Poems - Denis Florence MacCarthy (good books to read .txt) 📗

den? 'Twas the fearless pen and the voice of power,
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!
Hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!

The tyrant knaves who deny man's rights,
And the cowards who blanch with fear, Exclaim with glee: "No arms have ye,
Nor cannon, nor sword, nor spear! Your hills are ours-with our forts and towers
We are masters of mount and glen!" Tyrants, beware! for the arms we bear
Are the Voice and the fearless Pen!
Hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!

Though your horsemen stand with their bridles in hand,
And your sentinels walk around! Though your matches flare in the midnight air,
And your brazen trumpets sound! Oh! the orator's tongue shall be heard among
These listening warrior men; And they'll quickly say: "Why should we slay
Our friends of the Voice and Pen?"
Hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!

When the Lord created the earth and sea,
The stars and the glorious sun, The Godhead spoke, and the universe woke
And the mighty work was done! Let a word be flung from the orator's tongue,
Or a drop from the fearless pen, And the chains accursed asunder burst
That fettered the minds of men!
Hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!

Oh! these are the swords with which we fight,
The arms in which we trust, Which no tyrant hand will dare to brand,
Which time cannot dim or rust! When these we bore we triumphed before,
With these we'll triumph again! And the world will say no power can stay
The Voice and the fearless Pen!
Hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!


"CEASE TO DO EVIL-LEARN TO DO WELL."[105]

Oh! thou whom sacred duty hither calls,
Some glorious hours in freedom's cause to dwell, Read the mute lesson on thy prison walls,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well."

If haply thou art one of genius vast,
Of generous heart, of mind sublime and grand, Who all the spring-time of thy life has pass'd
Battling with tyrants for thy native land, If thou hast spent thy summer as thy prime,
The serpent brood of bigotry to quell, Repent, repent thee of thy hideous crime,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well!"

If thy great heart beat warmly in the cause
Of outraged man, whate'er his race might be, If thou hast preached the Christian's equal laws,
And stayed the lash beyond the Indian sea! If at thy call a nation rose sublime,
If at thy voice seven million fetters fell,- Repent, repent thee of thy hideous crime,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well!"

If thou hast seen thy country's quick decay,
And, like the prophet, raised thy saving hand, And pointed out the only certain way
To stop the plague that ravaged o'er the land! If thou hast summoned from an alien clime
Her banished senate here at home to dwell: Repent, repent thee of thy hideous crime,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well!"

Or if, perchance, a younger man thou art,
Whose ardent soul in throbbings doth aspire, Come weal, come woe, to play the patriot's part
In the bright footsteps of thy glorious sire If all the pleasures of life's youthful time
Thou hast abandoned for the martyr's cell, Do thou repent thee of thy hideous crime,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well!"

Or art thou one whom early science led
To walk with Newton through the immense of heaven, Who soared with Milton, and with Mina bled,
And all thou hadst in freedom's cause hast given? Oh! fond enthusiast-in the after time
Our children's children of thy worth shall tell- England proclaims thy honesty a crime,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well!"

Or art thou one whose strong and fearless pen
Roused the Young Isle, and bade it dry its tears, And gathered round thee ardent, gifted men,
The hope of Ireland in the coming years? Who dares in prose and heart-awakening rhyme,
Bright hopes to breathe and bitter truths to tell? Oh! dangerous criminal, repent thy crime,
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well!"

"Cease to do evil"-ay! ye madmen, cease!
Cease to love Ireland-cease to serve her well; Make with her foes a foul and fatal peace,
And quick will ope your darkest, dreariest cell. "Learn to do well"-ay! learn to betray,
Learn to revile the land in which you dwell England will bless you on your altered way
"Cease to do evil-learn to do well!"


105. This inscription is on the front of Richmond Penitentiary, Dublin, in which O'Connell and the other political prisoners were confined in the year 1844.


THE LIVING LAND.

We have mourned and sighed for our buried pride,[106]
We have given what nature gives, A manly tear o'er a brother's bier,
But now for the Land that lives! He who passed too soon, in his glowing noon,
The hope of our youthful band, From heaven's blue wall doth seem to call
"Think, think of your Living Land! I dwell serene in a happier scene,
Ye dwell in a Living Land!"

Yes! yes! dear shade, thou shalt be obeyed,
We must spend the hour that flies, In no vain regret for the sun that has set,
But in hope for another to rise; And though it delay with its guiding ray,
We must each, with his little brand, Like sentinels light through the dark, dark night,
The steps of our Living Land. She needeth our care in the chilling air-
Our old, dear Living Land!

Yet our breasts will throb, and the tears will throng
To our eyes for many a day, For an eagle in strength and a lark in song
Was the spirit that passed away. Though his heart be still as a frozen rill,
And pulseless his glowing hand, We must struggle the more for that old green shore
He was making a Living Land. By him we have lost, at whatever the cost,
She must be a Living Land!

A Living Land, such as Nature plann'd,
When she hollowed our harbours deep, When she bade the grain wave o'er the plain,
And the oak wave over the steep: When she bade the tide roll deep and wide,
From its source to the ocean strand, Oh! it was not to slaves she gave these waves,
But to sons of a Living Land! Sons who have eyes and hearts to prize
The worth of a Living Land!

Oh! when shall we lose the hostile hues,
That have kept us so long apart? 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?