Classic Poem

Oh ! my country — oh! my Erin,
Once so gladsome, once so gay,
Must thou, slowly disappearing,
Vanish from the face of day?
Will the angry Godhead grant us
Nought from thee except a grave?
Thou, alas! a true Atlantis
Sinking down in ruin's wave!

He enslaveth — who delivers,
And the hand doth smite that shields —
Erin of the fishful rivers —
Erin of the golden fields —
Strange her destiny, but stranger,
If the just God could forgive
Her who gave unto the stranger
What should make her children live!

But why use this nomenclature?
Why the frank avowal shun?
Dare to blame not God or Nature,
For what we ourselves have done.
Blame not God's benign intentions,
Nor the wily statesman's snares;
Let us blame our mad dissensions,
Boasts and brawls and braggart airs!

Let us make the sad confession
And the bitter fruit bewail,
It was partly indiscretion,
Partly caution, made us fail:
Some too slow, and some too rapid,
Some too timid, some too bold,
Some too volatile or vapid, —
And the tragic tale is told!

But, whate'er the cause, 'tis over,
And the sad result remains;
Desolation's wing doth hover
Daily darklier o'er our plains;
Save the buried and the banished,
Nought to ponder proudly o'er;
What was Ireland hath evanished,
What was Irish is no more!

Who shall guide us? — who shall save us? —
Break our chains? — unbind our cords?
Cold the burning heart of Davis,
Hush'd O'Connell's thunder-words;
Gone the Nobly-rash, Bold-spoken —
He, with danger first to cope;
Ah! " our ranks are thinn'd and broken " —
Who remains to give us hope?

Oh! Ierne, oh! ill-omened
Mother, rend thy tresses grey,
Wail the noblest heir of Thomond,
Wifeless, childless, borne away!
Look athwart the watery Lybian
Waste, and yonder captives wail;
There the golden-tongued young Tribune
And his brave companions sail!

Oh! our sad, our painful story,
What can equal? what can rival?
Gone the Island's ancient glory,
Gone the dreams of its revival.
Mute the clairseach that had woken
Hopes and tears and throbs and sighs;
For, with heart and harp-strings broken,
The Prince of all the Minstrels lies!

Still the old material Island
Looks as fertile, smiles as fair,
As when Baal-fires lit the highland,
And the bell-towers tolled to prayer.
'Mid the upland meads expanding,
See the hopeful peasant walks,
See the girdled sheaves are standing
Grain-filled 'mid the golden stalks.

The Isle's vitality astounds us,
As smiles upon a death-face traced —
For, ah! the desert that surrounds us
Spreads darkly round — a moral waste.
The faith, the hope, the trust that lighted
Our footsteps on for many a day —
These, with our very hearts, are blighted,
And, withering, waste and fade away.

From out that desert, where the Gifted
Dreamed verdurous isle and halls of gold;
Still from that desert is uplifted,
A Warning Voice, like that of old:
" God hath this punishment permitted
For what we've done, and left undone: —
Repent ye, of the sins committed,
And freedom's kingdom may be won! "