Freedom, Truth And Beauty Part 8

Who, in descent from Heaven's ecstatic throng, Was twin to light, and ranged from source to sea, And sh.o.r.e to peak, and G.o.d, drew up to thee The generations happy, pure and strong?

Freedom, as Erin's was, ere ruthless wrong Caught, scourged and hanged it on the out-law's tree; And is; for lo! it proves Divinity, Transfiguring from anguish, ages long.

True, they have strangled Freedom on the cross Of every Right's suppression--nay, have barred His body's tomb, and placed a host on guard!

Still, He is risen; His faithful mourn no loss.

He shines forth in their midst. No bolts r.e.t.a.r.d His entrance, where grand aims for life engross.

THE FIGHT IN IRELAND

The fight in Ireland is 'twixt Man and Brute.

A lion with the sea-surge for his mane, Is there hurled back by Man with proud disdain, Although heart-drained with gash from head to foot.

Oh, in that Eden of Forbidden Fruit, How Satan, searching for a snake in vain, Fumed forth a monster from his heart and brain-- The Lion--as the serpent's subst.i.tute!

Oh, all ye peoples of the World draw nigh!

Stand on the bodies of eight centuries, Struck dead with horror; for, raised thus, one sees In Erin, torn, a soul that cannot die, And that its struggle is Humanity's Against the fiend, who would give G.o.d the lie.

TO ERIN

How help take pride in thee, whose golden hair Of culture trailed the earth for centuries; Whose throne was freedom and whose realm was peace; And, in strange lands, whose joy and only care Were to spread light, and who, not anywhere Thy charm made headway, planting liberties, Didst, then, by stealthy step, or creep on knees, Sow with the lilies, faster-growing tare!

How help love thee, whose hand, raised to the sun, Glows rosy, and not red with murder's stain?

The angels kiss it. Force can forge no chain To drag thee false-ward. Like a holy Nun, Stigmated, how thy faith grows with thy pain-- Aye, till thy Cross, like Constantine's has won.

THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY

In rapt, roused Erin, who does not behold A Venus, rising from the sea of tears, Up to her native, Earth-illuming spheres?

Her hair, long matted, is a flow of gold Which even the Sun might wear and feel not cold; And, oh, her heavenly smile at doubts and fears, As when she, at all depths, raised to her ears, Sh.e.l.ls of her Glory, murmuring, "Be bold!"

Lo! where the green and orange morn unfurls, See Erin rise. How shine her golden tresses!

They form her crown, for trailing rocks down whirls, And reaching all the under-sea recesses, They draw about her brow, the rarest pearls-- Love for what frees and hate for what oppresses!

LIBERTY, THE LIGHT TO PEACE

All hail to those who, through the stormy night, Make Liberty the light on Erin's coast; Who, ceaseless, send up sparks; who hold their post On each and every ledge of Human Right, Forming a beacon blaze from base to height Where Erin's hope may steer and land its host.

Look, Human Nature! Where else canst thou boast To the eternal stars, so grand a sight?

Look! How men there enn.o.ble human kind By making Liberty the light to Peace!

All other lights are false. Oh! who but sees In the unconquerable Celtic mind That, even in Time, there are Eternities-- Love, true to Right, and Will no wrong can bind!

WHY PLAY WITH WORDS, ENGLAND?

Why play with words? There never can be peace Till Ireland is set free. One might as well Expect the great Arch-angel rest in h.e.l.l And genuflect to Satan's blasphemies, As Erin's spirit that, for centuries, Has been aloft with G.o.d in virtue, sell, Like Esaw, her birthright, and not rebel, But to her home's invaders, bend her knees.

Her spirit is no norbury Banshee-- To wail and, then, to vanish. She will stand With lifted flambeau, lighted by the hand That lights the stars, till she again is free, Inspiring normal man in every land With love of Freedom, by her scorn of thee.

FREEDOM'S WARDENS

Look! British fury that, barraging, lights Up Irish skies, like pathways down to h.e.l.l, Doubles its fire to reach our land as well, Where Freedom's Wardens cry from justice' heights: "'Tis Deicide to murder Human Rights.

Stop foul G.o.d-slaughter where to not rebel, In order to develop and excel, Were G.o.d in man, succ.u.mbed to age-longed blights."

Where Heavenward rose the G.o.d in man of old, Staunch stand these Wardens. Sleepless, they behold Each turn of England's Evil Eye. They call, When she would form the fulminate of gold, A thumb and finger-pinch of which, let fall, Might blast Columbia's peaks to slit of thrall.

LIST TO DEMOSTHENES, IF NOT TO HEARST

Of all the fulminates, gold is the worst, Which England, aeroplaning, now, lets drop By day and night, in bank, press, church and shop, Timed to the minute that it is to burst.

List to Demosthenes, if not to Hearst, Sublime Republic! Lest thy great heart stop, Shocked by the blast of Freedom's every prop, And bats and owls in dwellings, Human's erst.

"Watch Macedon. She drops her gold, in creeping Beneath free Athens' sky-ascending stair.

Watch her with glance of sword. Oh, watch, for where She sows her gold, she comes with scythes for reaping!

Is Athens in ascent with sun-light flare, To come down ashes, not worth history's keeping?"

CALEDONIA

I

In only Wallace and Paul Jones and Burns, Does Caledonia, child of Erin, show His mother's features, lit by soul to know The Right Divine of freedom, when it yearns For what exalts the human, or, it spurns What bars its flight to truth--all stars aglow, That form G.o.d's trail to joy for man below?-- Sole trail, as time, who peers through grief, discerns.

O Caledonia, by thy Burn's brave song, And deeds of Wallace and Paul Jones for Right, Thy mother knows thee in the dark of night, And claps thee heart-close. She cries out: "Be strong, Soul of my soul! though not a Boswell quite, Still, be whole man! remember Glencoe's wrong."