Poems by Denis Florence MacCarthy Part 24

Or cease from the strife, that is crushing the life From out of our mother's heart?

Could we lay aside our doubts and our pride, And join in a common band, One hour would see our country free, A young and a Living Land!

With a nation's heart and a nation's part, A free and a Living Land!

106. Thomas Davis.

THE DEAD TRIBUNE.

The awful shadow of a great man's death Falls on this land, so sad and dark before-- Dark with the famine and the fever breath, And mad dissensions knawing at its core.

Oh! let us hush foul discord's maniac roar, And make a mournful truce, however brief, Like hostile armies when the day is o'er!

And thus devote the night-time of our grief To tears and prayers for him, the great departed chief.

In "Genoa the Superb" O'Connell dies-- That city of Columbus by the sea, Beneath the canopy of azure skies, As high and cloudless as his fame must be.

Is it mere chance or higher destiny That brings these names together? One, the bold Wanderer in ways that none had trod but he-- The other, too, exploring paths untold; One a new world would seek, and one would save the old!

With childlike incredulity we cry, It cannot be that great career is run, It cannot be but in the eastern sky Again will blaze that mighty world-watch'd sun!

Ah! fond deceit, the east is dark and dun, Death's black, impervious cloud is on the skies; Toll the deep bell, and fire the evening gun, Let honest sorrow moisten manly eyes: A glorious sun has set that never more shall rise!

Brothers, who struggle yet in Freedom's van, Where'er your forces o'er the world are spread, The last great champion of the rights of man-- The last great Tribune of the world is dead!

Join in our grief, and let our tears be shed Without reserve or coldness on his bier; Look on his life as on a map outspread-- His fight for freedom--freedom far and near-- And if a speck should rise, oh! hide it with a tear!

To speak his praises little need have we To tell the wonders wrought within these waves Enough, so well he taught us to be free, That even to him we could not kneel as slaves.

Oh! let our tears be fast-destroying graves, Where doubt and difference may for ever lie, Buried and hid as in sepulchral caves; And let love's fond and reverential eye Alone behold the star new risen in the sky!

But can it be, that well-known form is stark?

Can it be true, that burning heart is chill?

Oh! can it be that twinkling eye is dark?

And that great thunder voice is hush'd and still?

Never again upon the famous hill Will he preside as monarch of the land, With myriad myriads subject to his will; Never again shall raise that powerful hand, To rouse, to warm, to check, to kindle, and command!

The twinkling eye, so full of changeful light, Is dimmed and darkened in a dread eclipse; The withering scowl, the smile so sunny bright, Alike have faded from his voiceless lips.

The words of power, the mirthful, merry quips, The mighty onslaught, and the quick reply, The biting taunts that cut like stinging whips, The homely truth, the lessons grave and high, All, all are with the past, but cannot, shall not die!

A MYSTERY.

They are dying! they are dying! where the golden corn is growing, They are dying! they are dying! where the crowded herds are lowing; They are gasping for existence where the streams of life are flowing, And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing!

G.o.d of Justice! G.o.d of Power!

Do we dream? Can it be?

In this land, at this hour, With the blossom on the tree, In the gladsome month of May, When the young lambs play, When Nature looks around On her waking children now, The seed within the ground, The bud upon the bough?

Is it right, is it fair, That we perish of despair In this land, on this soil, Where our destiny is set, Which we cultured with our toil, And watered with our sweat?

We have ploughed, we have sown But the crop was not our own; We have reaped, but harpy hands Swept the harvest from our lands; We were perishing for food, When, lo! in pitying mood, Our kindly rulers gave The fat fluid of the slave, While our corn filled the manger Of the war-horse of the stranger!

G.o.d of Mercy! must this last?

Is this land preordained For the present and the past, And the future, to be chained, To be ravaged, to be drained, To be robbed, to be spoiled, To be hushed, to be whipt, Its soaring pinions clipt, And its every effort foiled?

Do our numbers multiply But to perish and to die?

Is this all our destiny below, That our bodies, as they rot, May fertilise the spot Where the harvests of the stranger grow?

If this be, indeed, our fate, Far, far better now, though late, That we seek some other land and try some other zone; The coldest, bleakest sh.o.r.e Will surely yield us more Than the store-house of the stranger that we dare not call our own.

Kindly brothers of the West, Who from Liberty's full breast Have fed us, who are orphans, beneath a step-dame's frown, Behold our happy state, And weep your wretched fate That you share not in the splendours of our empire and our crown!

Kindly brothers of the East, Thou great tiara'd priest, Thou sanctified Rienzi of Rome and of the earth-- Or thou who bear'st control Over golden Istambol, Who felt for our misfortunes and helped us in our dearth,

Turn here your wondering eyes, Call your wisest of the wise, Your Muftis and your ministers, your men of deepest lore; Let the sagest of your sages Ope our island's mystic pages, And explain unto your Highness the wonders of our sh.o.r.e.

A fruitful teeming soil, Where the patient peasants toil Beneath the summer's sun and the watery winter sky-- Where they tend the golden grain Till it bends upon the plain, Then reap it for the stranger, and turn aside to die.

Where they watch their flocks increase, And store the snowy fleece, Till they send it to their masters to be woven o'er the waves; Where, having sent their meat For the foreigner to eat, Their mission is fulfilled, and they creep into their graves.

'Tis for this they are dying where the golden corn is growing, 'Tis for this they are dying where the crowded herds are lowing, 'Tis for this they are dying where the streams of life are flowing, And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing.

Sonnets.

AFTER READING J. T. GILBERT'S "THE HISTORY OF DUBLIN."

Long have I loved the beauty of thy streets, Fair Dublin: long, with unavailing vows, Sigh'd to all guardian deities who rouse The spirits of dead nations to new heats Of life and triumph:--vain the fond conceits, Nestling like eaves-warmed doves 'neath patriot brows!

Vain as the "Hope," that from thy Custom-House Looks o'er the vacant bay in vain for fleets.

Genius alone brings back the days of yore: Look! look, what life is in these quaint old shops-- The loneliest lanes are rattling with the roar of coach and chair; fans, feathers, flambeaus, fops, Flutter and flicker through yon open door, Where Handel's hand moves the great organ stops.[107]

March 11th, 1856.

107. It is stated that the "Messiah" was first publicly performed in Dublin. See Gilbert's "History of Dublin," vol. i. p. 75, and Townsend's "Visit of Handel to Dublin," p. 64.

TO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

(Dedication of Calderon's "Chrysanthus and Daria.")

Pensive within the Coliseum's walls I stood with thee, O Poet of the West!-- The day when each had been a welcome guest In San Clemente's venerable halls:-- With what delight my memory now recalls That hour of hours, that flower of all the rest, When, with thy white beard falling on thy breast, That n.o.ble head, that well might serve as Paul's In some divinest vision of the saint By Raffael dreamed--I heard thee mourn the dead-- The martyred host who fearless there, though faint, Walked the rough road that up to heaven's gate led: These were the pictures Calderon loved to paint In golden hues that here perchance have fled.

Yet take the colder copy from my hand, Not for its own but for the Master's sake; Take it, as thou, returning home, wilt take From that divinest soft Italian land Fixed shadows of the beautiful and grand In sunless pictures that the sun doth make-- Reflections that may pleasant memories wake Of all that Raffael touched, or Angelo planned:-- As these may keep what memory else might lose, So may this photograph of verse impart An image, though without the native hues Of Calderon's fire, and yet with Calderon's art, Of what thou lovest through a kindred muse That sings in heaven, yet nestles in the heart.

Dublin, August 24th, 1869.