THE PROGRESS OF THE ROSE.

The days of old, the good old days,Whose misty memories haunt us still,Demand alike our blame and praise,And claim their shares of good and ill.They had strong faith in things unseen,But stronger in the things they sawRevenge for Mercy's pitying mien,And lordly Right for equal Law.'Tis true the cloisters all throughoutThe valleys rais'd their peaceful towers,And their sweet bells ne'er wearied outIn telling of the tranquil hours.But from the craggy hills above,A shadow darken'd o'er the sward;For there--a vulture to this dove--Hung the rude fortress of the lord;Whence oft the ravening bird of preyDescending, to his eyry wildBore, with exulting cries, awayThe powerless serf's dishonour'd child.Then Safety lit with partial beamsBut the high-castled peaks of Force,And Polity revers'd its streams,And bade them flow but for their Source.That Source from which, meandering down,A thousand streamlets circle now;For then the monarch's glorious crownBut girt the most rapacious brow.But individual Force is dead,And link'd Opinion late takes birth;And now a woman's gentle headSupports the mightiest crown on earth.A pleasing type of all the changePermitted to our eyes to see,When she herself is free to rangeThroughout the realm her rule makes free.Not prison'd in a golden cage,To sigh or sing her lonely state,A show for youth or doating age,With idiot eyes to contemplate.But when the season sends a thrillTo ev'ry heart that lives and moves,She seeks the freedom of the hill,Or shelter of the noontide groves.There, happy with her chosen mate,And circled by her chirping brood,Forgets the pain of being greatIn the mere bliss of being good.And thus the festive summer yieldsNo sight more happy, none so gay,As when amid her subject-fieldsShe wanders on from day to day.Resembling her, whom proud and fond,The bard hath sung of--she of old,Who bore upon her snow-white wand,All Erin through, the ring of gold.Thus, from her castles coming forth,She wanders many a summer hour,Bearing the ring of private worthUpon the silver wand of Power.Thus musing, while around me flewSweet airs from fancy's amaranth bowers,Methought, what this fair queen doth do,Hath yearly done the queen of flowers.The beauteous queen of all the flowers,Whose faintest sigh is like a spell,Was born in Eden's sinless bowersLong ere our primal parents fell.There in a perfect form she grew,Nor felt decay, nor tasted death;Heaven was reflected in her hue,And heaven's own odours filled her breath.And ere the angel of the swordDrove thence the founders of our race,They knelt before him, and implor'dSome relic of that radiant place:Some relic that, while time would last,Should make men weep their fatal sin;Proof of the glory that was past,And type of that they yet might win.The angel turn'd, and ere his handsThe gates of bliss for ever close,Pluck'd from the fairest tree that standsWithin heaven's walls--the peerless rose.And as he gave it unto them,Let fall a tear upon its leaves--The same celestial liquid gemWe oft perceive on dewy eves.Grateful the hapless twain went forth,The golden portals backward whirl'd,Then first they felt the biting north,And all the rigour of this world.Then first the dreadful curse had powerTo chill the life-streams at their source,Till e'en the sap within the flowerGrew curdled in its upward course.They twin'd their trembling hands acrossTheir trembling breasts against the drift,Then sought some little mound of mossWherein to lay their precious gift.Some little soft and mossy mound,Wherein the flower might rest till morn;In vain! God's curse was on the ground,For through the moss out gleam'd the thorn!Out gleam'd the forkèd plant, as ifThe serpent tempter, in his rage,Had put his tongue in every leafTo mock them through their pilgrimage.They did their best; their hands eras'dThe thorns of greater strength and size;Then 'mid the softer moss they plac'dThe exiled flower of paradise.The plant took root; the beams and showersCame kindly, and its fair head rear'd;But lo! around its heaven of flowersThe thorns and moss of earth appear'd.Type of the greater change that thenUpon our hapless nature fell,When the degenerate hearts of menBore sin and all the thorns of hell.Happy, indeed, and sweet our pain,However torn, however tost,If, like the rose, our hearts retainSome vestige of the heaven we've lost.Where she upon this colder sphereFound shelter first, she there abode;Her native bowers, unseen were near,And near her still Euphrates flowed--Brilliantly flow'd; but, ah! how dim,Compar'd to what its light had been;--As if the fiery cherubimLet pass the tide, but kept its sheen.At first she liv'd and reigned alone,No lily-maidens yet had birth;No turban'd tulips round her throneBow'd with their foreheads to the earth.No rival sisters had she yet--She with the snowy forehead fringedWith blushes; nor the sweet brunetteWhose cheek the yellow sun has ting'd.Nor all the harbingers of May,Nor all the clustering joys of June:Uncarpeted the bare earth lay,Unhung the branches' gay festoon.But Nature came in kindly mood,And gave her kindred of her own,Knowing full well it is not goodFor man or flower to be alone.Long in her happy court she dwelt,In floral games and feasts of mirth,Until her heart kind wishes feltTo share her joy with all the earth.To go from longing land to landA stateless queen, a welcome guest,O'er hill and vale, by sea and strand,From North to South, and East to West.And thus it is that every year,Ere Autumn dons his russet robe,She calls her unseen charioteer,And makes her progress through the globe.First, sharing in the month-long feast--"The Feast of Roses"--in whose lightAnd grateful joy, the first and leastOf all her subjects reunite.She sends her heralds on before:The bee rings out his bugle bold,The daisy spreads her marbled floor,The buttercup her cloth of gold.The lark leaps up into the sky,To watch her coming from afar;The larger moon descends more nigh,More lingering lags the morning star.From out the villages and towns,From all of mankind's mix'd abodes,The people, by the lawns and downs,Go meet her on the winding roads.And some would bear her in their hands,And some would press her to their breast,And some would worship where she stands,And some would claim her as their guest.Her gracious smile dispels the gloomOf many a love-sick girl and boy;Her very presence in a roomDoth fill the languid air with joy.Her breath is like a fragrant tune,She is the soul of every spot;Gives nature to the rich saloon,And splendour to the peasant's cot.Her mission is to calm and soothe,And purely glad life's every stage;Her garlands grace the brow of youth,And hide the hollow lines of age.But to the poet she belongs,By immemorial ties of love;--Herself a folded book of songs,Dropp'd from the angel's hands above.Then come and make his heart thy home,For thee it opes, for thee it glows;--Type of ideal beauty, come!Wonder of Nature! queenly Rose!

THE BATH OF THE STREAMS.

Down unto the ocean,Trembling with emotion,Panting at the notion,See the rivers run--In the golden weather,Tripping o'er the heather,Laughing all together--Madcaps every one.Like a troop of girlsIn their loosen'd curls,See, the concourse whirlsOnward wild with glee;List their tuneful tattle,Hear their pretty prattle,How they'll love to battleWith the assailing sea.See, the winds pursue them,See, the willows woo themSee, the lakelets view themWistfully afar,With a wistful wonderDown the green slopes under,Wishing, too, to thunderO'er their prison bar.Wishing, too, to wanderBy the sea-waves yonder,There awhile to squanderAll their silvery stores,There awhile forgettingAll their vain regrettingWhen their foam went frettingRound the rippling shores.Round the rocky region,Whence their prison'd legion,Oft and oft besieging,Vainly sought to break,Vainly sought to throw themO'er the vales below them,Through the clefts that show themPaths they dare not take.But the swift streams speed themIn the might of freedom,Down the paths that lead themJoyously along.Blinding green recessesWith their floating tresses,Charming wildernessesWith their murmuring song.Now the streams are glidingWith a sweet abiding--Now the streams are hiding'Mid the whispering reeds--Now the streams outglancingWith a shy advancingNaiad-like go dancingDown the golden meads.Down the golden meadows,Chasing their own shadows--Down the golden meadows,Playing as they run:Playing with the sedges,By the water's edges,Leaping o'er the ledges,Glist'ning in the sun:Streams and streamlets blending,Each on each attending,All together wending,Seek the silver sands;Like the sisters holdingWith a fond enfolding--Like to sisters holdingOne another's hands.Now with foreheads blushingWith a rapturous flushing--Now the streams are rushingIn among the waves.Now in shy confusion,With a pale suffusion,Seek the wild seclusionOf sequestered caves.All the summer hoursHiding in the bowers,Scattering silver showersOut upon the strand;O'er the pebbles crashing,Through the ripples splashing,Liquid pearl-wreaths dashingFrom each other's hand.By yon mossy boulder,See an ivory shoulder,Dazzling the beholder,Rises o'er the blue;But a moment's thinking,Sends the Naiad sinking,With a modest shrinking,From the gazer's view.Now the wave compressesAll their golden tresses--Now their sea-green dressesFloat them o'er the tide;Now with elf-locks drippingFrom the brine they're sipping,With a fairy tripping,Down the green waves glide.Some that scarce have tarriedBy the shore are carriedSea-ward to be marriedTo the glad gods there:Triton's horn is playing,Neptune's steeds are neighing,Restless with delayingFor a bride so fair.See at first the riverHow its pale lips quiver,How its white waves shiverWith a fond unrest;List how low it sigheth,See how swift it flieth,Till at length it liethOn the ocean's breast.Such is Youth's admiring,Such is Love's desiring,Such is Hope's aspiringFor the higher goal;Such is man's conditionTill in heaven's fruitionEnds the mystic missionOf the eternal soul.

THE FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS.

"C'est ainsi qu'elle nature a mis, entre les tropiques, la plupart des fleurs apparentes sur des arbres. J'y en ai vu bien peu dans les prairies, mais beaucoup dans les forets. Dans ces pays, il faut lever les yeux en haut pour y voir des fleurs; dans le notre, il faut les baisser à terre."—SAINTPIERRE,Etudes de la Nature.

In the soft sunny regions that circle the waistOf the globe with a girdle of topaz and gold,Which heave with the throbbings of life where they're placed,And glow with the fire of the heart they enfold;Where to live, where to breathe, seems a paradise dream--A dream of some world more elysian than this--Where, if Death and if Sin were away, it would seemNot the foretaste alone, but the fulness of bliss.Where all that can gladden the sense and the sight,Fresh fruitage as cool and as crimson as even;Where the richness and rankness of Nature uniteTo build the frail walls of the Sybarite's heaven.But, ah! should the heart feel the desolate dearthOf some purer enjoyment to speed the bright hours,In vain through the leafy luxuriance of earthLooks the languid-lit eye for the freshness of flowers.No, its glance must be turned from the earth to the sky,From the clay-rooted grass to the heaven-branching trees;And there, oh! enchantment for soul and for eye,Hang blossoms so pure that an angel might seize.Thus, when pleasure begins from its sweetness to cloy,And the warm heart grows rank like a soil over ripe,We must turn from the earth for some promise of joy,And look up to heaven for a holier type.In the climes of the North, which alternately shine,Now warm with the sunbeam, now white with the snow,And which, like the breast of the earth they entwine.Grow chill with its chillness, or glow with its glow,In those climes where the soul, on more vigorous wing,Rises soaring to heaven in its rapturous flight,And, led ever on by the radiance they fling,Tracketh star after star through infinitude's night.How oft doth the seer from his watch-tower on high.Scan the depths of the heavens with his wonderful glass;And, like Adam of old, when Earth's creatures went by,Name the orbs and the sun-lighted spheres as they pass.How often, when drooping, and weary, and worn,With fire-throbbing temples and star-dazzled eyes,Does he turn from his glass at the breaking of morn,And exchanges for flowers all the wealth of the skies?Ah! thus should we mingle the far and the near,And, while striving to pierce what the Godhead conceals,From the far heights of Science look down with a fearTo the lowliest truths the same Godhead reveals.When the rich fruit of Joy glads the heart and the mouth,Or the bold wing of Thought leads the daring soul forth;Let us proudly look up as for flowers of the south,Let us humbly look down as for flowers of the north.

THE YEAR-KING.

It is the last of all the days,The day on which the Old Year dies.Ah! yes, the fated hour is near;I see upon his snow-white bierOutstretched the weary wanderer lies,And mark his dying gaze.A thousand visions dark and fair,Crowd on the old man's fading sight;A thousand mingled memories throngThe old man's heart, still green and strong;The heritage of wrong and rightHe leaves unto his heir.He thinks upon his budding hopes,The day he stood the world's young king,Upon his coronation morn,When diamonds hung on every thorn,And peeped the pearl flowers of the springAdown the emerald slopes.He thinks upon his youthful pride,When in his ermined cloak of snow,Upon his war-horse, stout and staunch--The cataract-crested avalanche--He thundered on the rocks below,With his warriors at his side.From rock to rock, through cloven scalp,By rivers rushing to the sea,With thunderous sound his army woundThe heaven supporting hills around;Like that the Man of DestinyLed down the astonished Alp.The bugles of the blast rang out,The banners of the lightning swung,The icy spear-points of the pineBristled along the advancing line,And as the winds'reveillérung,Heavens! how the hills did shout.Adown each slippery precipiceRattled the loosen'd rocks, like ballsShot from his booming thunder guns,Whose smoke, effacing stars and suns,Darkens the stifled heaven, and fallsFar off in arrowy showers of ice.Ah! yes, he was a mighty king,A mighty king, full flushed with youth;He cared not then what ruin layUpon his desolating way;Not his the cause of God or Truth,But the brute lust of conquering.Nought could resist his mighty will,The green grass withered where he stood;His ruthless hands were prompt to seizeUpon the tresses of the trees;Then shrieked the maidens of the wood,And the saplings of the hill.Nought could resist his mighty will;For in his ranks rode spectral Death;The old expired through very fear;And pined the young, when he came near;The faintest flutter of his breathWas sharp enough to kill.Nought could resist his mighty will;The flowers fell dead beneath his tread;The streams of life, that through the plainsThrob night and day through crystal veins,With feverish pulses frighten'd fled,Or curdled, and grew still.Nought could resist his mighty will;On rafts of ice, blue-hued, like steel,He crossed the broadest rivers o'erAh! me, and then was heard no moreThe murmur of the peaceful wheelThat turned the peasant's mill.But why the evil that attendsOn War recall to further view?Accursèd War!--the world too wellKnows what thou art--thou fiend of hell!The heartless havoc of a fewFor their own selfish ends!Soon, soon the youthful conquerorFelt moved, and bade the horrors cease;Nature resumed its ancient sway,Warm tears rolled down the cheeks of Day,And Spring, the harbinger of peaceProclaimed the fight was o'er.Oh! what a change came o'er the world;The winds, that cut like naked swords,Shed balm upon the wounds they made;And they who came the first to aidThe foray of grim Winter's hordesThe flag of truce unfurled.Oh! how the song of joy, the soundOf rapture thrills the leaguered campsThe tinkling showers like cymbals clashUpon the late leaves of the ash,And blossoms hang like festal lampsOn all the trees around.And there is sunshine, sent to strewGod's cloth of gold, whereon may dance,To music that harmonious moves,The linkèd Graces and the Loves,Making reality romance,And rare romance even more than true.The fields laughed out in dimpling flowers,The streams' blue eyes flashed bright with smiles;The pale-faced clouds turned rosy-red,As they looked down from overhead,Then fled o'er continents and isles,To shed their happy tears in showers.The youthful monarch's heart grew lightTo find what joy good deeds can shed;To nurse the orphan buds that bentOver each turf-piled monument,Wherein the parent flowers lay deadWho perished in that fight.And as he roamed from day to day,Atoning thus to flower and tree,Flinging his lavish gold aroundIn countless yellow flowers, he found,By gladsome-weeping April's knee,The modest maiden May.Oh! she was young as angels are,Ere the eternal youth they leadGives any clue to tell the hoursThey've spent in heaven's elysian bowers;Ere God before their eyes decreedThe birth-day of some beauteous star.Oh! she was fair as are the leavesOf pale white roses, when the lightOf sunset, through some trembling bough,Kisses the queen-flower's blushing brow,Nor leaves it red nor marble white,But rosy-pale, like April eves.Her eyes were like forget-me-nots,Dropped in the silvery snowdrop's cup,Or on the folded myrtle buds,The azure violet of the woods;Just as the thirsty sun drinks upThe dewy diamonds on the plots.And her sweet breath was like the sighsBreathed by a babe of youth and love;When all the fragrance of the southFrom the cleft cherry of its mouth,Meets the fond lips that from aboveStoop to caress its slumbering eyes.He took the maiden by the hand,And led her in her simple gownUnto a hamlet's peaceful scene,Upraised her standard on the green;And crowned her with a rosy crownThe beauteous Queen of all the land.And happy was the maiden's reign--For peace, and mirth, and twin-born loveCame forth from out men's hearts that day,Their gladsome fealty to pay;And there was music in the grove,And dancing on the plain.And Labour carolled at his task,Like the blithe bird that sings and buildsHis happy household 'mid the leaves;And now the fibrous twig he weaves,And now he sings to her who gildsThe sole horizon he doth ask.And Sickness half forgot its pain,And Sorrow half forgot its grief;And Eld forgot that it was old,As if to show the age of goldWas not the poet's fond belief,But every year comes back again.The Year-King passed along his way:Rejoiced, rewarded, and content;He passed to distant lands and new;For other tasks he had to do;But wheresoe'er the wanderer went,He ne'er forgot his darling May.He sent her stems of living goldFrom the rich plains of western lands,And purple-gushing grapes from vinesBorn of the amorous sun that shinesWhere Tagus rolls its golden sands,Or Guadaleté old.And citrons from Firenze's fields,And golden apples from the islesThat gladden the bright southern seas,True home of the Hesperides:Which now no dragon guards, but smiles,The bounteous mother, as she yields.And then the king grew old like Lear--His blood waxed chill, his beard grew gray;He changed his sceptre for a staff:And as the thoughtless children laughTo see him totter on his way,He knew his destined hour was near.And soon it came; and here he strives,Outstretched upon his snow-white bier,To reconcile the dread account--How stands the balance, what the amount;As we shall do with trembling fearWhen our last hour arrives.Come, let us kneel around his bed,And pray unto his God and oursFor mercy on his servant here:Oh, God be with the dying year!And God be with the happy hoursThat died before their sire lay dead!And as the bells commingling ringThe New Year in, the Old Year out,Muffled and sad, and now in pealsWith which the quivering belfry reels,Grateful and hopeful be the shout,The King is dead!--Long live the King!

THE AWAKING.

A lady came to a snow-white bier,Where a youth lay pale and dead:She took the veil from her widowed head,And, bending low, in his ear she said:"Awaken! for I am here."She pass'd with a smile to a wild wood near,Where the boughs were barren and bare;She tapp'd on the bark with her fingers fair,And call'd to the leaves that were buried there:"Awaken! for I am here."The birds beheld her without a fear,As she walk'd through the dank-moss'd dells;She breathed on their downy citadels,And whisper'd the young in their ivory shells:"Awaken! for I am here."On the graves of the flowers she dropp'd a tear,But with hope and with joy, like us;And even as the Lord to Lazarus,She call'd to the slumbering sweet flowers thus:"Awaken! for I am here."To the lilies that lay in the silver mere,To the reeds by the golden pond;To the moss by the rounded marge beyond,She spoke with her voice so soft and fond:"Awaken! for I am here."The violet peep'd, with its blue eye clear,From under its own gravestone;For the blessed tidings around had flown,And before she spoke the impulse was known:"Awaken! for I am here."The pale grass lay with its long looks sereOn the breast of the open plain;She loosened the matted hair of the slain,And cried, as she filled each juicy vein:"Awaken! for I am here."The rush rose up with its pointed spearThe flag, with its falchion broad;The dock uplifted its shield unawed,As her voice rung over the quickening sod:"Awaken! for I am here."The red blood ran through the clover near,And the heath on the hills o'erhead;The daisy's fingers were tipp'd with red,As she started to life, when the lady said:"Awaken! for I am here."And the young Year rose from his snow-white bier,And the flowers from their green retreat;And they came and knelt at the lady's feet,Saying all, with their mingled voices sweet:"O lady! behold us here."

THE RESURRECTION.

The day of wintry wrath is o'er,The whirlwind and the storm have pass'd,The whiten'd ashes of the snowEnwrap the ruined world no more;Nor keenly from the orient blowThe venom'd hissings of the blast.The frozen tear-drops of despairHave melted from the trembling thorn;Hope plumes unseen her radiant wing,And lo! amid the expectant air,The trumpet of the angel SpringProclaims the resurrection morn.Oh! what a wave of gladsome soundRuns rippling round the shores of space,As the requicken'd earth upheavesThe swelling bosom of the ground,And Death's cold pallor, startled, leavesThe deepening roses of her face.Up from their graves the dead arise--The dead and buried flowers of spring;--Up from their graves in glad amaze,Once more to view the long-lost skies,Resplendent with the dazzling raysOf their great coming Lord and King.And lo! even like that mightiest one,In the world's last and awful hour,Surrounded by the starry seven,So comes God's greatest work, the sun,Upborne upon the clouds of heaven,In pomp, and majesty, and power.The virgin snowdrop bends its headAbove its grave in grateful prayer;The daisy lifts its radiant brow,With a saint's glory round it shed;The violet's worth, unhidden now,Is wafted wide by every air.The parent stem reclasps once moreIts long-lost severed buds and leaves;Once more the tender tendrils twineAround the forms they clasped of yoreThe very rain is now a signGreat Nature's heart no longer grieves.And now the judgment-hour arrives,And now their final doom they know;No dreadful doom is theirs whose birthWas not more stainless than their lives;'Tis Goodness calls them from the earth,And Mercy tells them where to go.Some of them fly with glad accord,Obedient to the high behest,To worship with their fragrant breathAround the altars of the Lord;And some, from nothingness and death,Pass to the heaven of beauty's breast.Oh, let the simple fancy beProphetic of our final doom;Grant us, O Lord, when from the sodThou deign'st to call us too, that wePass to the bosom of our GodFrom the dark nothing of the tomb!

THE FIRST OF THE ANGELS.

Hush! hush! through the azure expanse of the skyComes a low, gentle sound, 'twixt a laugh and a sigh;And I rise from my writing, and look up on high,And I kneel, for the first of God's angels is nigh!Oh, how to describe what my rapt eyes descry!For the blue of the sky is the blue of his eye;And the white clouds, whose whiteness the snowflakes outvie,Are the luminous pinions on which he doth fly!And his garments of gold gleam at times like the pyreOf the west, when the sun in a blaze doth expire;Now tinged like the orange, now flaming with fire!Half the crimson of roses and purple of Tyre.And his voice, on whose accents the angels have hung,He himself a bright angel, immortal and young,Scatters melody sweeter the green buds amongThan the poet e'er wrote, or the nightingale sung.It comes on the balm-bearing breath of the breeze,And the odours that later will gladden the bees,With a life and a freshness united to these,From the rippling of waters and rustling of trees.Like a swan to its young o'er the glass of a pond,So to earth comes the angel, as graceful and fond;While a bright beam of sunshine--his magical wand,Strikes the fields at my feet, and the mountains beyond.They waken--they start into life at a bound--Flowers climb the tall hillocks, and cover the groundWith a nimbus of glory the mountains are crown'd,As the rivulets rush to the ocean profound.There is life on the earth, there is calm on the sea,And the rough waves are smoothed, and the frozen are free;And they gambol and ramble like boys, in their glee,Round the shell-shining strand or the grass-bearing lea.There is love for the young, there is life for the old,And wealth for the needy, and heat for the cold;For the dew scatters, nightly, its diamonds untold,And the snowdrop its silver, the crocus its gold!God!--whose goodness and greatness we bless and adore--Be Thou praised for this angel--the first of the four--To whose charge Thou has given the world's uttermost shore,To guide it, and guard it, till time is no more!

SPIRIT VOICES.

There are voices, spirit voices,Sweetly sounding everywhere,At whose coming earth rejoices,And the echoing realms of air,And their joy and jubilationPierce the near and reach the far,From the rapid world's gyrationTo the twinkling of the star.One, a potent voice uplifting,Stops the white cloud on its way,As it drives with driftless driftingO'er the vacant vault of day,And in sounds of soft upbraidingCalls it down the void inaneTo the gilding and the shadingOf the mountain and the plain.Airy offspring of the fountains,To thy destined duty sail,Seek it on the proudest mountains,Seek it in the humblest vale;Howsoever high thou fliest,How so deep it bids thee go,Be a beacon to the highestAnd a blessing to the low.When the sad earth, broken-hearted,Hath not even a tear to shed,And her very soul seems partedFor her children lying dead,Send the streams with warmer pulsesThrough that frozen fount of fears,And the sorrow that convulses,Soothe and soften down to tears.Bear the sunshine and the shadow,Bear the rain-drop and the snow,Bear the night-dew to the meadow,And to hope the promised bow,Bear the moon, a moving mirrorFor her angel face and form,Bear to guilt the flashing terrorOf the lightning and the storm.When thou thus hast done thy dutyOn the earth and o'er the sea,Bearing many a beam of beauty,Ever bettering what must be,Thus reflecting heaven's pure splendourAnd concealing ruined clay,Up to God thy spirit render,And dissolving pass away.And with fond solicitation,Speaks another to the streams--Leave your airy isolation,Quit the cloudy land of dreams,Break the lonely peak's attraction,Burst the solemn, silent glen,Seek the living world of actionAnd the busy haunts of men.Turn the mill-wheel with thy fingers,Turn the steam-wheel with thy breath,With thy tide that never lingersSave the dying fields from death;Let the swiftness of thy currentsBear to man the freight-fill'd ship,And the crystal of thy torrentsBring refreshment to his lip.And when thou, O rapid river,Thy eternal home dost seek,When no more the willows quiverBut to touch thy passing cheek,When the groves no longer greet theeAnd the shore no longer kiss,Let infinitude come meet theeOn the verge of the abyss.Other voices seek to win us--Low, suggestive, like the rest--But the sweetest is within usIn the stillness of the breast;Be it ours, with fond desiring,The same harvest to produce,As the cloud in its aspiringAnd the river in its use.

Centenary Odes.O'CONNELL.AUGUST6TH, 1875.

Harp of my native landThat lived anew 'neath Carolan's master hand;Harp on whose electric chords,The minstrel Moore's melodious words,Each word a bird that sings,Borne as if on Ariel's wings,Touched every tender soulFrom listening pole to pole.Sweet harp, awake once more:What, though a ruder hand disturbs thy rest,A theme so highWill its own worth supply.As finest gold is ever moulded best:Or as a cannon on some festive day,When sea and sky, when winds and waves rejoice,Out-booms with thunderous voice,Bids echo speak, and all the hills obey--So let the verse in echoing accents ring,So proudly sing,With intermittent wail,The nation's dead, but sceptred King,The glory of the Gael.

1775.

Six hundred stormy years have flown,Since Erin fought to hold her own,To hold her homes, her altars free,Within her wall of circling sea.No year of all those years had fled,No day had dawned that was not red,(Oft shed by fratricidal hand),With the best blood of all the land.And now, at last, the fight seemed o'er,The sound of battle pealed no more;Abject the prostrate people lay,Nor dared to hope a better day;An icy chill, a fatal frost,Left them with all but honour lost,Left them with only trust in God,The lands were gone their fathers owned;Poor pariahs on their native sod.Their faith was banned, their prophets stoned;Their temples crowning every height,Now echoed with an alien rite,Or silent lay each mouldering pile,With shattered cross and ruined aisle.Letters denied, forbade to pray,And white-winged commerce scared away:Ah, what can rouse the dormant lifeThat still survives the stormier strife?What potent charm can once againRelift the cross, rebuild the fane?Free learning from felonious chains,And give to youth immortal gains?What signal mercy from on high?--Hush! hark! I hear an infant's cry,The answer of a new-born child,From Iveragh's far mountain wild.Yes, 'tis the cry of a child, feeble and faint in the night,But soon to thunder in tones that will rouse both tyrants and slaves.Yes, 'tis the sob of a stream just awake in its source on the height,But soon to spread as a sea, and rush with the roaring of waves.Yes, 'tis the cry of a child affection hastens to still,But what shall silence ere long the victor voice of the man?Easy it is for a branch to bar the flow of the rill,But all the forest would fail where raging the torrent once ran.And soon the torrent will run, and the pent-up waters o'erflow,For the child has risen to a man, and a shout replaces the cry;And a voice rings out through the world, so wingèd with Erin's woe,That charmed are the nations to listen, and the Destinies to reply.Boyhood had passed away from that child, predestined by fateTo dry the eyes of his mother, to end the worst of her ills,And the terrible record of wrong, and the annals of hell and hate,Had gathered into his breast like a lake in the heart of the hills.Brooding over the past, he found himself but a slave,With manacles forged on his mind, and fetters on every limb;The land that was life to others, to him was only a grave,And however the race he ran no victor wreath was for him.The fane of learning was closed, shut out was the light of day,No ray from the sun of science, no brightness from Greece or Rome,And those who hungered for knowledge, like him, had to fly away,Where bountiful France threw wide the gates that were shut at home.And there he happily learned a lore far better than books,A lesson he taught for ever, and thundered over the land,That Liberty's self is a terror, how lovely may be her looks,If religion is not in her heart, and reverence guide not her hand.The steps of honour were barred: it was not for him to climb,No glorious goal in the future, no prize for the labour of life,And the fate of him and his people seemed fixed for all coming timeTo hew the wood of the helot and draw the waters of strife.But the glorious youth returningBack from France the fair and free,Rage within his bosom burning,Such a servile sight to see,Vowed to heaven it should not be."No!" the youthful champion cried,"Mother Ireland, widowed bride,If thy freedom can be wonBy the service of a son,Then, behold that son in me.I will give thee every hour,Every day shall be thy dower,In the splendour of the light,In the watches of the night,In the shine and in the shower,I shall work but for thy right."

1782-1800.

A dazzling gleam of evanescent glory,Had passed away, and all was dark once more,One golden page had lit the mournful story,Which ruthless hands with envious rage out-tore.One glorious sun-burst, radiant and far-reaching,Had pierced the cloudy veil dark ages wove,When full-armed Freedom rose from Grattan's teaching,As sprang Minerva from the brain of Jove.Oh! in the transient light that had outbroken,How all the land with quickening fire was lit!What golden words of deathless speech were spoken,What lightning flashes of immortal wit!Letters and arts revived beneath its beaming,Commerce and Hope outspread their swelling sails,And with "Free Trade" upon their standard gleaming,Now feared no foes and dared adventurous gales.Across the stream the graceful arch extended,Above the pile the rounded dome arose,The soaring spire to heaven's high vault ascended,The loom hummed loud as bees at evening's close.And yet 'mid all this hope and animation,The people still lay bound in bigot chains,Freedom that gave some slight alleviation,Could dare no panacea for their pains.Yet faithful to their country's quick uprising,Like some fair island from volcanic waves,They shared the triumph though their claims despising,And hailed the freedom though themselves were slaves.But soon had come the final compensation,Soon would the land one brotherhood have known,Had not some spell of hellish incantationThe new-formed fane of Freedom overthrown.In one brief hour the fair mirage had faded,No isle of flowers lay glad on ocean's green,But in its stead, deserted and degraded,The barren strand of Slavery's shore was seen.

1800-1829.

Yet! 'twas on that barren strandSing his praise throughout the world!Yet, 'twas on that barren strand,O'er a cowed and broken band,That his solitary handFreedom's flag unfurled.Yet! 'twas there in Freedom's cause,Freedom from unequal laws,Freedom for each creed and class,For humanity's whole mass,That his voice outrang;--And the nation at a bound,Stirred by the inspiring sound,To his side up-sprang.Then the mighty work began,Then the war of thirty years--Peaceful war, when words were spears,And religion led the van.When O'Connell's voice of power,Day by day and hour by hour,Raining down its iron shower,Laid oppression low,Till at length the war was o'er,And Napoleon's conqueror,Yielded to a mightier foe.

1829.

Into the senate swept the mighty chief,Like some great ocean wave across the barOf intercepting rock, whose jagged reefBut frets the victor whom it cannot mar.Into the senate his triumphal carRushed like a conqueror's through the broken gatesOf some fallen city, whose defenders arePowerful no longer to resist the fates,But yield at last to him whom wondering Fame awaits.And as "sweet foreign Spenser" might have sung,Yoked to the car two wingèd steeds were seen,With eyes of fire and flashing hoofs outflung,As if Apollo's coursers they had been.These were quick Thought and Eloquence, I ween,Bounding together with impetuous speed,While overhead there waved a flag of green,Which seemed to urge still more each flying steed,Until they reached the goal the hero had decreed.There at his feet a captive wretch lay bound,Hideous, deformed, of baleful countenance,Whom as his blood-shot eye-balls glared around,As if to kill with their malignant glance,I knew to be the fiend Intolerance.But now no longer had he power to slay,For Freedom touched him with Ithuriel's lance,His horrid form revealing by its ray,And showed how foul a fiend the world could once obey.Then followed after him a numerous train,Each bearing trophies of the field he won:Some the white wand, and some the civic chain,Its golden letters glistening in the sun;Some--for the reign of justice had begun--The ermine robes that soon would be the prizeOf spotless lives that all pollution shun,And some in mitred pomp, with upturned eyes,And grateful hearts invoked a blessing from the skies.

1843-1847.

A glorious triumph! a deathless deed!--Shall the hero rest and his work half done?Is it enough to enfranchise a creed,When a nation's freedom may yet be won?Is it enough to hang on the wallThe broken links of the Catholic chain,When now one mighty struggle for ALLMay quicken the life in the land again?--May quicken the life, for the land lay dead;No central fire was a heart in its breast,--No throbbing veins, with the life-blood red,Ran out like rivers to east or west:Its soul was gone, and had left it clay--Dull clay to grow but the grass and the root;But harvests forMen,ah! where were they?--And where was the tree for Liberty's fruit?Never till then, in victory's hour,Had a conqueror felt a joy so sweet,As when the wand of his well-won powerO'Connell laid at his country's feet."No! not for me, nor for mine alone,"The generous victor cried, "Have I fought,But to see my Eire again on her throne;Ah, that was my dream and my guiding thought.To see my Eire again on her throne,Her tresses with lilies and shamrocks twined,Her severed sons to a nation grown,Her hostile hues in one flag combined;Her wisest gathered in grave debate,Her bravest armed to resist the foe:To see my country 'glorious and great,'--To see her 'free,'--to fight I go!"And forth he went to the peaceful fight,And the millions rose at his words of fire,As the lightning's leap from the depth of the night,And circle some mighty minster's spire:Ah, ill had it fared with the hapless land,If the power that had roused could not restrain?If the bolts were not grasped in a glowing handTo be hurled in peals of thunder again?And thus the people followed his path,As if drawn on by a magic spell,--By the royal hill and the haunted rath,By the hallowed spring and the holy well,By all the shrines that to Erin are dear,Round which her love like the ivy clings,--Still folding in leaves that never grow sereThe cell of the saint and the home of kings.And a soul of sweetness came into the land:Once more was the harp of Erin strung;Once more on the notes from some master handThe listening land in its rapture hung.Once more with the golden glory of wordsWere the youthful orator's lips inspired,Till he touched the heart to its tenderest chords,And quickened the pulse which his voice had fired.And others divinely dowered to teach--High souls of honour, pure hearts of fire,So startled the world with their rhythmic speech,That it seemed attuned to some unseen lyre.But the kingliest voice God ever gave manWords sweeter still spoke than poet hath sung,--For a nation's wail through the numbers ran,And the soul of the Celt exhaled on his tongue.And again the foe had been forced to yield;But the hero at last waxed feeble and old,Yet he scattered the seed in a fruitful field,To wave in good time as a harvest of gold.Then seeking the feet of God's High Priest,He slept by the soft Ligurian Sea,Leaving a light, like the Star in the East,To lead the land that will yet be free.

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