread wide in hated light. v. Stranger ! I tell you part : I speak not all. Thenceforth I walked alone ; and joined my kind Only when lured by some black funeral : On capital cities oft, with watchings blind, I gazed, what time rushed forth the freezing wind Between their turrets and the wintry stars ; All day I lay in tombs, or caves dim-lit with spars. VI. On peaks eclipsing to its rim the ocean Hath been my dwelling : rivers I have seen Whose sound alone dispersed a gradual motion O’er cloud-like woods, their deep primeval screen. Sand-worlds my feet have trod beneath the sheen A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. 253 Of spheres unnamed. From zone to zone I fled As though each land in turn grew fire below my tread. VII. But Heaven had ended now my time of sorrow When most I seemed in penal horror bound : Dreamless one night I slept, and on the morrow Strange tears now first amid the dew I found Wherewith my heavy hair and cheeks were drowned ; And in my heart, fanned by that morning air, There lay, as I walked on, my childhood’s long-lost Wearied, I sat upon a sunny bank, Bidged o’er a plain yet white with virgin snows Though now each balmy noon and midnight dank Lightened the burden of the vernal rose ; My eyes, their wont it was till daylight’s close, Fixed on my own still shadow, in that light Intense keenly defined, and dark as night. IX. I hung above it : sudden, by that shade Another shadow rested ; faint and dim : At first I thought my tears the phantom made ; Then cried ‘ I do but dream it, form and limb.’ In horror then abroad I seemed to swim : Then my great agony grew calm and dumb ; For now I knew indeed my destined hour was come. x. My spirit’s foe was now the spoil to claim : My heart’s chill seemed his hand upon my heart — 254 A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. O marvel ! clearer while that shade became No mocking fiend, I saw, no lifted dart ; But a dejected Mourner ! down, apart, His head declined : one hand in grief he pressed Upon the heaving shadow of a sorrowing breast. XI. The other round my neck was thrown, so fair, So kind, so gentle, none thereon might gaze Nor feel that Love alone had placed it there ! There dropped the cloud of my Self -haunted days. He who for years had tracked my wandering ways Had followed me in love ! O Virgin-born, Thy shadow was the light of my eternal morn ! XII. Stranger ! there came a joy to me that hour ; Such joy that never can it leave my soul : All Heaven, condensed to one ambrosial flower, Fell on my bosom — Truth’s inviolate whole ! Obedience was the way ; Love was the goal : God, the true U niverse, around me lay : Systems and suns thenceforth were motes in that clear ray ! XIII. From that time saw I what ’tis Heaven to see, That God is God indeed, and good to Man. Theist then first. Who Love’s Reality Hath proved, forgets himself to probe and scan. Knowledge for him remits her ancient ban : Back fly those demons outwardly to sin That lure the soul or turn our inquest sad within. A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. 255 XIV. Then looked I up ; and drank from Heaven that light Which makes the world within and world around Alone intelligible, pure, and bright : My forehead then, but not by me, was crowned : Then my lost youth, no longer sought, w T as found : My penance then complete ; or turned to pain So sweet, the enamoured heart embraced it like a gain. xv. My kind, new-vested in the eternal glory Of God made Man, glorious to me became. Thenceforth those crowns that shine in mortal story I deemed it grief to bear, madness to claim. To be a man seemed now man’s loftiest aim. True Rule seemed this — to wait on one the least Of those who fight God’s fight, or join His kingly feast. XVI. Then the Three Virtues bade me kneel and drink : Then the Twelve Gifts fell from the heavenly tree : Then from the Portals Seven, and crystal brink, Dread Sacraments and sweet came down to me. Then saw I plain that Saintly Company Through whom, as Living Laws, that world which Sense Conceals, is ruled of God, by Prayer’s Omnipotence. XVII. Thus in high trance, and the way unitive, I watched one year : which sabbath ended, God Stirred up once more my nest, and bade me live, Active and suffering. So again I trod 256 A TALE OF THE MODERN TIME. The temporal storm and wrestled with the Hood ; And laboured long ; and, by His grace, behold, Two grains I brought, or three, to swell the hills of gold. XVIII. Lastly, my faculties of body and mind Decayed, through God's high will and boundless love, And from the trunk whereon they grew declined, As leaves from trees or plumes from moulting dove. Thenceforth, more blest, I soared no more, nor strove ; But sat me down, and wait the end, as waits, Sun-warmed, a beggar by great palace gates. XIX. Stranger ! this tale of one man’s life is over. No knowledge mine in youth have I unlearned : But I the sense was gifted to discover Of lore possessed long since, yet undiscerned : Truths which, as abstract or remote, I spurned In youth, as real most my heart now prizes ; And, what of old looked real, now as dream despises ; xx. Or but like dreams reveres. Hollow and vain To me the pageants of this world appear ; Or truth but symbolled to the truthful brain. The future world I find already here ; The unbeholden palpable and dear : Firm as a staff to lean on • or a rod Of power miraculous, and sent by God. MAGDALENE IN THE DESERT. 257 XXI. Stranger, farewell! Far oft* a bell is tolling : A bridal or a funeral bell — whatever It chaunts, in harmony the tones are rolling. All bells alike summon mankind to prayer ! Yea, and for me those twain one day shall pair Their blended chimes to one. When I am dead Stain not with tea,rs my grave : it is a bridal bed. XXII. He ceased. The inmost sense of that I heard I know not : yet, because the man was wise, His legend I have written word for word. All things hold meaning : to unclouded eyes Where eagle never soared are auguries. It may be then this weed some balm doth bear ; Some cure for sight long dim ; some charm against despair. MAGDALENE IN THE DESERT . i. Say, who that woman kneeling sole Amid yon desert bare 1 The cold rain beats her bosom, The night-wind lifts her hair — It is the holy Magdalene, O listen to her prayer. ‘ Lord, I have prayed since eventide : And midnight now hath spread s V. 258 MAGDALENE IN THE DESERT. Her dusky pall abroad o’er all The living and the dead. The stars each moment shine more large, Down-gazing from the skies : O Father of the sorrowful Turn thus on me Thine eyes ! ’ ii. Hark, thunder shakes the cliff far off ! The woods in lightning glare ; The eagle shivers in her nest The lion in his lair : And yet, now trembling and now still, She makes the same sad prayer. ‘ Lord of the sunshine and the storm ! The darkness and the day ! Why should I fear if Thou art near ? And Thou art near alwa.y ! Thus in the wilderness, Thy Son Was tempted, Lord, by Thee : lie triumphed in that awful strife : O let Him plead for me.’ iii. How often must that woman pray 1 How long kneel sighing there ? O joy to see the Holy Cross Clasped to a breast so fair ! — Speak louder, blessed Magdalene, And let me join thy prayer. 6 Lord ! Thou hast heard my plaint all night ; And now the airs of morn My forehead fan, my temples wan, My face, and bosom worn ! ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 259 O ! o’er my weak and wildered soul, Make thus Thy Spirit move ; That I may feel the light once more And answer love with love ! ’ ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS . i. ‘ Those destined Thoughts that haunt my breast, And throb, and heave, and swell, Impatient of their painful rest And state invisible, Those Thoughts at last must meet the day, And with me dwell, or on me prey : On me, on me those Thoughts must call And act, and live, and move abroad : I am the mother of them all : Be Thou their Father, God ! ’ ii. Thus prayed I ; musing on that law By which the children of the brain Their linked generations draw, A melancholy train From moods long past which feigned to die But in whose quickening ashes lie Immortal seeds of pain or pleasure No foot can crush, no will control, No craft transmute, no prescience measure, Dread harvests of the ripening soul ! 260 REALITY. REALITY. Love thy God, and love Him only : And thy breast will ne’er be lonely. In that one great Spirit meet All things mighty, grave, and sweet. Yainly strives the sonl to mingle With a creature of our kind : Yainly hearts with hearts are twined ; For the deepest still is single. An impalpable resistance Holds like natures still at distance. Mortal ! love that Holy One ! Or dwell for aye alone. * HUMANITY. i. Earth’s green expanse : her dawns one wave of Her soft winds creeping o’er the forest tall : Her silence ; and the comfort of her night ; Are these then all % All thou canst give to me, Humanity % ii. Tears running down the track of buried smiles Time’s shades condensed into the sable pall : Hope that deserts ; and Gladness that beguiles Are these then all ? All thou canst give to me, Humanity ? VIA INTELLIGENT!^. 261 III. I saw a Spirit dark ’twixt Earth and Heaven, Holding a cup in both hands lest it fall — 0 friends! a mournful life to us were given, If Earth were all ! But He who lives for aye hath looked on thee, Humanity. VIA INTELLIGENTI/E. 0 wash thine eyes with many a bitter tear ; And all things shall grow clear. Bend that proud forehead nearer to the ground ; And catch a far foot’s sound. Say ! wouldst thou know what faithful suppliants feel 1 Thou, too, even thou, must kneel. Ho but thy part ; and ask not why or how : Beligion is a Vow. They sang not idle songs ; pledges they made For thee, an infant, laid In the Church’s lucid bosom. These must thou Fulfil, or else renounce ! Fulfil them note. A Cross, and not a wreath was planted on thy brow. Forward, a step or two, where’er we go We gaze ; not on the spot our feet are treading : Beading, we look along, or glance below, Unconscious of the letters we are reading. 262 ST. DYMPHNA. The Future moulds the Present. Do not halt To probe, or mourn, each felt, or fancied fault ; ‘ Steadfast by Faith/ who treads where Hope hath trod, Following her winged Sister to the throne of God ! ST. DYMPHNA . Within the crowded fane she knelt, As if before God’s throne : Nought heard, saw nought ; alone she felt : Alone with Christ alone. Amid the desert knelt the maid ; Alone, yet not alone ; Praying with all that ever prayed Before the eternal Throne. No wealth was hers in fields or flocks : The poor had all her gold : But honey gushed from the sunny rocks, And in milk the streamlet rolled. O blissful maid, through light and shade So bright a path was thine ; Bound hill and glade thy lustre played, And still o’er earth doth shine ! MARTHA AND MARY. 263 MARTHA AND MARY. i. ‘ O Sister ! leave you thus undone The bidding of the Lord ? Or call you this a welcome 1 Bun, And deck with me the board. 7 Thus Martha spake ; but spake to one Who answered not a word : For she kept ever singing, ‘ There is no joy so sweet As musing upon one we love ; And sitting at his feet ! 7 ii. ‘ O Sister ! must my hands alone His board and bath prepare ? His eyes are on you ! raise your own : He 7 ll find a welcome there ! 7 Thus spake again in loftier tone That Hebrew woman fair. But Mary still kept singing, 4 There is no joy so sweet As musing upon him we lo ve ; And resting at his feet ! 7 264 HYMNS* HYMNS . I. 4 The Earth is the Lord’s. ’ I. Lokd of the Lords of all the earth ! Lord of the souls of men ! From Thee all heavenly gifts have birth ; To Thee return again ! ii. The lightnings flashed from off Thy throne Fill Heaven and Earth with light ; And by that living flame alone Men read the world aright. hi. On every crown and sceptre shed Thy beams of glory shine ; And burn round every Father’s head, That rules by right Divine. IV. The Priests by thee anointed, stand Beside his altar, each ; And all the Wise, a Prophet-band, What Thou hast taught them teach. v. Thy voice, O Father, rolls around The world for evermore ; The speech we know not but the sound In silence we adore. HYMNS. 265 VI. The Heavens themselves repose thereon ; Thereon the Earth is stayed : And seasons change, and rivers run By Thee ordained and swayed. II. PEACE. We lead a gentle life below : Our days, that seem to pass, Glide on and blend — before Thy throne Thus spreads the sea of glass. ii. One image fills that crystal sea ; One light o’er all doth shine : Yet every separate drop hath power That radiance to enshrine. hi. Nor less in unity and light True brethren, we abide ; ‘ Like drops of Hermon’s dew ’ that still Into each other slide. IV. Eternal glory, thanks and praise To Thee, O God, to Thee, Who buildest all the peace of men Upon that prime decree : 266 HYMNS. Y. That he who loves the Lord his God Should hold all creatures dear ; And whoso fears his God, henceforth Should feel no baser fear. III. i. ‘ He giveth His beloved sleep. The haughty sow the wind : The storm they sow ; the tempest reap ; But rest they cannot find. ii. In sleep itself their furrowed brows, That care-worn mark retain ; Avenger of the guilt it shows, The curse and brand of Cain ! hi. Best is of God. He doth not sleep ; But while His children rest His hand outstretched and still doth keep O’er earth, their shadowed nest. IV. His holy Angels chaunt around, To chase dark dreams away, That slumbers innocent and sound May leave serene the day. HYMNS. 267 IY. i. In that cold cave with spices sweet When Christ, our Lord, lay dead, An Angel sat beside His feet, An Angel by His head. ii. All night their eyes to Heaven they raised Their wings around Him spread All day on those dark eyelids gazed But not a word they said. hi. And when the morn sabbatical Its Paschal light had spread, A chrysome robe o’er Earth’s dark ball To Heaven those Angels sped. IV. Keep, holy Angels, keep, O keep Such vigil by our bed : Calm visions from the urns of sleep, O’er us calm visions shed ! v. But when we wake to morning life And night’s pure calm is fled Stay near us in our daily strife, Or we are worse than dead ! 268 HYMNS. y. i. The stars shine bright while earth is dark While all the woods are dumb How clear those far off silver chimes From tower and turret come ! ii. Chilly but sweet the midnight air : And lo ! with every sound Down from the ivy-leaf a drop Falls glittering to the ground. hi. J Twas night when Christ was born on earth ; Night heard His faint, first cry ; While Angels carolled round the star Of the Epiphany. IV. Alas ! and is our love too weak To meet Him on His way ? To pray for nations in their sleep '? For Love then let us pray ! v. Pray for the millions slumbering now : The sick, who cannot sleep : O may those sweet sounds waft them thoughts As peaceful, and as deep. HYMNS. 269 VI. Pray for the unholy and the vain : O may that pure-toned hell Disperse the Demon Powers of Air, And evil Dreams dispel ! VII. Pray for the aged, and the poor ; The crown-encompassed head ; The friends of youth, now far away ; The dying ; and the dead. VIII. And ever let us wing our prayer With praise ) and ever say Glory to God Who makes the night Benignant as the day ! VI. i. A low sweet voice from out the brake Provoked a loud reply : Now half the birds are half awake ; They feel the morning nigh. ii. Fainting beneath her load of dreams The Moon inclines her brows, Expectant, towards those mightier beams That grant her toils repose. 270 HYMNS. III. Long streaks, the prophets of the Sun, Illume the dusk, grey hill : But still the heart of Heaven is dun ; The day is virgin still ! IV. O Christ ! ere yet beheld on earth How oft, incarnate Word, Thy Prophets heralded Thy birth ! Alas, how seldom heard ! v. Rise, holy Brethren, rise, and sing A prayer : and while we pray The morn shall fan with heavenly wing Our lethargy away. VI. Burst Thou, O God, these chains of flesh These languid eyes inspire : Our spirits make as morning fresh, And pure as solar fire : VII. And grant us, fronting thus the East, When all the heavenly Powers Come forth to deck the bridal feast, A place among Thy bowers ! VIII. Come, Lord and Master ! come and take At last Thy ransomed home : Bid all Thy faithful dead awake ; And may Thy Kingdom come ! HYMNS. 271 VII. CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. I. With virgin heart, undazzled eye, The Yirgin-born went on Each snare surmounted or passed by, Until His task was done. ii. With bleeding feet but lifted head The waste of life He trod : Tinging, each step, with holy red The consecrated sod. hi. Those steps our earth doth yet retain : And when dark vapours hide That Sun which lights our pilgrim-train She too can be our guide. IV. Father of Him and us ! Thy grace On us and all bestow Who seek the goal He sought, to trace His footmarks in the snow ! v. O joy to follow Him in hope For days, for months, for years : Our steps in turn o’er His to drop And o’er His blood our tears ! 272 HYMNS. VIII. TO THE HOLY SPIRIT. I. The wind rang out from depths of woods And pealed through valleys bent Among the echoing hills like tubes Of some vast instrument. Its sound we heard ; but know not whence It came, nor whither went. ii. The wind upon our forehead blows : In gleams of lambent flame The sunbeams flash from wave and leaf : The hour is now the same As when to Christ’s anointed Twelve That promised Spirit came. hi. The sound as of a rushing wind Before His wings He flung : And leaped on those uplifted brows In many a flaming tongue ! — 0 breathe on us Thy seven-fold powers : 0 dwell our hearts among ! IV. Live Thou in Christ’s mysterious Yine Until her branches spread Among the stars — to them as flowers ’Mid locks of one new-wed : And clasp in their descending arch The Earth’s wide bridal-bed ! HYMNS. 273 HYMN ; FOK THE FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS. I. Let the Proto-martyr rest Earliest honoured of the dead ; John ! upon thy Saviour’s breast Drop once more that saintly head ! All the Church is met to-day Unto God to sing and pray ; Remembering those, the Babes, to whom was given First for their Lord to die and meet Him first in Heaven ! ii. Yield the children readiest place ! Tender parents, near them stand ! From each mother’s tearful face All that little awe-struck band Well may learn and aptly teach That God’s electing love can reach, Winding untracked its own mysterious way Souls which have only learned to suffer and obey. hi. As from some Hesperian Isle Ravished rose-leaves loosely strewn Through a dark lake’s dim defile When the morning breeze hath blown — Such were ye : so smooth the breath That snatched you, blushing, on to death. Mourn, Rachel, mourn no longer ! lest your sighs O’ertake those vernal souls soft journeying to the skies ! v. t 274 HYMNS. IY. Blessed infants timely caught From a mortal mother’s breast, That wondering Angels might be taught What of earth is best ! They with food of heavenly grain Meet your lips your strength sustain, And teach you words of heavenly lore, and keep A low and dulcet chaunt around you while you sleep. v. Hark, I hear them as they bend O’er your cots, and gently sway them ; Angels’ songs with ours they blend : Night or morn they never stay them. 4 Glory be to God,’ they cry, 4 To, and from Eternity : To God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, All glory be from men, and from the Angel host.’ HYMN . THE MEEK. 4 Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth . 5 I. Meek souls ! whose humble faith can prize Those heavenliest gifts of man, Obedience, and Self-sacrifice, Life’s first, last, only plan By which we mount 4 from grace to grace ’ Toward our celestial resting-place ! HYMNS. 27 5 ii. All hail ! the haughty from their towers Look down on you with scorn On you, scarce seen like meadow flowers Grass-hid, that perfume morn ! Unmarked the while for them ye pray : Earth's salt that keeps her from decay. hi. Taught by the Church and by the Spirit Ye know that all things good Are yours, unsought ; that ye inherit By virtue of your blood Old Adam's blood in Christ made pure Whate'er is worthy to endure. IV. Therefore while haughtier hands up-pile Their towers of sun-burned clay On yielding sand, volcanic isle, A brief and perilous stay ; Ye dwell in tents, removed at will : They fall ; yet safe their inmates still ! v. ‘ What man shall reign ' No matter who ! Alas ! we rave, and fret, We press, we struggle, we pursue ; For what ? for Power ! And yet On us submissive Angels wait, Pleased with their mild Diaconate. 276 HYMNS. VI. O place us on the lowliest ground That we, thus low, may see, Upreared above us, and around, Rank, Order, and Degree : Terrace o’er terrace ranged on high To lure and rest the heavenward eye ! VII. All Earth is yours ; her mild increase ; Her lore through types laid bare ; Her generous toils ; her grateful ease ; Her duties ; and whate’er To nature, with a 4 natural art ’ Freedom and heavenly peace impart. VIII. Nature to docile hearts, and minds That sympathise with her In sunniest calms or dreariest winds Alike doth minister : Dark days her fasts the Fancy calls And bright her moving festivals. IX. The soul uncumbered with a load Of self-dependent care Moves forth on equal plumes abroad, A Spirit of the air : Its own identity forsakes ; Its own all shapes of beauty makes. HYMNS. 277 x. How much that Genius boasts as hers And fancies hers alone, On you, meek Spirits, Faith confers ! The proud have further gone Perhaps, through life’s deep maze ; but you Alone possess the labyrinth’s clue. XI. To you the costliest spoils of Thought Wisdom, unclaimed, yields up ; To you her far-sought pearl is brought And melted in your cup. To you her nard and myrrh she brings Like orient gifts to infant kings. XII. The c single eye ’ alone can see All Truths around us thrown In their eternal unity : The humble ear alone Has power to grasp, and time to prize, The sweetness of life’s harmonies. XIII. Notions, to Thought made visible Are but the smallest part Of those immortal Truths, which dwell Self -radiant in man’s heart. With outward beams are others bright ; But God has made you { full of light.’ 278 HYMNS. XIV. One science well ye know ; the Will Of God, to man laid bare : One art have mastered ; to fulfil The part assigned you there : If other, meaner lore ye sought, This first ye learned — to need it not ! xv. Empiric Laws, that hide the grace Of human life, as hard As iron mask upon a face From answering eyes debarred, Form but a lucid veil to you With all the Godhead shining through, XVI. Yes, Angels prompt us, Spirits fence ! But ye, a Father’s hand Who trace through all His Providence, Discern that Angel-band ; ’Tis yours alone their choirs to mark Descending to our precincts dark. XVII. One half of all our cares and woes Exist but in our thought ; And lightly fall the rest on those With them who wrestle not. The feather scarcely feels that gale Which bursts the seaman’s strongest sail. HYMNS. 279 XVIII. Yourselves not loving, room have ye For love of all your kind : And ye revere the mystery Of Love Divine enshrined In human ties that, day by day Some portion lose of mortal clay, XIX. And dearer far become the names Of Father, Child, and Wife To those who feel their heavenly claims : And holier earthly Life To those who in that myriad mirror See thus their Lord undimmed by error. xx. In Kings you see Him on His throne : In Priests before the shrine : In suffering men you hear Him groan : Thus life becomes divine ; Each shower with Fontal grace imbued , And Eucharistic all your food ! XXI. Your virtues shall not die with you Or those you leave behind, Destined each year to bloom anew, And ampler space to find For boughs o’er earth that spread and wave Though centered in your silent grave. 280 HYMNS. XXII. That Race ordained so long to be Sole witness here of God Formed but a single Family, Yea, scattered now abroad, Are still his seed whose marvelling eyes First saw them star-like in the skies ! XXIII. What, though the long-lived Patriarchs saw Their offspring as the sands ! To those who see them not that Law Unchanged and changeless stands, That Law which honours in the dust The Souls that placed with God their trust. XXIV. Even now in each fair infant’s face The eye of Faith can see A mild and patriarchal grace A Regal dignity : He sits by future throngs half hid ; His throne that living pyramid ! xxv. Hail, noble Spirits, hail, O hail ! While bleats the lamb or cooes the dove, Your gentle kind shall never fail, Nor earth wax faint in love. Hail, kings of peace : to you are given Flower-crowns on earth, star-crowns in Heaven HYMNS. 281 HYMN. FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. Lay foundations deep and strong On the rock, and not the sand — Morn her sacred beam has flung O’er our ancient land. And the children through the heather Beaming joy from frank bright eyes Dance along, and sing together Their loud ecstasies. Children, hallowed song to-day ! Sing aloud ; but singing pray. Orphic measures proudly swelling Lifted cities in old time : Build we now a humbler dwelling With a humbler rhyme ! Unless God the work sustain Our toils are vain and worse than vain. Better to roam for aye than rest Under the impious shadow of a roof unblest ! ii. Mix the mortar o’er and o’er Holy music singing : Holy water o’er it pour Flowers and tresses flinging ! Bless we now the earthen floor : May good Angels love it ! 282 HYMNS. Bless we now the new-raised door And that cell above it ! Holy cell, and holy shrine For the Maid and Child divine ! Bemember thon that see’st her bending O’er that babe upon her knee All Heaven is ever thus extending Its arms of love round thee ! Such thought thy step make light and gay As yon elastic linden spray On the smooth air nimbly dancing, Thy spirits like the dew glittering thereon and glancing ! hi. Castles stern in pride o’er-gazing Subject leagues of wolds and woods ; Palace fronts their fretwork raising ’Mid luxurious solitudes ! These, through clouds their heads uplifting, The lightning wrath of heaven invoke : His balance power is ever shifting ; The reed outlasts the oak. Live, thou cottage ! live and flourish Like a bank which mild dews nourish Bright with field flowers self -renewing, Annual violets, dateless clover ; Eyes of flesh thy beauty viewing With a glance may pass it over ; But to eyes that wiser are Thou glitterest like the morning star ! O’er every heart thy beauty breathes Such sweets as morn shall waft from those new- planted wreaths ! HYMNS. 283 IV. Our toils — not toils — are all but ended ; The day has wandered by : Her silver gleams the moon hath blended With the azure of the sky : Yet still the sunset lights are ranging On from mossy stem to stem ; Low winds their odours vague exchanging Chaunt day’s requiem. Upon the diamonded panes The crimson falls with fainter stains : More high in heavenward aspiration The gables shoot their mystic lines : While now, supreme in grace as station The tower-like chimney shines. Beneath that tower an altar lies. Bring wood : light up the sacrifice ! Now westward point the arched porch — Crown with a Cross the whole : our cot becomes a Church ! v. Strike once more a livelier measure Circling those fair walls again : Songs of triumph, songs of pleasure Well become you, gladsome train ! Mark that shadowy roof ! each angle Angel heads and wings support : Those the woodbine soon must tangle These the rose shall court, And mingling closer hour by hour Enclose ere long a sabbath bower. 284 HYMNS. There shall the Father oft at even Entone some ancient hymn or story Till earth once more grows bright as heaven With days of long past glory, When Truth and Honour ranged abroad To cleanse the world from Force and Fraud ; When Zeal was humble ; Hope was strong : And Virtue moved alone the angelic scourge of Wrong ! VI. O happy days ! exhaustless dower Of spotless joys and hours well spent Renewed while moons their radiance shower Upon the Acacia’s silver tent, Or airs of balmiest mornings thrill And swell with renovated play The breasts of children, childlike still And innocent alway. O’er them light flit our woes and jars As shades o’er lilies, clouds o’er stars : Even now my fancy hears the cooing Of doves from well-known perch or croft ; The bees even now the flowers are wooing With sleepy murmur soft. Glad home, from menial service pure ! Thee shall no foreign wants obscure : Here all the ties are sacred ties : And Love shines clear through all, and Truth asks no disguise. VII. Kings of the earth ! too frail, too small This humble tenement for you ? HYMNS. 285 Then lo ! from Heaven my song shall call A statelier retinue ! They come, the twilight ether cheering Not vain the suppliant song, not vain, Our earth on golden platform nearing, On us their crowns they rain ! Like Gods they stand, the portal Lighting with looks immortal ! Faith, on her chalice gazing deep : And Justice with uplifted scale : Meek Reverence ; pure, undreaming Sleep : Yalour in diamond mail : There Hope with vernal wreath : hardby Indulgent Love ; keen Purity ; x\nd Truth with radiant forehead bare : And Mirth, whose ringing laughter triumphs o’er Despair. VIII. Breathe low ! stand mute in reverent trance ! Those Potentates their mighty eyes Have fixed : Right well that piercing glance Roof, wall, and basement tries ! Foundations few that gaze can meet : Therefore the Virtues bide with few : But where they once have fixed their seat Her home Heaven fixes too ! They enter now with awful grace Their acceptable dwelling-place : In tones majestical yet tender They chaunt their consecration hymn From jewelled breasts a sacred splendour Heaving through shadows dim. 286 HYMNS. The rite is done : the seed is sown : Leave, each his offering, and be gone ! Stay, ye for whom were raised these walls ! Possession God hath ta’en : and now His guests He calls. HYMN. FOR GOOD FRIDAY. I. O Lamb of God ! on Whom alone Earth* s penal weight of sin was thrown, Have mercy, Saviour, on Thine own. For thou art Man. The Virgin gave To Thee her breast ; the earth a grave. If smiles, while Infant yet, on Thee Were found, Thy Mother knows, not we. A man, o’er Lazarus lulled asleep, With them that wept Thou too didst weep. Thy tears in dust of Salem sunk Ere yet her heart Thy blood had drunk. All griefs of mortals Thou hast known — Have mercy, Saviour, on Thine own. ii. O Lamb of God, on Whom was laid That debt all worlds had never paid, Have mercy, Saviour ; hear and aid. For Thou art God. With God, behold, Thou sat’st upon His throne of old : Dread throne surpassing depth and height, Eternal throne, and infinite ! HYMNS. 287 Yet pity reached Thee there for man, Ere worlds were made, or pain began. With Abel bleeding Thon didst lie, With Isaac forth wast led to die, With Stephen stoned, and since, and yet, With all Thy Martyrs’ blood art wet. hi. 0 Lamb of God, on Whom alone Earth’s penal weight of sin was thrown, Have mercy, Saviour, on Thine own. Again the depths are stirred : we wait Before the shrine’s forbidding gate, We stand in sable garments clad : The infant at the breast is sad. This day unconsecrated lies The Host : unblessed the Sacrifice ! Tremble the altars disarrayed : The mighty temples are dismayed : Their chaunts are dead : nor lamp, nor light Save from the Sepulchres at night. IV. O Lamb of God, on Whom was laid The debt all worlds had never paid, Have mercy, Saviour 3 hear and aid. Again rings out that sound abhorred : Again, O widowed Church, the sword Pierces thy sacred heart — the cry Of 4 Crucify Him, Crucify.’ The Priest his garment rends again 3 Once more blaspheme that perjured Twain 3 Once more the upbraiding voice foretold Peals through dark shades from gardens cold. 288 HYMNS. — Prince of the Apostles ! ah that we, Like thee who fall, might weep like thee ! y. O Lamb of God, on Whom alone Earth 7 s penal weight of sin was thrown, Have mercy, Saviour, on Thine own. By each step along that road : By that Cross, Thine awful load : By the Hebrew women’s wail : By the sponge, and lance, and nail : By Mary’s martyrdom, when she In Thee died, yet offered Thee : By that mocking crowd accursed : By Thy dreadful, unquenched thirst : By Thy three hours’ agony : And by that last unanswered cry — VI. 0 Lamb of God, on Whom was laid The debt all worlds had never paid, Have mercy, Saviour, hear and aid. Like shapes at God’s last trump new-risen, My sins time-buried rise — and listen. The veil is rent ; the rocks are riven ; And demons sweep yon darkened heaven. Three crosses bar the black on high — That Thief beside Thee hung so nigh — How rolls he now on Thee his eye ; Nor sees beyond Thee hills or sky ! Thus, Christ, we turn from all to Thee 4 Miserere Domine.’ HYMNS. 289 HYMN . THE WASHING OF THE ALTAR ON GOOD FRIDAY. I. Pour forth the wine-floods rich and dark Over the altar-stone : The time is short ; the yew-trees, hark, How mournfully they moan — It is the sacred blood of Christ By angels poured o’er earth ; While sable turns to amethyst And death to the new birth. ii. O’er all the altar pour the wine With joyful strength amain ; The streams alone from God’s great vine Can clear that altar’s stain — It is the Saviour’s wondrous blood : — The ensanguined planet now Ascends from this baptismal flood As bright as Christ’s own brow. hi. The flood that cleanses on and in Boll, sacred brethren, roll ; But Thou whose suffering purged our sin, O wash each sinful soul ! It is the atoning blood of Him By Whom all worlds are shriven : Who lights with love our midnight dim And changes earth to Heaven, v. u 290 MAUNDY THURSDAY. MAUNDY THURSDAY. THE WASHING OF THE FEET. Once more the Temple-Gates lie open wide : Onward, once more Advance the Faithful, mounting like a tide That climbs the shore. Naked as tombs the Altars stand to-day : The shrines are bare : Christ of His raiment was despoiled ; and they His livery wear. This day the mighty and the proud have heard His ‘ Mandate New ; ’ That which He did, their Master, and their Lord This day they do. This day the mitred foreheads, and the crowned In meekness bend : New tasks this day the sceptred hands have found The Poor they tend. To-day those feet which tread in lowliest ways Yet follow Christ Are by the secular lords of power and praise Both washed and kissed. Hail Ordinance sage of hoar antiquity Which she retains That Church who teaches man how meek should be The head that reigns. SELF-SACRIFICE. 291 SELF-SACRIFICE. i. When Christ let fall that sanguine shower Amid the garden dew O say what amaranthine flower In that red rain up grew h If yet below, the blossom grow Then earth is holy yet : But if it bloom forgotten, woe To those who dare forget ! ii. No flower so precious, sweet, and lone Expands beneath the skies : In Eden bowers it lurked unblown — Its name ? Self-sacrifice ! The very name we scarce can frame, And yet that secret root The monsters of the wild might tame, And Heaven is in the fruit ! hi. Alas ! what murmur spreads around 4 The news thereof hath been : But never yet the man was found Whose eye that flower hath seen/ Then nobles all ! leave court and hall And search the wide world o’er ; For whoso finds this Sancgreall Stands crowned for evermore ! 292 THE CREATION OF MAN. THE CREATION OF MAN. A RABBINICAL TRADITION. When but the first page of the Book of Fate As yet lay open — thus the Seers relate — When through the new-born woods the lion ran The pard, but eyed not yet their master, Man ; When blindly worked through clay the thing that creeps ; When hung, amazed, the eagle o’er the deeps ; The great Creator, bending from the shore Of heaven, awhile His six days’ work forbore : He willed not that like beast or bird should rise That Face whose forehead parleys with the skies ; That even man’s earthly garb should take its mould Save from Himself, the Eternal One of Old,. Ere yet His ‘ hour was come,’ the All-Wise, All-Good In human form, then first Incarnate, stood : Behind Him sank the sun o’er pastures golden ; Man-shaped before Him stretched His sacred shade ; He stood, He spake with sceptred hand high-holden ; ‘Bise, Man, from earth in God’s own Image made:’ And where that shadow on the sward was stayed Forth from his native dust ascending, Man obeyed. AN ANCIENT LEGEND, AND ITS ANSWER. 293 AN ANCIENT LEGEND , , AND ITS ANSWER. [‘Through Alexandria there rushed of old, a Woman with disordered garb that held high in one hand a Torch, and in the other bore a Jar of Water, and cried aloud, saying, “With this Torch I will burn up Heaven, and with this Jar of Water I will quench Hell, that henceforward God may be loved for His own sake alone.” J ] Thou Christian Msenad, with thy Torch and Jar That wouldst burn Heaven to its remotest star And quench all Hell, that thus, beneath — above — God might be God alone, and Love but Love, Too proud for gifts ! dash down that Jar and Torch, And learn a lowlier wisdom from the Church. Know this, that God is Heaven: with Him who dwell Find Love’s Reward perforce : and theirs is Hell, Hate’s dread self-prison, who pine in endless night From God self-exiled ; haters of the light. Mienad ! Thy Thyrsus is no Prophet Rod : Who cancels Heaven and Hell must cancel God. TRIAL. ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. As when for weeks the tempest blinds Some sea-girt mountain, night and day, So storms of trial, clouds and winds Besieged his soul till not a ray Could reach him of that glory streamed From God upon the new-born world : An erring star and lost he seemed Through endless darkness onward hurled. 294 ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. At last, his large heart breaking, down He knelt his latest prayer to make, True heart that,. shrivelling in the frown Of God, that God would not forsake, ‘ If I must lose Thee there beneath, Lord, let me love Thee till I die ! ’ — It sank — the black cloud’s latest wreath And God was his eternally ! SONNETS. 295 (Sonnets. GOBS GIFTS . I. Love to the tender ; peace to those who mourn ; Hope to the hopeless, hope that does not fail, Whose symbol is the anchor, not the sail ; Glory that spreads to Heaven’s remotest bourn And to its centre doth again return Like music ; health revisiting the frail ; Freedom to those who pine in dungeons pale ; Sorrows which God hath willed and Christ hath worn ! Omnipotence to be the poor man’s shield ; Light, uncreated light, to cheer the blind ; Infinite mercy sent to heal and bind All wounds encountered in life’s well-fought field ; These are God’s gifts to man ; — nor these alone : Himself He gives to all who make those gifts their own. LAW AND GBAGE. II. Yes, I remember : once beneath a yoke We walked, with jealous pride and painful fear : 296 SONNETS. Then a stern footstep sounded ever near ; And, when that Presence dread His silence broke, Austere and cold as if a statue spoke, Each marble sentence smote upon my ear ; Yet ‘ Thou shalt not ’ was all that I could hear — Then sudden from its trance my spirit woke. The sun was rising. Floods of light divine, Golden, and crimson on the mountains played. I saw the village spire like silver shine : Eolian music filled the echoing shade : And I could hear, through all the murmuring glen, Music of moving Gods come down to live with men. CHURCHES . III. A castle strongly built, and eminent Above Time’s battle-plain defaced and gory ; A palace where, in robes of kingly glory Our spirits rest ; among parched sands a tent ; One sunlit isle in a vexed element ; A gallery graced with all the pictured story Of earth and man ; a high observatory Whence eyes of seers for aye on Heaven are bent ~ Such is yon Church : and round its tapering spire I see, descending like a heavenly crown Immortal forms a wreathed and beautiful choir Bearing in golden urns and baskets down Angelic food ; and scattering with the sound Of hymns and chaunted psalms those demons hovering round ! SONNETS. 297 IY. Ye praise the humble : of the meek ye say ‘ Happy they live among their lowly bowers ; The mountains, and the mountain-storms are ours ! ’ Thus, self-deceivers, filled with pride alway, Reluctant homage to the good ye pay, Mingled with scorn like poison sucked from flowers — Revere the humble ! godlike are their powers : No mendicants for praise of men are they. The child who prays in faith ‘ Thy will be done ’ Is blended with that Will Supreme which moves A wilderness of worlds by Thought untrod ; He shares the starry sceptre, and the throne : The man who as himself his neighbour loves Looks down on all things with the eyes of God ! Y. That depth of love the Church doth bear to thee Thou knowest not yet ; for thou not yet hast felt The beatings of an infant’s bosom melt Into thine own ; and all that mystery Whereby, nought-seeing — caring not to see — The creature, instinct-taught, its food doth draw By a sweet pressure and benignant law Forth from its mother’s breast perpetually. But, by the blessings of thy future hearth, By all its order, sanctity, and peace, Resist not Her whose meek and tearful eyes Followed the wanderer ever from Her birth ; W hose shadow charmed thy sleep ; whose litanies Soft as Spring’s breath woke first thy soul’s increase! 298 SONNETS. THE VASTNESS OF DIVINE TRUTH LOST IN ITS SIMPLICITY. VI. From end to end we glance ; from Adam’s fall To Christ’s triumphant death and victory, At once — those mysteries that between them be By man are known but scantly, if at all : And thus in time our marvel waxes small ; Thus gazing down into an air-like sea Its depth eludes us from its purity, And treasures ours so cheaply vainly call For gratitude or gladness. On we go Unmoved beneath a heaven of awe-struck eyes ; While purer beings, Angel minds that know The cost of that great boon which we despise Look down on us, suspended from their skies, With deeper awe than men on God bestow. EVIDENCES OF RELIGION . VII. 1 . Letters there be too large for us to read : Words shouted mock the sense, and beat the air : Emblazon not in such a type thy creed : Through such a trumpet peal not thou thy prayer. Truth has her Saxon friends , of whom beware : No alien help, or haughty, doth she need : To him who seeks her, pure in heart and deed Her pledges and her proofs are everywhere. SONNETS. 299 Whate’er we hear or see ; whate’er doth lie Bound us in Nature ; all that human thought In Science, or in Art, hath found, or wrought, Stand fixed as notes on Truth’s immortal book, What need we more % a Commentary ? look Through all the mighty roll of History ! EVIDENCES OF RELIGION . VIII. 2 . Ye who would build the Churches of the Lord ! * See that ye make the western portals low : Let no one enter who disdains to bow. High Truths profanely gazed at, unadored, Will be abused at first, at last abhorred ; And many a learned, many a lofty brow Hath rested, pillowed on a humbler vow Than critic ken can notice or record. O stainless peace of blest Humility ! Of all who fain would enter, few, alas ! Catch the true meaning of that kind, sad eye ; While thou, God’s portress, stationed by His door, Dost stretch thy cross so near the marble floor That children only, without bending, pass. An ancient custom. 300 SONNETS. SIMPLICITY AND STEADFASTNESS OF MIND . IX. When plain and city, garden, mount and wood Under the Flood’s blank tablet lay unseen Three objects only met thy vision keen Angel of Earth ! in that wild solitude ; The Sun ; that shining and unshadowed Hood : And, heaven- ward lifted on its tide serene, The Ark, sole-drifting where a world had been — Ho meaner image lured thine eye from God. Our eyes are full of idols : O ! that we From those soul-murdering gewgaws of the day Might turn, and fix our gaze immovably Upon God’s Church, tracking its marvellous way Over the ocean of God’s awful Love — And Him, that steadfast Sun which lights her from above. THE PENITENT . X. From grave to grave I pace inwardly sighing 4 Is not this place for my repentance meet ? ’ Borne through dark boughs the night-winds unreplying The unanswered question mournfully repeat. To you I turn, under the damp grass lying, O Friends ; and pray you from your dusk retreat To breathe a spirit of sorrow holy and sweet Over this heart dried up, in silence dying. SONNETS. 301 And thou, in Palestine’s cold shadows sleeping ’Mid dust with tears of thine so often blent Give me one gush of thy perpetual weeping, Holy Saint Mary, ever penitent ! Night after night fresh dews revive the flowers : Ah ! that one Baptism should alone be ours ! SPIRITUAL RETREATS. (penitential 1.) XI. Baths of the Church ! seclusions sad, yet dear ! Amid your cloistral caves, and shadowy cells, That dark-stoled hermitress, Repentance, dwells, Haunting your loneliest shades with patient cheer ; And agitating oft with hallowing tear The streams Bethesdal of your healing wells ; Or murmuring low her grief-taught oracles For souls too weak to feel, too proud to hear. ‘ Alas ! world-wearied Spirits, fly no more ! These springs make strong the feeble knees : these dews Efface the lines of lingering care ; infuse Immortal youth through bosoms of threescore : — Draw near. The Angels shall your introit sing, Fanning your weary foreheads with assuasive wing. 302 SONNETS. DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUBCH. (penitential 2.) XII. Too much of mirth — too many smiles — depart Vain phantoms of the Sense, false baits of sin ! One hour for holy mourning who may win Amid the clamour of the world’s loud mart % A sigh throws wide the portals of the heart : Pure Spirits enter : good resolves begin : How wholesome then that care, how kind that art The highways of man’s life o’ershadowing With cypress thickets at wide intervals, And gardens bowered ’mong cedar-darkened rifts Hollowed with dewy vaults, and silent halls ; Where smooth once more the soul her forehead lifts And pleasurably spreads a widening eye Shrunk up too long and dimmed by the sun’s tyranny PENITENTIAL SEASONS. XIII. ‘ Large as the beads of this dark rosary Was each successive drop that slowly fell Down from the Saviour’s temples, audible To the earth’s beating heart. O misery ! I had forgotten them ! forget not me, Thou merciful Redeemer. Like a knell My sinful Past salutes me ! Let me dwell Henceforth in that sad garden, Lord, with Thee.’ SONNETS. 303 Even thus the Holy Church with lifted palms On her wet eyelids pressed and forehead pale Depressed beneath a dusk, funereal veil Chaunteth all night her penitential psalms : Nor from her mournful litanies can cease Until the sun shall rise and give her peace. ON A PICTURE OF THE MAGDALENE , XIY. Weeper perpetual, of whom men say Not that she lived so long, ‘ but so long wept ; ’ And in her fond imagination crept Fearful, yet fond, to those blest feet each day : There knelt to wash them : there to wipe them lay : There in her shining locks caught them and kept : And hallowed thus, a tender love-adept, Thenceforth those glittering tresses never grey ! — Fulfilled Thy Master’s word hath been ! Where’er Thy Lord is preached art thou remembered, making Repentance to sad hearts dear, and yet dearer. Thine eyes like heavens by midnight rains left clearer, How oft we see thee thus through deserts bare, Thy sad yet solaced way in silence taking ! 304 SONNETS, DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH (commemorative. ) XY. With solemn forms, benign solicitudes, But each a Sacramental type and pledge Of Grace, the Church inweaves a sheltering hedge Around her garden vale in the wild woods ; Giving Heaven’s calm to Nature’s varying moods. She plants a cross on every pine-girt ledge : A chancel by each river’s lilied edge. Where’er her Catholic dominion broods, Behold how two Infinitudes are mated, The Mighty and Minute by the control Of Love or Duty linked with care sublime ! On earth no spot, no fleeting point of time, Within our mind no thought, within our soul No feeling, doth she leave unconsecrated. NATURAL RELIGLON XYI. Search ye the Heart of man until ye find That which is deepest. Baise your eyes again Up through the loftiest region of his Mind : And in each spacious, and serene domain The same calm Presence ye shall mark enshrined : The Thought of God — For pleasure, or for pain It fills the one great soul of all our kind : And Conscience to her breast this Truth doth strain SONNETS. 305 Away with blind, empiric argument To ’stablish that which is the ultimate, The ground, o’er which all other notions pass ! Man may distort God’s Image, not create — We dim too closely o’er the semblance bent, With our own breath pure Reason’s mystic glass. INTERIOR EVIDENCES. XVII. It was not with your gold, nor with your merit You bought that peace celestial now your own. You did not those heart-quickening hopes inherit Like youthful princes born to grace a throne. These are the fruits of that eternal Spirit, Who showers His grace on Faith, and Faith alone : Whose yoke but steadies those that gently bear it, Whose Presence can but through His Gifts be shown. These are the proofs, th’ assurance which you thought That you were seeking ; while, intent to shun Truth’s living Lord, yourself alone you sought : Now you have found yourself in Him, and won The bloodless triumphs of the fields He fought : The rest your own right hand must teach — Ride on ! CONVERSION XVIII. Loud as that trumpet doomed to raise the dead God’s voice doth sometimes fall on us in fear, v. x 306 SONNETS. More often with a music low yet clear Low whispering, 4 It is I : be not afraid.’ And sometimes, mingling strangely joy with dread, It thrills the spirit’s caverned sepulchre Deep as that voice which on the awe-struck ear Of him, the three-days-buried, murmuring, said 4 Come forth ’—and he arose. O Christians, hail As brethren all on whom our glorious Sun At morn, or noon, or latest eve, hath shone With light, and life : and neither mourn nor rail Because one light, itself unchanging, showers A thousand colours on a thousand flowers. THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS . XIX. How many precious influences meet In this frail flower, the orphan of the year ! To her the Sun, her little span to cheer, Sends down two momentary heralds, heat And light, and pours his tribute at her feet : Yea, every atom of earth’s solid sphere Shoots forth attractions that concentrate here And in this lowly creature’s pulses beat. Then wherefore fear that any human soul Small though it be, is worthless in His sight Whose Mercy, like His Power, is infinite ? Why doubt that God’s eternal Love can reach At once the vital soul of all and each ; And one vast Sympathy inspire the whole % SONNETS. 307 NATURE AND GRACE. XX. That Light which is the Life alone can give The living Power which makes us love the Light : Love it in Faith, and with the Godlike might Of Love, to Love’s one object cling and cleave : But we can only have what we receive. By conscience taught man’s eye discerns the Bight ; But this we lack — the strength to scale its height That we with it might dwell, and in it live. Science and Song, their constellated wings Waving from Eastern unto Western skies, Soar but to sink. Not any bird that flies Mounts straight ascending — Grace, and Grace alone Shoots heavenward, as from yonder altar-stone The sacrificial flame triumphant springs ! SONNETS BY THE LATE HON, STEPHEN E. SPRING RICE. * * I have been again permitted to enrich this volume with a series of sonnets by the late Stephen E. Spring Rice. To those who knew him the beauty of many will be no surprise, though they lacked his last corrections. Friends less intimate will be pleased at discovering how compatible are poetic power, imagin- ative emotion, and refined thought, with habits of business, and the most ardent practical energies directed to their most generous and dutiful ends. 1861. I. With slow and thoughtful step I went my way Through new-mown meadows, crowded pastures green, On the ‘ Hawk’s Cliff,’ in thickets deep, unseen, Without a friend to pass the summer’s day. * I read of murdered Strafford as I lay, Of timid, faithless Charles, of Pym serene Though mourning for the friend whose youth had been Brightened, like his, with Freedom’s purest ray. Did Friendship earn from Charles no better fate ? Could not strong Friendship something then avail, And J ustice from her claims on Pym abate ? — Then rather let me listen to the gale Ruffling the sunlit foliage, and create A world of friends unseen than trust to those who fail. Oureagh Chase, August 17, 1837. THE BLACK TARN UNDER MANGERTON II. With quicker coming breath and shorter stride We reached at length the level, purple height Which seemed from far unto our straining sight Browning’s Drama. 312 SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. The crown of that calm monarch’s silent pride ; But, when we paused, we heard a petty tide Hoarse, low, monotonous ; and, dark as night, A sullen lake lay shadowed by the might Of rugged cliffs that bound its further side. How fit an emblem of the mind whose share Of life is solitude and selfish thought Gloomy, and murmuring on a barren strand ! Mine be a bay by eager breezes fanned, And not by tempest into anger wrought Though Ocean’s pulse is ever throbbing there ! January 22 , 1838 . EARLY FRIENDSHIP. III. The half-seen memories of childish days When pains and pleasures lightly came, and went ; The sympathies of boyhood rashly spent In fearful wanderings through forbidden ways ; The vague, but manly, wish to tread the maze Of life to noble ends : whereon intent, Asking to know for what man here is sent, The bravest heart must often pause, and gaze — The firm resolve to seek the chosen end Of manhood’s judgment, cautious and mature : Each of these viewless bonds binds friend to friend With strength no selfish purpose can secure ; — My happy lot is this, that all attend That friendship which first came, and which shall last endure. SONNETS BY S. JS. SPRING RICE. 313 DRUDGERY. I V. Pleasant it is, at close of weary day, When all is out of sight that vexed the mind To dull routine or petty task confined, — Pleasant with intermitting chat to say ‘ This easy converse fully doth repay The morning's labour.' Search ! and you shall find That only toil upon some work assigned Can fit foundation for such leisure lay. My friends are gone ; these things I think and feel, As o’er the dewy grass a path I make : Some distant waggon with its labouring wheel Betrays the silence which it seems to break ; Slow, heavy perfumes o'er the garden steal ; The flickering branches in the moonbeam shake. TITIAN’S PICTURE OF BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. N. Young Ariadne, by her lover led Through narrow mountain pass, or woodland glade Rich with a thousand flowers, loved the shade That o’er her modest steps a veil outspread : Now, with slow tears she mourns that lover fled : Her golden hair, half fallen from the braid, Hath but a wavering protection made For the fair brow ; and from her glossy head 314 SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. The sunbeams glance. Alone she walks the shore When suddenly is thronged that barren place, And youthful Bacchus, like a bursting wave Leaps from his panther car with headlong grace. — And will his godlike raptures please her more Than calmer joys her mortal lover gave ? August 20 , 1843 . MARY SAYING HER, PRAYERS . VI. 1 . Wilful and dull and sullen seems that child ; But who in that soft countenance can find An index to the thoughts that fret her mind ? By no long-cherished hope was she beguiled ? Has no uncertain vision gleamed and smiled, Then faded from her eyelids ? Had the wind, Circling the world, no messages consigned To her young heart this morning sweet and mild, When with the dawn it touched upon her brow % By recollections flickering, undefined, Perhaps she may be haunted even now ; By dim and shapeless aspirations vexed, With infantile experiences entwined ; By half-seen truths surprised, alarmed, perplexed August 15 , 1846 . SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. 315 VII. 2 . Slow serious phrases, tender words and few The mother whispered in a voice subdued, Gently submitting to the wayward mood Which from her loving watchfulness she knew Would fade away, and by observance due Be soon succeeded ; no abrupt or rude Commandment was she forward to intrude ; The instinct of affection, ever true To loftiest conceptions of the mind, Prompted such patience and respect for those Who tho’ on earth and to our care consigned Are yet angelic. Seeing them, she knows What loveliness might shine in humankind If still unstained by sin, unworn by woes. August 28, 1846. OLD AND MODERN LEARNING . VIII. The learning of old times was as a stream Through many an untrod glen that held its way, Smooth-flowing, clear, and silent as a dream To the calm precincts of a cloister grey ; In which the sculptured fount would doubtless seem A Station fit, where holy men each day Might read the gracious Word, and muse, and pray, ‘ Send us the living water, Lord Supreme ! ’ 316 SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. The learning of these days doth rush along By humblest hut and proudest palace bowers, Like a broad torrent, troubled, loud, and strong; Each sloping bank, throughout the circling hours, Is crowded by an eager, restless throng — They crush to dust the few remaining flowers. IX. Love is historic ; rests upon the past ; Still lingers lovingly on old detail ; Still, like the holy bells, rings out a tale For ever new, from earliest to last : Love is prophetic ; climbing still the mast Discerns of distant hope the signal pale, And on the straining spar extends the sail Withheld by colder counsels from the blast. Mysterious delight in what is lost ! Wild half fruition of what may be won By struggling perseverance, tempest-toss’d ! Yet love in silence wrapt and deep repose, Whilst one short hour its hasty course can run, May find more joy than many a lifetime knows ! X. Think not man’s fallen nature can accept, Or, if accepting, value at their worth Rites that lack splendour ; slave of grief or mirth By fleshly lusts he is in bondage kept. SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. 317 Far less believe that splendid rites give birth To heartfelt sorrow, such as his, who ‘ wept And smote upon his breast/ for this man stept With downcast eyes, not heeding aught on earth. Man must employ in worship every power, Will, reason, understanding, heart, and sense ; And should he on some dull or fond pretence Neglect but one, then from devotion’s flower He cuts a leaf that drank the heavenly dew, Or root, that purity from baseness drew. XI. If, task’d beyond my strength, I crave delay And weakly wish that to another hand Had been committed what divine command Has sent to mine ; if on th’ appointed way I pause, and, thoughtless of my purpose, stray ; If, wearied with the men, the clime, the land Which I call mine, I seek another strand, That on the wings of chance I lightly may Outstrip the homely cares which day by day Hum in my ears ; if by myself I stand Accused of all these faults, and cannot say That I less subject am unto their sway Now than of old — you needs must understand How rashly upon me new duties would you lay. 318 SONNETS BY S. E. SPKING BICE. XII. Soft sighing wind that comest to dispel The rigid bond that holds the buds so long As almost to provoke a sense of wrong In those who now have sadly watched them swell Slowly, for weeks ; 0, would that I could tell How deep the joy thou bringest, and how strong ! O that I too could blossom into song, And hail thee loosen’d from thy southern cell Whilst all surrounding Nature seems to smile And bare her breast at thy sunbright approach ! 0, wherefore hast thou tarried so long while h Dear spirit ! tenderly must I reproach Thee, dallying upon the Italian shore Or launching thence across the purple, smooth sea floor. XIII. No sweeter pleasure can this life supply Than what my darling children daily bring To me, well wearied of that noisy thing We call society : without a sigh — Nay, gladly — I would cast ambition by, Content to hear their eager questioning (The chirping of young birds that cannot sing), To weigh for them the words of my reply, And righteously instruct them — I should rest Like the worn ship in harbour there below, SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. 319 W hich, safe from struggling on the Ocean's breast, Floats in the silent water — what a glow The setting sun casts on her tricolor crest ! She hears far off waves toss and tempests blow. Jardin Marengo, Algiers : January 28 , 1855 . SYMPATHY DISPENSED WITH . XIY. And if indeed I wear my soul away, And pour my heart out upon barren stones, And vainly try to vivify dead bones, And through dry deserts hunt a worthless prey ; If, disappointed, thus from men I stray, And strive to find a meaning in the tones, The half-heard whispers and the sullen moans, In which unfeeling Nature seems to say, But says most falsely, that in her doth dwell A sympathetic beating of the heart, Should then myself against myself rebel, And dream of a self-centred life apart, Myself shall blame myself : all may be well : Love, without self-love soothes the bitterest smart. February 8 , 1857 . 320 SONJNETS BY S. E. SEEING K1CE. THE HEART KNOWETH ITS OWN BITTERNESS . XV. We sat together underneath a lime, Whose netted branches wove an emerald night ; And in short sentences — in low and light Whispers — recalled the stories of old time : Until some word, I know not what, some rhyme Dragged out a hidden grief, that lived — in spite Of creeping lichen years — such years as might Well humble all that once was thought sublime. My grief it was, and will be : she but sees A strangeness which she cannot understand ; A nameless tower overgrown with trees ; A heap of stones encumbering the land ; A hearth now haunted by the wintry breeze, Long, long ago, by love and fancy fanned. January 19, 1858. XYI. ‘ The spacious Shenan, spreading like a sea/ Lies far below, beyond the lawn and wood, That, tender green, this, rich in purple bud ; And, hidden from the sight by bush and tree, I hear a tinkling streamlet fall and flee Through the deep glen to seek that distant flood Soft airs escape from the hill-side and scud, With gentle touches, bird-like, wild, and free, SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. 321 Across that glassy bosom. All is peace. Would that with me such calm might ever dwell ! That I might live content, nor seek release From cares appointed ; never feel the swell Of vague ambition ; dream of no increase In wealth or power ; well loved, and loving well ! Mount Trenchard : April 6, 1860. SICK DREAMS ALL . XVII. WRITTEN IN SICKNESS. The spirit worn with sickness walks thro* vales Of shadowy meaning, elbowed by a flow And ceaseless throng of ghastly forms, that show Some fleeting token, which, tho’ light, assails The memory, and rends aside its veils; Or through some ebon vault, set deep below, With outstretched hands and stumbling step and slow, The sick man’s fancy wanders; or he sails Upon a smooth broad sea ; some unseen hand Directs the helm and gives a steady run ; His languid eye perceives no distant land ; He knows not of his journey ; if begun But now, or ending, cannot understand ; But sails toward a drooping blood-red sun. April 1861. v. Y 322 SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. THE DREAM OF A LIFE. XVIII. WRITTEN IN SICKNESS. I wander in a thick-set wood alone — Tall, naked boles of trees around me crowd, And overhead their branches weave a shroud For the dead earth : ever I hear the moan Of the sharp winter wind, or else the groan Of some old tree that in past tempests bowed And shaken to the root betrays aloud Its coming fall. I find no friendly stone That measures distance in this dreary wild ; No path is obvious to my drooping eyes ; Days, weeks, and years have gone since on me smiled Unbroken light above ; I sit, and rise ; Lie down or wander aimless : hope is gone ; Escape from this dark forest there is none. June 1861. t HOLD UP , OLD HORSE ! 1 XIX. The exile pacing o’er the Russian plain To that far East where he must waste his life, Exhausted with the long and passionate strife Whose failure earned this fate, can not retain Or fix the thoughts which flit across his brain ; His memory with formless clouds is rife, SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. 323 Of youth and home — of children and of wife — Lost in a haze of dull and leaden pain : So I, ere half my day is spent, outworn, And stepping surely towards an early end, But dimly see the promise of my morn, Though far unlike that wretched one forlorn ; — Lovers and friends my failing steps attend ; And I can welcome all that God may send. March 4, 1864. SPRING. XX. Long wished-for, bursts in gladness the new year, Sweetness and beauty freely sheds around, And hides anew the sullen withered ground With tender verdure, whilst from far and near The song of birds crowds thick upon the ear, Perplexing sense with multitudinous sound ; No jealous laws are felt that tie and bound The bounteousness of Nature, no sad fear Of late born frosts her genial step delays : As friend to friend his hoarded thought betrays, Long chilled and frozen by the mastering need Of sympathy, and finds both that and praise, So spring is welcome in each flower and weed, Lavish in love, and fearless in her ways. May 12, 1864. 324 SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. TO LINA . XXI. The night is soft as under southern skies ; The garden is deserted, save by me ; Whilst ever and anon a gleam I see Flash from the house, perplexing my old eyes; For one short moment on the lawn it lies, Then into ghostly being brings a tree Unseen before — the murmur of the sea Steals through the branches. But a glad surprise Absorbs all these delights, and gives its own ; From the sweet south leaps out a gracious wind, Fresh, strong, and soothing, stirring in the mind Old thoughts and new, by its elastic tone ; — Such and so sudden was, on seeing you, My joy to-day ; ah ! moments dear and few ! August 4, 1864. LEFT ALONE. XXII. The sea-gulls glancing o’er the glittering wave Are now my sole companions : and indeed, When questioned, I replied I had no need Of others. Vain my boast ! ah ! vainly brave From past experience, when warm pulses gave An inner strength that either took no heed Of outward circumstance, or let it lead By seeming chance to thoughts or gay or grave. SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. 325 But now a leaden heart has lost its spring And must renew its impulse from without. Whenso my darling children crowd about, And their swift thoughts wheel by upon the wing, Strong in their strength, I follow in their flight : One after one they pass ; and then comes dreary night. Gibraltar Bay, on board the ‘ Sidon ’ : November 25, 1864. EDIFICATION. XXIII. ON THE BAPTISM OF AN INFANT IN ST. PETER’S. If this vast building had been reared for nought But as a temple where this solemn rite Might be completed, still the hands that wrought Its stately walls, the intellectual might Of its great architect, the wealth that brought Art’s choicest treasures had been used aright, Clothing with fitting dignity the thought That on man’s heart God’s Spirit doth alight. Yet it may happen that this helpless child Should far surpass the wonder here achieved, Leading a life of virtue, pure and mild, By this world’s shallow splendour undeceived, May build in many hearts shrines undefiled With bright examples from his life received. 326 SONNETS BY S. E. SPRING RICE. THE BABY ON THE BUG . XXIV. The sky that was in purity divine When the fresh dawn crept down upon the bay, Is harried now with clouds, nor comes a ray Of hope • — of peace and happiness no sign. Against the silver sky, a brighter line The sea-horizon drew, and with the day Grew brighter still, and broader, till the sway Of those swift clouds seemed all things to consign To gloom and trouble. Turn, 0 turn and see A purity untroubled by a cloud ; A sweeter smile than from the glittering sea : — Though this angelic nature may be bowed By grief and pain, I dare to prophesy All soiling sin will from its presence fly. Spezia : December 26 , 1864 . POEMS FOR THE MOST PART CONNECTED WITH THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE, 1846—1849. TO THOSE WHO LABOURED FOR THE BOOR OF IRELAND IN THE DAY OF THEIR DISTRESS. b SAINT PETER’S CHAINS; ROME AND THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION. TO THE GREAT MEMORY OP POPE PIUS THE NINTH. June 1, 1897. PREFACE. The following Sonnets were written in connection with the Roman Revolution of 1870, and the aboli- tion of the Pope’s Temporal Supremacy, or in anticipation of those events. Few men think now of restoring the old order of things in Italy, whether by force or by diplomatic pressure equivalent to force. The issue depends on the growth of a sound public opinion throughout Europe, and especially in Italy herself. In this matter each man has his duties ; but not many now remember what all once knew, or are aware of the imminent dangers that threaten Europe owing to the wrong done at Rome. No necessary connection exists between the Roman Revolution and the Italian Revolution, taken at large. There were at least two alternative methods by which an entire Italian Independence might have been created without any interference with the Pope’s liberty. One of these was the ideal of the earlier Italian patriots and of many Italian statesmen at the beginning of the recent struggle. It was an Italian Confederation in which the chief Italian States were to preserve their political and also their historical individuality. The other alterna- tive was the fusion of the Italian States, excepting 406 PREFACE. only Rome with her Campagna, in a single monarchy. This latter course, however objectionable on other grounds, would at least have left the Head of the Catholic Church still free. The question of Rome is the great question of Church and State all over the world. Gioberti left his fellow-countrymen a memorable warning : — ‘ Every scientific reform is vain if it does not make account of religion ; and every scheme of Italian reno- vation, if it has not for its base the corner-stone of Catholicism. . . . And the evil will last as long as men persist in substituting a heathen or chimerical Italy in the place of a real and Christian Italy, which God and a life of 1800 years have created ; that is to say, a French or German Italy, in place of an Italy of the Italians. 7 * On the Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope Massimo d 7 Azzeglio held the same opinion. It was that held by most European statesmen. The saying of Thiers is well known : — ‘ Whoever makes a meal of the Pope dies of it. 7 The judgments pro- nounced by English statesmen, such as Lords Lans- downe and Palmerston, in 1849, may be summed up in the words of Lord Brougham : — 4 How is it possible to suppose that unless the Pope has enough of temporal authority to keep him independent of the other European Courts, jealousies and intrigues will not arise ? 7 A striking remark on this subject was made by M. de Montalembert. No one insisted more on the distinctness between the civil and the spiritual spheres ; no one more ardently desired the freedom of * Gioberti, Prinedo degli Italiana , vol. ii. pp. 66, 67 (quoted bj T Cardinal Manning, in his Independence of the Holy See , p. 85). PREFACE. 407 each. His remark was this : — ‘ The temporal and religious powers are united at Home that they may he able to remain separate everywhere else/ What ought now to be the aspiration of a true Italian patriot % Must it not be that the interests of Italy and of Christendom should be permanently united 1 ? Would not Home become Italian all the more if the religious affections of just Italians were allowed to gravitate to Rome as heretofore 1 ? Would it be no glory to them if Rome were at once the heart of Italy and the Head of a Spiritual Universe, as it was, in past times, of a material one % Would no security be added to the new kingdom if the patriotic sentiment of Italy became religious, and the religious sentiment patriotic % At a time when all nations are arming, would it not be well to remove that which creates in all nations an additional alarm, making the Liberal party in each tend to anarchy, and the religious to what is nicknamed ‘ Ultramontanism ’ % The Temporal Sovereignty was not given to the Church as an ornament, and though far the most ancient of sovereignties, it has fallen far the most often through violences of every sort ; but it has always been restored. Sooner or later it will probably be again restored at Rome ; but if the free kingdoms which grew up beneath its shelter should share its fall, it does not follow that they will share its restor- ation. In its place there may be an alternation of Tyrannies and Anarchies. It may be discovered when too late that a great Epoch of Civil Society was discarded for a dream, Curragh Chase, May 31 st, 1888. PART I. ^hc Jiebcdt against QLhxwtxmx Qlxbxlxz&txon. CHRISTMAS EVE , W5P. L This night, O Earth, a Saviour germinate ! Drop down, ye Heavens, your sweetness from above ! This night is closed the iron book of Fate ; Open’d this night the book of endless Love. On from the Orient like a breeze doth move The joy world-wide — a breeze that wafts a freight Of vernal song o’er lands benumbed so late, Fivers ice-bound and winter-wasted grove. Onward from Bethlehem, westward o’er the AEgean Travels like night the starry Feast Divine; All realms rejoice ; but loudest swells the paean From that white Basilic on the Esquiline Beneath whose roof in sunlike radiance clad The suffering Pontiff stands — to-night not sad. saint peter’s chains. 409 ITALIAN ‘ UNIFICATION ’ IN 1860 . II. The land which Improvisatores throng With one light bound would freedom improvise, Freedom by England dragged from raging seas Through centuries of battling right and wrong : The gamesters crowned, their loaded dice down flung, Divide their gains ; * while — shamelessly at ease — Gold-spangled Fortune, tinselled to the knees, Runs on the tight-rope of the State new-strung ! 0 Liberty, stern goddess, sad and grave, To whom are dear the hearts that watch and wait, The hand laborious strenuous as the glaive, The strong, staid head, the soul supreme o’er fate, With what slow scorn thou turn’st incensed of mien From mimic Freedom’s operatic scene ! GREAT CONNIVING POWERS. III. The kingdom-selling king puts forth a hand Vile from Church-plunder, leprous to the bone, To rend a second spoil f from Peter’s throne : Silent, yet false, a proud yet servile band, * Napoleon got Nice and Savoy ; Victor Emanuel, the Northern Papal States and Lombardy. It was a ‘Ten Years’ War,’ before ‘Troy fell.’ t Ancona, etc. The French Emperor had solemnly guaran- teed the remaining Papal territory against invasion. 410 saint peter’s chains. Europe’s ‘ Great Powers,’ each from its distant strand Applaud the dragon teeth thus deftly sown, Nor heed how Prance in treason’s undertone Whispers, ‘ Pome next ! Wait, win — and understand.’ ‘ Great Powers ! ’ blind Powers, because they fear to see ! Old realms that seal an upstart’s new decree ! Think ye this traffic means for you no loss ? Christ’s Yicar bound, what king thenceforth is free ? Death-doom of Europe’s peace and liberty Is that your state-clerks smilingly engross ! THE RETRIBUTION. IY. Statesmen, beware ! The Spiritual Power displaced The Moral Power descends. Where then are ye % The eyeless Anarch of the years to be Draws near your feast ; will meet you soon full-faced ; With cap blood-red his low, base brows are graced : His name we know — ‘ The Crowned Democracy : ’ Wild appetite and reckless pride is he ; Pie scorns all laws on rights prescriptive based. He comes: what stands'? God’s Word that never errs Replies, ‘ The Church : of death she shall not taste : ’ If stands the Church, were it not better, Sirs, That girt by Nations just and sage she stood Than like one fortress ’mid a boundless waste, One sad, sole watch-tower by a shipless flood % saint peter's chains. 411 JUVENILE PATRIOTISM. Y. ‘ Great Rome our Capitol ! Great Rome restored ! ’ These cries are watchwords, warring each on each ; Two forms confused of unhistoric speech : Rome never reigned, a single nation's lord : Rome was at first not State, but bandit horde ; A State came next. O’er Carthage’ yawning breach Rome dashed through flame while still beyond her reach Italian States the upstart's name abhorred. Later, Rome's Empire rose : a subject earth A world, not Nation, owned its sovereign sway : It fell : at last Time’s mystery came to birth : Rome was the Church's seat ; man's hope, his stay. Great Rome made pigmy, Rome one nation’s head, Means this — £ The old Rome — the Christian — both are dead.' THE ORIGIN OF THE TEMPORAL POWER, YI. For centuries rose the cry from vale and plain From cities sacked and homesteads black with fire, ‘ Where reigned an Empire ruin now doth reign : Our Emperor sought Byzantium : we expire : 412 saint peter’s chains. The Lombard wrecks the north : pitiless in ire The Goth devours the south. Fiercer than Cain The Yandals with the blood of brethren stain Altar and hearth. Great Pontiff, Roman Sire ! Christ’s chief of shepherds for the souls of men To thee we turn remembering days long since When camped the Hun beneath the Homan wall — That day Pope Leo saved us. Save, as then, That little remnant left ! On thee we call : Thy sons would be thy subjects : be our Prince ! ’ THE OLD AND NEW BARBARIANS . VII. When Pome had fallen and now half-ruinous lay Barbaric kings from many a distant coast Alone, unarmed, meekest when mighty most, Trod her deserted courts and wept, men say : None raised therein his seat of sovereign sway : Dumb through the wreck they glided like a ghost : They felt the Past ! Who make that Past their boast This hour feel nothing, braggarts of the day. These mimic statesmen stand confuted thus : ‘ Pome ruled the earth through Greatness : that was meet ; Your trust is Gallic Fraud and “ Plebiscite ” : Great Pome, metropolis of that world of old Peduced to crown one new-raised state o’er-bold Would make its impotence but ridiculous.’ saint peter's chains. 41 TO ITALY ; 1861 . VIII. All-radiant region ! would that thou wert free ! Free ’mid thine Alpine realm of cloud and pine Free 'mid the rich vales of thine Apennine Free to the Adrian and the Tyrrhene Sea ! God with a twofold freedom franchise thee ! Freedom from alien bonds, so often thine, Freedom from Gentile hopes — death-fires that shine O’er the foul grave of Pagan liberty With Pagan empire side by side interred ; Then round the fixed throne of their Roman Sire Thy sister States should hang, a Pleiad choir With saintly beam unblunted and unblurred, A splendour to the Christian splendour clinging, A lyre star-strung ever the 4 new song ’ singing ! THE ITALY OF OLE. IX. Naples and Florence, Parma, Lucca — these Survived, the last of countless states that bore Their starry crowns in history’s heaven of yore, Amalfi imaged in her subject seas, Pisa with laurel fresher for the breeze That waved the pinewoods shadowing her shore, Sienna famed in arts Genoa in war, Milan still proud of antique liturgies. 414 saint peter's chains. Great land ! thy patriots old these marvels prized, Each with its palace-keep and minster vast : Not fusion, but a realm confederate They hoped, they claimed ; now first a vulgarer fate Tramples that claim. Dissevered from their past They stand — in Freedom's name provincialized. THE INVASION OF THE PAPAL STATES . Sept. 1860. X. 0 Italy ! the guilt but half is thine ! Thy sons they are not ; foes they are, not friends, These ill-crown'd kings that brim for ill-mask'd ends Freedom's pure cup with blasphemy's false wine. Thou of the hermit's cell, the martyr's shrine ! Thou, dew'd with beauty and the Aonian dream Like Greece, but higher placed in God's great scheme, His second Salem's second Palestine ! — The malison of Freedom evermore Cleave to his name who burst the eternal band That with Religion links her, hand in hand, And hurl'd the child against the sire in war. .Religion spurn'd, there freedom hath no place : — Freedom the pillar is : Virtue its base ! saint peter's chains. 415 ROSSI. XI. Romans — in name — to Liberty, your god Who lift red hands, suppliants self-deified, Betwixt her altar and your rock of pride A stream there rolls fiercer than Alpine flood, A fatal stream of murdered Rossi's blood ! For Liberty he lived ; and when he died, Prisoner that new Rienzi’s corse beside The King, the Father, and the Pontiff stood ! What rite piacular from that impious deed Hath cleansed your hands h Accuse not adverse stars If guilt unwept achieve not virtue’s meed. Years staunch not treason. All his sands old Time Shakes down to keep unblurred those characters Which calendar the Feasts of prosperous crime. TRUE AND FALSE LOVE OF FREEDOM. XII. They that for Freedom feel not love but lust, Irreverent, knowing not her spiritual claim, And they the votaries blind of windy fame, And they who cry, ‘ I will because I must,’ They, too, that launch, false to a freeman's trust, A bandit’s shaft revenge or greed their aim, And they that make her sacred cause their game From restlessness or spleen or sheer disgust 416 SAINT PETER* S CHAINS. At duteous days — all these, the brood of night, Diverse by one black note detected stand, Their scorn of every barrier raised by right To awe self-will. Howe’er by virtue banned By wisdom spurned, that act the moment needs Licensed they deem ; holy whatever succeeds. THE APPROACHING DEED. XIII. The streets lie silent in the shadows deep Of obelisk and statue o’er them thrown ; The foe advances, but the people sleep ; No sound save yon cicala’s lazy drone : Sunshine intense each glittering dome doth steep, Each Lombard tower, each convent court grass - grown, Flames on the arch, and heats each column prone While feebler grows each fountain’s drowsy leap. Methinks such stillness reigned that hour in Borne Three centuries since, when through the fiery air Bose, heard alone, the saintly Pontiff’s prayer ; Bose, and a slumbering world escaped its doom : The Crescent sank ’neath red Lepanto’s shore : — Woe to the world when Saints are heard no more ! saint peter’s chains. 417 THE CONSUMMATION. 20th of September, 1870. XIV. The bolt hath fallen ! The Abominable that sate By that sad prophet, Daniel, long foretold Within God’s Holy City throned of old, The 4 Abominable that maketh desolate,’ Within a holier city now keeps state : One power alone the All- Just to him denies ; He dares not quench the Daily Sacrifice : Death-pale he sits prescient of coming fate. Is it my crime, pale river, if no tears Dropt from these eyes thy placid breast have stained Freedom and Faith thus impiously profaned ? Hot so ! The hour is man’s : with God the years : Once more His Church will shame her children’s fears ; True Freedom wax when Freedom’s wraith hath waned. PART II. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NATIONAL APOSTASY. XV. Trampling a dark hill a red sun athwart I saw a host that rent their clothes and hair And dashed their spread hands ’gainst the sunset glare And cried, ‘ Go from us, God, since God Thou art 1 v. e E 418 saint peter’s chains. Utterly from our coasts and streets depart, Court, camp, and senate hall, and mountain bare ; Our pomp Thou troublest, and our feast dost scare, And with Thy temples dost confuse our mart ! Depart Thou from our hearing and our seeing : Depart Thou from the works and ways of men Their laws, their thoughts, the inmost of their being : Black nightmare, hence, that earth may breathe again ! ’ ‘ Can God depart ? ’ I asked. A voice replied, Close by, ‘ Not so ; each Sin at heart is Beicide 9 A RUINED FRENCH ABBEY* XYI. In thee the Daily Sacrifice hath ceased — Twain Avarchs, shades far cast from Antichrist, Revolt, and blasphemy, Sin’s king and priest, Here slew the J ust and for His raiment diced : Here Revolution, ruin-beneficed Sharpened with rapine’s file her dagger’s edge : She sold the spoil who wrought the sacrilege : False Freedom spake it ; and her word sufficed. O France, long dear to God, once saintly nation, Land of Saint Louis and the Fleur de Lys Must Italy partake thy desolation Partaking thy transgression ? Say, must she The grace and glory of God’s New Creation, Make end like yonder skeleton tower and thee % At St. Omer. satnt peter's chains. 410 THE LAWLESS RACE. XVII. The Scriptures of the Unjust thus prophesy : ‘ The Gentiles we ! your Christian Good is 111 : We, faithless styled, to Babel faithful still, Build as she built and laws save hers defy : No difference we concede 'twixt Truth and Lie Save what the nations fashion. Each at will Some Faith should license ; fools dissentient kill : Best creed is ‘ Unbelief, in Unity.' But what is written 'l ‘ This shall be the lot Of all who war, Jerusalem, on thee : Within their mouth the tongue dried up shall rot ; The eye drop out, that eye which would not see ; And, shivering as they stand, from off their bones Their flesh shall melt and rot upon the stones.' * XVIII. Bemember, Italy, thy judged Compeer France that before thee trod the ways unblest : Long since she made her Revolution : rest She makes not yet, from anguished year to year Circling through wreck to ruin yet more drear. 4 Make them a wheel ! ' Thus prayed, by rebels pressed, The Prophet-King : how oft, a bitter jest, That warning haunts the thoughtful patriot's ear ! Zacliarias xiv. 12. 420 saint peter’s chains. 0 Italy, discern ’twixt grain and chaff ! For Freedom’s sake the enchanter’s cup fling down : Spurn the base brood that tempt but to betray ! On whom, deceived ones, wage ye war this day i On that sole King who held his sceptre-staff Freedom to fence ; for man’s sake wore his crown. THE CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE AT PARIS AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION . XIX. O that the people of this guilty land Might estimate themselves and it aright ! Accept yon Temple’s sternly kind command Her warning vainly whispered day and night : To lift their glory to a loftier height A people raised this creature of their hand : — Teach them, huge pile, with all thy pillared might, Humility ! Do thou their boast withstand ! Bid them, in sight of angels and of men Brow-bent and round thee kneeling, to confess That sin whose serpent offspring, not yet dead, Creeps round the earth and stings it ! Bid them shed Such tears as fell in the waste wilderness On thy worn bosom, penitent Magdalen ! SAINT PETER S CHAINS. 421 THE STATUE OF VOLTAIRE, ERECTED IN PARIS DURING THE GERMAN INVASION OF 1870. XX. What Shape ascends o’er yonder Stygian sea Of upturned faces — Shape far-off descried With myriad-wrinkled brow, and serpent-eyed? That city which adores him, who is she % Fitly the hour is chosen ! Fatefully Advance the armies sent to plague the pride That built its tower on sand and God defied ! High Priest of Unbelief and Anarchy Ris’st thou to see thy work % the doom to hear Of nations, Christian once, that spurn their trust % Hark to that gun ! More near it sounds, and near — Land of brave hearts ! ere yet descends that woe Which comes to save not slay, thy Tempter know ! Dash back that idol to its native dust ! THE FRANCE OF A FUTURE TIME. XXI. Laugh, thou that weep’st ; or with thy weeping blend The glory of that joy which mocks at pain : Yain was thy pride ; thy penance is not vain : That woe was the beginning, not the end : 422 saint peter’s chains. Beyond that rain of fire I see descend Armies of God t’ward yon ensanguined plain ; And these the Cross and those the Crown sustain : — > Elect of Penitents, thy forehead bend ; Meet thou that crown in hope that springs from love ! Once more true greatness greets thee from above : At last, while far away the tempests rave, Forth from the ashes of thy Pagan boast Leaps thy new life ! ’Mid yon celestial host Thy Clotilde triumphs, and thy Genevieve. THE NEW GERMAN PERSECUTION . XXII. Revolted province of the Church of God, But yesterday an Empire made ! Too long Thou lift’st the froward foot and clamorous tongue Unweeting of the retributive rod : Her singers once — her saints — thy pastures trod : Still rise her minster towers thy streets among : Her crumbling abbeys still denounce their wrong : Hers every flower that gems the sacred sod ! This day thy Teachers world-renowned impeach With deepening spleen the Scriptures as the Pope : Learn from thy second fall ! refrain thy speech : With humbleness alone is stored thy hope : Judge thou thyself ; staunch first thy wound at home: Pome’s prodigal is not the judge of Pome. saint peter’s chains. 423 XXIII. Fair Land ! A question I would ask of thee : A time there was when, wanderers wild and rude, Thy children clave the river, pierced the wood Heart-strong yet blind, nor wise, nor just, nor free : — What changed to Realms that raging Anarchy % What Power was that which tamed the barbarous brood, Evoked its thought ; its wayward will subdued ; Its warring kingdoms crowned with unity % The Faith — the Church ! What progress had been thine That Church disowned ? Thy Nations where this day Shorn of that Faith’s surviving discipline'? Thy Prophet’s teaching where h Thy Poet’s lay h That Church was Italy’s selectest dower — Are those her friends who mock its Head this hour ? THE FAITHFUL FEW. XXI Y. Not vain that ten years’ agony ! Thus much It proved : whate’er were states and courts, whate’er Statesmen sense-blind might swear and then unswear, In Europe’s heart survived great Nature’s touch : From farthest lands there flocked who scorned to clutch Fruit of false peace : they rushed to do and dare 424 saint peter’s chains. Or die. Of such was Lamoriciere, Charette, O’Reilly, Pimodan ; of such Kanzler, who, when the Roman wall in rolled, Stood in the breach. Knights of the Faith, ’tis well ! Your place is with those Genoese of old Who, sole of Europe, when Byzantium fell Fought for the Cross. Ye saved mankind one shame : Mentana guards your dead ; the Church your fame. MONTALEMBERT AND DE MEBODE. XXV. Montalembert ! De Merode ! Linked were ye In bonds more strong than those of human love, Twins of one Faith and gendered from above — One fruitful Truth, ‘ Cod’s City must be free,’* Prime Truth of Christianized Civility : For that one Truth in word and work ye strove ; Nor strove in vain, as years to come shall prove When those who shape their ‘ Throned Democracy,’ That Matter-Cod the foe of cot and crown, Hard hunted by the creature of their hands, Flee from his face amazed o’er seas and lands. The praise of such ye spurned, nor feared their frown : Ye battled for man’s hope; Cod’s Church confessed : Warriors, sleep well ; for ye have earned your rest. * ‘ That Jerusalem which is above is free : which is our mother.’ — Gal. iv. 26. saint peter’s chains. 425 THE WORLD'S APPRECIATIONS . XXYI. Minuter minds conceive not what is great : To them J tis nothing as to fleshly ears The music of the planetary spheres : Its full-faced presence leaves them unelate ; And when, submissive to all-mastering fate, That greatness dies, or, deathless, disappears, Upon its grave the triflers drop no tears, The feasters not one hour their jests abate. To such what meant that Roman Kingship hoar, Link of the old world with ours? A gaud, now gone ! — ’Tis thus when parents die ! the wife, the son Weep by the bier ; the poor beside the door : Small shapes that buzz around feel anguish none : To cricket and to moth the house is as before. THE HIGHER CIVILIZATION '. XXVII. Blow struck at Rome an instant echo hath In every land where sits the Church a guest : The centre’s there. A local church oppressed By popular madness or a tyrant’s wrath Not less, like Thecla, lions in her path, May stand secure ; though galled in head and breast 426 SAINT PETEit’ S CHAINS. May work God’s work, then take a martyr’s rest Cecilia-like, within the crimsoned bath Of her own blood. Meantime the Church is free, Her doctrine sure while free He sits at Rome Who speaks the authentic voice of Christendom : His Faith, all know, is hers. If bound were He, The whole no longer could secure the part : The world’s broad hand would lie upon the Church’s heart. PART III. THE TEMPORAL POWER. XXYIII. That one high realm which, not through fraud or force But for man’s need, with glad consent of men Bose when the Roman empire lay a corse, And the Northern Beast forth bounding from his den Ravined alike on priest and citizen Hath oftenest fallen. Bandits without remorse Plotters low-voiced, and Peoples blasphemy-hoarse, Have wrought its fall again and yet again : Yet evermore that Hand beyond the skies Which raised it first, restores that Sign august : The nations wake ; they stare with wondering eyes ; ’Tis there, that Power ! It lives because it must ! The shade it is of Peter’s Rock : far hurled It heaves along the great waves of the world. SAINT PETER* S CHAINS. 427 AUSTRIA AND SPAIN XXIX. IL GRAN RIFIUTO. Austria and Spain, high daughters of a Past So rich in rites of sage civility, To Kings so loyal, yet in heart so free, So true to ancient Faith when Error’s blast O’er the blind North in passionate tempest passed, So filial to the Apostolic See, So firm when Unbelief and Anarchy Down the prone gulfs dragged France so far and fast, And Nations silent stood : — What Sin, what Fate What poison froze your blood to stagnant gall When burst false Piedmont through that Homan gate % Lament, brave Cid, if souls can weep in heaven ! Crowned Pole,* lament ! .By that strong hand was driven The earth-conquering Moslem from Vienna’s wall ! THE NATIONS OF CHRISTENDOM . XXX. The Mother of the churches was perforce The Mother of the Nations ; for in each * When John Sobieski, King of Poland, after destroying the Turkish Army encamped around Vienna, made his entrance into the city, the People received’ him with the shout, ‘ There was a man sent from God whose name was John/ 428 saint Peter's chains. That moral mind, pure will, true heart and speech Which urge great Nations starlike on their course Found in Religion, there alone, its source : 'Twas hers the majesty of Law to teach ; To exalt high ends, illicit means impeach ; 'Twixt loyal and obsequious make divorce. A clan can boast its past and wreak its rage ; A firm can waft its bales o'er lands and seas ; A school can paint its picture, write its page : What is it makes a Nation more than these % That ‘ Law of Nations ' which to lawless might Limits assigns ; gives sovereignty to Right. THE LAW OF NATIONS. XXXI. The Law of Nations died the death that hour When Rome, the moulder of the Nations, fell : O’er earth and heard by all rang out the knell When first above the Capitolian tower Far streamed the standard of the Lawless Power : Nor less o'er palace, camp, and citadel That hour a whisper crept — inaudible To lands of honour reft, old Europe's dower ; ‘ Let us depart.' Their patron Saints august Left they that hour the Nations? We, since then, Have seen strange omens and shall see again ; Treaties are null ! no realm the rest can trust ! A shameful day draws to a stormy close : But whence or when the vengeance no man knows. saint peter’s chains. 429 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT AND CHARLEMAGNE. XXXII. 1 . Gregory ! To thee her Faith our England owes \ But ere to England thine Augustine sailed Home had in thee her secular ruler hailed : Freely her bishop for her prince she chose. Two ages passed, then Charlemagne arose : Crowned by Pope Leo ; mid his barons mailed He swore t^ shield thenceforth God’s Church assailed By force or fraud. Unlike these days to those ! The family of Kings have wrought a wrong First on their kingdoms’ honour, next their own : What wrong ? The Sire of Kings lay late o’erthrown By hand usurping and the lying tongue ; Kings sat and kept the clothes of that wild throng : On Kings the loss shall fall — but not on Kings alone. ST GREGORY THE GREAT AND ENGLAND . XXXIII. 2 . As when, descending from that God-led bark At last on Ararat’s broad summit stayed A ruined earth’s sad heir yet undismayed Forth paced with all his sons the Patriarch ; 430 saint peter’s chains. As when above that world of waters stark He stood while down they rushed and standing prayed ; As when he followed, through some wave- worn glade With over-arching horns of granite dark That Hand which pointed still he knew not where : — Thus with his monks went forth from yonder pile Augustine missioned to that northern isle ; Yon Coelian Hill descended thus footbare ; Thus found that wilderness he sought ; thus trod A stony land of death and gave that land to God. THE NOBLE REVENGE . XXXIY. The nations stood around thee, frowning some Some coldly pitying when thy head lay low : On them what good for ill wilt thou bestow When Wrong that overcame is overcome ? When earth in Faith’s eclipse lies cold and numb ; When pride hath reaped the fruits she holp to sow ; When anarch peoples hurled from wealth to woe In vain deplore their vanished Christendom ; When from the nether night, his penal prison By spurious science loosed the Apostate Angel Lifts his red bond and claims the astonished lands Shine thou that hour, a sun from night new-risen, Chase thou with thine his foul, disproved evangel : Baise thou thy Cross, and bind the Murderer’s hands ! SAINT PETERS CHAINS, 431 XXXY. Yet, yet, ye Kings, and rulers of the earth Lift up your eyes unto the hills eterne Whence your salvation comes ! From earth’s dark urn The great floods burst ! O’er each ancestral hearth Look forth, ye bold and virtuous Poor, look forth ; The meteor signs of woes to come discern ; And whence the danger be not slow to learn ; Then greet it with loud scorn and warlike mirth. The banner of the Church is ever flying ! Less than a storm avails not to unfold The Cross emblazoned there in massive gold : Away with doubts and sadness tears and sighing ! It is by faith, by patience, and by dying That we must conquer as our sires of old. WALTER SCOTT AT THE TOMB OF THE STUARTS IN SAINT PETER'S. XXXYI. 1 . The wild deer, when the shaft is in his side Seeks his first lair beneath the forest hoar : Drawm back from reboant deeps the exhausted tide Breathes his last sob on the forsaken shore : When on the village green the sports have died The child stands knocking at his grandsire’s door : So stands by this far tomb of Scotland’s pride Her greatest son, death-doomed, and travel-sore. 432 saint peter’s chains. So stand, last Singer of the Heroic Age ! Dead are those years so loyal, brave, and high That whilome blazoned History’s Missal page, Ring yet through thy glad Minstrel-Breviary : Old Pilgrim, ended is thy pilgrimage This hour. The shadows round thee close : now die ! WALTER SCOTT AT THE TOMB OF THE STUARTS IN SAINT PETER’S. XXXYII. 2 . Staff-propt he stands and all his country’s past Streams back before his sadly-kindling eye ; King after King, as cloud on cloud when fast The storm-rack rushes through the autumnal sky ; Aughrim to Flodden answers ! on the blast Xow Mary’s, now the Bruce’s standards fly : Those earliest, Irish, kings he sees at last Cross-crowned on old Iona’s shores who lie. Thus as he gazed, a Voice from vault and shrine Whispered around him — and from Peter’s Tomb— ‘ Not one alone but every Royal Line To my strong gates, as thou to these, shall come Heart-pierced at last : for mine they were ; and mine The cradles and the graves of Christendom.’ saint peter’s chains. 43 THE ‘ABA OOSLr ON THE CAPITOL . XXXVIII. Here, where of old the Homan Senate sate, Where, thundering from his Capitolian throne Co-regent of the Universal State Jove o’er that Homan sceptre laid his own, For centuries the Franciscans, humbly elate Kept their aerial haunt and vigil lone Here, like that lark which ‘ sings at heaven’s gate ’ Sang, first, Pome’s Christmas carols ; — they are gone Far down beneath, the Benedictines lay Of Orders first * far down whose science soared * Highest ; far down Ignatius’ Templars, f they Who raised o’er earth the Crosier and the Sword : Here reigned the triumph of Humility : Thy pagan triumph, Pride, is here restored. THE RESTORATION. XXXIX. A Sorrow that for shame had hid her face Soared to Heaven’s gate and knelt in penance there Beneath the dusk cloud of her own wet hair Weeping, as who would fain some deed erase That blots in dread eclipse baptismal grace : Like a felled tree with all its branches fair * The Dominican Order. + The Company of Jesus. V. F F 434 saint peter’s chains. She lay — her forehead on the ivory stair — Low murmuring, ‘ Just art Thou, but I am base : ’ Then saw I in my spirit’s unsealed ken How Heaven’s bright hosts thrilled like the dews of morn When May-winds on the sacred, snowy thorn Change diamonds into rubies : Magdalen Arose, and kissed the Saviour’s feet once more And to that suffering soul His peace and pardon bore. XL. Nations self-cheated, this shall come to pass — From yonder altar to their kingdoms down True Kings once more shall pace, sceptre and crown On that dim sea of marble and of brass Showering, as angels on the sea of glass Their amaranth crowns. All Powers once more shall own Man’s debt perpetual to Saint Peter’s throne, All lands there find their Freedom’s shield. Alas ! What now are Kings ? A thousand years each nation Claimed to stand subject to a Father’s eye : All realms invoked the Apostle’s arbitration An unseen world their strength and unity : Proud kings, proud realms, your victory is your loss ! That rule is brief which rests not on the Cross. 435 saint peter’s chains. SAINT PETEK XLI. Rock of the Rock ! As He, the Light of Light, Shows forth His Father’s glory evermore, So show’st thou forth the Son’s unshaken might Throned in thy unity on every shore : On thee His Church He built ; and though all night Tempests of leaguering demons round it roar The Gates of Hell prevail not, and the Right Beams lordliest through the breaking clouds of war. Strength of that Church! the Nations round thee reel ; Like hunted creatures Kingdoms flee and pant ; But God upon His Churoh hath set His seal, Fusing His own eternal adamant Through all its bastions and its towers in thee : Luminous it stands through thy solidity. SAINT PETER. XLIL First of the Faith he made confession sole Taught by the Father, not by flesh and blood : Then He the parts Who strengthens by the Whole Bade him make strong his brethren, and the rod Gave him of kingship. By that Syrian flood Lastly, a Love thrice-challenged he confessed That singly passed the love of all the rest And straightway to his hand Incarnate God 436 saint peter’s chains. Lifting that Hand which made the worlds, accorded .Rule of His flock world-wide both fair and pure : The mystery of His might in One he hoarded That all, made one, might live in one secure : In Christ the race redeemed is One ; — in thee Forth stands, a Sacrament, that Unity. THE END Richard Clay & Sons , Limited , London A’ Bungay . 132015 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL. MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and may be renewed for the same period, unless re- served. Two cents a day is charged for each book kept overtime . If you cannot find what you want, ask the Librarian who will be glad to help you. The borrower is responsible for books drawn on his card and for all fines accruing on the same.