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

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!

God of Justice! God 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!

God 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 shore
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 shore.

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 noble 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.


TO KENELM HENRY DIGBY, AUTHOR OF "MORES CATHOLICI," "THE BROADSTONE OF HONOUR," "COMPITUM," ETC.

(On being presented by him with a copy, painted by himself, of a rare Portrait of Calderon.)

How can I thank thee for this gift of thine,
Digby, the dawn and day-star of our age,
Forerunner thou of many a saint and sage Who since have fought and conquer'd 'neath the Sign? Thou hast left, as in a sacred shrine-
What shrine more pure than thy unspotted page?-
The priceless relics, as a heritage, Of loftiest thoughts and lessons most divine.
Poet and teacher of sublimest lore, Thou scornest not the painter's mimic skill, And thus hath come, obedient to thy will
The outward form that Calderon's spirit wore. Ah! happy canvas that two glories fill,
Where Calderon lives 'neath Digby's hand once more.

October 15th, 1878.


TO ETHNA.[108]

Ethna, to cull sweet flowers divinely fair,
To seek for gems of such transparent light
As would not be unworthy to unite Round thy fair brow, and through thy dark-brown hair, I would that I had wings to cleave the air,
In search of some far region of delight,