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, Innisfail !
Hope dreams, but grief dreams not-the grief of the Gael !

From Leix and Ikerrin to Donegal's shore

Rolls the dirge of thy last and thy bravest-O'More!

SONG

I

WHEN I was young, I said to Sorrow:
'Come and I will play with thee.'

He is near me now all day,
And at night returns to say:

'I will come again to-morrow-
I will come and stay with thee.'

II

Through the woods we walk together
His soft footsteps rustle nigh me;
To shield an unregarded head

He hath built a winter shed;

And all night in rainy weather

I hear his gentle breathings by me.

SORROW

COUNT each affliction, whether light or grave,
God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou
With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;
And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;

Then lay before him all thou hast : allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow
Or mar thy hospitality; no wave

Of mortal tumult to obliterate

The soul's marmoreal calmness; grief should be

Like joy-majestic, equable, sedate,

Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;

Strong to consume small troubles; to commend

Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.

THE YEAR OF SORROW: IRELAND, 1849

SPRING

ONCE more, through God's high will, and grace
Of hours that each its task fulfils,
Heart-healing Spring resumes her place,

The valley throngs, and scales the hills.

In vain. From earth's deep heart, o'ercharged,
The exulting life runs o'er in flowers.

The slave unfed is unenlarged;

In darkness sleep a Nation's powers.

Who knows not Spring? Who doubts, when blows
Her breath, that Spring is come indeed?

The swallow doubts not; nor the rose
That stirs, but wakes not ; nor the weed.

I feel her near, but see her not;
For these with pain-uplifted eyes
Fall back repulsed, and vapours blot
The vision of the earth and skies.

I see her not; I feel her near,

As, charioted in mildest airs,

She sails through yon empyreal sphere,
And in her arms and bosom bears

That urn of flowers and lustral dews

Whose sacred balm, o'er all things shed,

Revives the weak, the old renews,

And crowns with votive wreaths the dead.

Once more the cuckoo's call I hear;
I know, in many a glen profound,
The earliest violets of the year

Rise up like water from the ground.

The thorn, I know, once more is white;
And, far down many a forest dale,
The anemones in dubious light
Are trembling like a bridal veil.

By streams released, that singing flow
From craggy shelf through sylvan glades,
The pale narcissus, well I know,

Smiles hour by hour on greener shades.

The honeyed cowslip tufts once more
The golden slopes; with gradual ray
The primrose stars the rock, and o'er
The wood-path strews its milky way.

From ruined huts and holes come forth
Old men, and look upon the sky.
The Power Divine is on the earth:
Give thanks to God before ye die!

And ye, O children, worn and weak,

Who care no more with flowers to play, Lean on the grass your cold, thin cheek And those slight hands, and, whispering, say:

'Stern mother of a race unblest,

In promise kindly, cold in deed,

Take back, O Earth, into thy breast,

The children whom thou wilt not feed.'

SUMMER

Approved by works of love and might,

The Year, consummated and crowned, Hath scaled the zenith's purple height,

And flings his robe the earth around.

Impassioned stillness, fervours calm,

Brood, vast and bright, o'er land and deep; The warrior sleeps beneath the palm;

The dark-eyed captive guards his sleep.

The Iberian labourer rests from toil;
Sicilian virgins twine the dance;
Laugh Tuscan vales in wine and oil;
Fresh laurels flash from brows of France.

Far off, in regions of the North,

The hunter drops his winter fur;

Sun-wakened babes their feet stretch forth; And nested dormice feebly stir.

But thou, O land of many woes!

What cheer is thine? Again the breath Of proved Destruction o'er thee blows, And sentenced fields grow black in death.

In horror of a new despair

His blood-shot eyes the peasant strains With hands clenched fast, and lifted hair, Along the daily darkening plains.

Why trusted he to them his store?

Why feared he not the scourge to come?' Fool! turn the page of History o'erThe roll of Statutes-and be dumb!

Behold, O People! thou shalt die!
What art thou better than thy sires?
The hunted deer a weeping eye

Turns on his birthplace, and expires.

Lo! as the closing of a book,

Or statue from its base o'erthrown,
Or blasted wood, or dried-up brook,
Name, race, and nation, thou art gone!

The stranger shall thy hearth possess ;
The stranger build upon thy grave.
But know this also-he, not less,

His limit and his term shall have.

Once more thy volume, open cast,

In thunder forth shall sound thy name ; Thy forest, hot at heart, at last

God's breath shall kindle into flame.

Thy brook, dried up, a cloud shall rise,
And stretch an hourly widening hand,
In God's good vengeance, through the skies,
And onward o'er the Invader's land.

Of thine, one day, a remnant left

Shall raise o'er earth a Prophet's rod, And teach the coasts, of Faith bereft, The names of Ireland and of God.

AUTUMN

Then die, thou Year--thy work is done ;
The work, ill done, is done at last ;

Far off, beyond that sinking sun,

Which sets in blood, I hear the blast

That sings thy dirge, and says: 'Ascend,
And answer make amid thy peers,
Since all things here must have an end,
Thou latest of the famine years.'

I join that voice. No joy have I
In all thy purple and thy gold ;
Nor in that ninefold harmony

From forest on to forest rolled;

Nor in that stormy western fire

Which burns on ocean's gloomy bed,

And hurls, as from a funeral pyre,

A glare that strikes the mountain's head;