Chapter IV: The Constable’s Christmas Collation (2)

[An Irish girl, hearing that her brother Pat had been killed in the
Royal Irish, fighting against the Mahdi, said: “It served Pat
right. He had no business going out there to fight those poor
creatures (the Arabs). May God strengthen the Mahdi.”--_London
Graphic._]

I have no tears for brother Pat,
Though stark he lies, and stiff and gory,
On the Egyptian desert, that
He might assist in England’s glory.
The foes he fought were not his own,
Nor his the tyrant’s cause he aided;
Then why should I his fate bemoan?
O brother, faithless and degraded!

He saw how Saxon laws at home
Had crushed his sires and banned his brothers,
Why should he cross the ocean’s foam
To place that hated yoke on others?
The Arabs slew him in a fight
For all by brave and free men cherished--
Ay, for the cause of truth and right,
For which his kith and kin had perished.

No Arab chief in Ninety-eight
Placed foot on Erin’s shore as foeman;
They lent no spears to swell the hate
Of Hessian hound and Orange yeoman.
But those who wrapt our homes in flame
And trod us down like dumb-brute cattle--
It was for them--oh, burning shame!
My brother gave his life in battle.

Sure, every memory of late
Must from his wretched heart have vanished;
Our hills and valleys desolate,
Our ruined homes, our people banished.
And yet, God knows, he learned in youth
The gloomy story of his sireland--
Drank in at mother’s knees the truth
That England is the scourge of Ireland.

I cannot weep for brother Pat--
I hate the hellish cause he died for;
False traitor to the freedom that
His brothers strove, his sisters sighed for;
E’en when in tearful dreams I see
The parching sands drift blood-stained o’er him,
My grief is changed to anger. He
Was treacherous to the land that bore him!

RAPPAREE SONG.

Come up, comrades, up, see the night draweth on,
And black shadows loom over fair Slieve-namon;
The darkness is creeping o’er mountain and vale,
And our footsteps are drowned in the roar of the gale.
Our proud foemen rest in yon valley below,
And their slumbering guards never dream of a foe:
Then up, comrades, up, ere the bright sun appears
We’ll have vengeance galore for the sufferings of years.

They have plundered our homes and foredoomed us to die
Of famine and want ’neath the cold winter sky;
Our roof-trees are blazing, our altars o’erthrown,
And ’tis treason to ask or to hope for our own;
Our kinsmen lie food for the ravens and crows--
They craved but for bread, and were answered with blows;
And because we won’t perish while feasting they be,
Oh, robbers, and traitors, and cut-throats are we!

We’re robbers to snatch back our own from their hand,
We’re traitors because we are true to our land,
And cut-throats, ha! ha! so the cowards can feel
That we, like themselves, carry points to our steel!
They have hunted us down now for many a day;
To-night they shall find us the hunters, not they;
For we’ll bend to their foul yoke no longer, we’ll swear,
Whilst we’ve arms that can strike, boys, or hearts that can dare.

TO THE LANDLORDS OF IRELAND.

You tendered us when famine came
The pity of a thought,
Bestowed to slaves whose sense of shame
And hearts and souls you’d bought.
Time’s wheel turns round--you’ve lost your place,
And right into your tyrant face,
Your jibes and sneers
Of many years
At victims’ tears
Are thrown,
And in God’s name,
Our hearts aflame,
To-day we claim
Our own!

Once for ye, skulking, lazy elves,
Muscle and brain we wrought.
Toiled, starved, and died--scarce for ourselves
The crumbs of Lazarus sought;
And when ye flung us out a crust,
Our faces grovelling in the dust,
We gave ye thanks--
No prize, all blanks
In our poor ranks
Was known;
But now, thank God,
We’ve spurned your rod,
And claim this sod
Our own!

We lift our faces to the sky
Where once our heads were bowed,
We breathe no more a timid sigh,
But speak our thoughts aloud.
From dizzy hill and peaceful plain
Our voices join in this refrain:
The seeds we sow,
The crops we grow,
The fields we mow,
Alone,
Without your aid
In cash or spade
At last are made
Our own!

BALFOUR REJOICES.

So the toil of the session is over,
My woes for a period cease,
And hey for a journey by Dover
To latitudes promising peace;
Away to recuperate vigor--
Away from obstruction’s mad spell--
Away from the questions of Biggar--
Away from the taunts of Parnell.

No more my poor head shall be aching
With night after night of debate--
No more shall my soul feel a quaking
At bald, irrepressible prate.
And, though ocean attack me with rigor,
While sea-sick, with joy I will dwell
On the fact that I’m leaving Joe Biggar,
And getting away from Parnell.

No more to be quizzed on each capture
Of priest or of peasant by night--
I could dance the can-can in my rapture,
Or stand on my head with delight.
Play the banjo and sing like a nigger,
Or like a wild Irishman yell
Hurroo! I am free from Joe Biggar,
And don’t give--ahem--for Parnell!

Yet I feel an occasional spasm
At thoughts of returning at all,
’Twere better to leap down a chasm
Or under an avalanche fall;
Or, fingers embracing the trigger,
Let the pistol’s report loudly tell
How I hated the queries of Biggar
And the dolorous talk of Parnell.

A PICTURESQUE PENNY-A-LINER.

There may be some miserable beings to whom the existence of that powerful organ of public opinion, the Stretchville _Sparrow_, is a sealed volume, or, more correctly, an unopened newspaper. Should such be the melancholy fact, I hasten to inform them that the Stretchville _Sparrow_ (_vide_ its own circular) is a power, a forty-horse power, in the universe. Circulating, as it does, among the three hundred adults of Stretchville and vicinity, it wields an influence that inspires awe and creates astonishment. As befits a journal with responsibilities so tremendous, and a status so imposing, it aims to keep abreast of the times. So when the Land League agitation had brought Ireland and the Irish prominently forward, and such lesser luminaries as the New York _Herald_ and _Tribune_ and _Times_ and the Boston _Herald_ and a score of other dailies had their specials over in the sorrowful country, the _Sparrow_ felt imperatively called upon to bestow its approval by following the example. Stubbs, the head reporter, bookkeeper, advertisement canvasser, and proof-reader, was therefore ordered to hold himself in readiness to embark on a perilous journey (via the editorial back room) through the wilds of Connemara and the mountains of Kerry. He was equipped for the expedition with a school map of Ireland and an old copy of Thom’s Dublin Directory, which contained a list of all the landed gentry of the country.

His instructions were brief, but they covered a lot of ground. “You know as much about the country now,” observed his chief, “as if you were there. We’ve got to lick the New York _Herald_ and the rest of ’em. Whenever you see an Irish murder in another paper, let us have two. There’s nearly two thousand names in that directory. With judicious management they ought to last till this Irish boom pegs out. You’d better tick each landlord off when you telegraph his demise. It won’t do to shoot one fellow three or four times. People want variety. You might skin a bailiff or scalp a policeman now and then. Go ahead at once, and give us some lively telegrams.”

Well, it _was_ lively for a few weeks after that in the _Sparrow_. One day we had: “Fearful Murders in Ireland--Seven Landlords Shot!” The next there was a six-inch heading, “Cannibalism in Connemara--Six Agents Stewed and a Sub-Inspector Fricasseed!” Then when the _Tribune_ came out with a summary of three months’ Irish outrages, and showed that there had been fourteen murders of agents and landlords, and one hundred and seven assaults upon bailiffs and process servers, that conscientious reporter, who had been told to double every crime reported elsewhere, and who didn’t grasp the fact that the _Tribune’s_ was a three-months’ record, paralyzed the readers of the _Sparrow_ with a blood-curdling telegram to the effect that there had been a horrible night’s battue in the Emerald Isle, twenty-eight landlords and agents having handed in their checks, and two hundred and fourteen officers of the law having suffered every conceivable indignity, from swallowing writs and processes on the half-shell, to being stripped naked and turned loose for light recreation in nettle beds or around wasps’ nests. By this time the special had got half through his directory, and the list of names eligible for assassination was rapidly dwindling down, so he had to improvise a few. His boss, too, complained that there was a lack of variety in his telegrams. He had wiped out four or five hundred land-owners in pretty nearly the same sentences every time. He should diversify the details. He diversified. Here’s his style:--

“GALWAY, Tuesday.--A man named M’Swilkin took a farm last week from
which the previous tenant had been evicted. He was waited upon
yesterday evening by a few neighbors. It is estimated that he
weighed forty pounds heavier after the interview. The surgeons have
been three days excavating for lead, and haven’t done striking new
veins yet.”

“At a land-meeting near Castlebar last week, Michael Moolannigan
boasted that he had paid his rent. His widow complains that she
can’t hold a decent wake on a pair of braces and two buttons. She
wants more of him, to give the funeral a respectable appearance.”

This special correspondence continued to be telegraphed from the editorial sanctum, and dated Sligo or Cahirciveen or Letterkenny, according to the scene of the last big thing in murders, until readers began to get kind of hardened to it, and didn’t mind half-a-dozen murders in Ireland quarter as much as they would the same number of errors in a base-ball match. Under the circumstances, it was thought as well to drop the Irish agency. “You had better return,” observed the chief, as they sat smoking together at the hospitable bar next door. “We’ll wind up your Irish tour with an interview. I’ll interview you. Just throw us in a few spicy maimings or strangulations for this issue, and you can be home next Saturday, and your interviewing will be handy for Sunday’s edition.” I give the interview as it appeared in the _Sparrow_, to show how scrupulously truthful was that Irish correspondent:--

“Yesterday, the gentleman who has represented us in Ireland, and whose energy enabled us to publish information which no other journal was in a position to obtain at that period or at any other, visited Stretchville. As we had not seen Mr. Blank before his departure for Hibernian shores, and were anxious to notice for ourselves what manner of man this was who for the past four months has been carrying his life in one hand, his repeater in the other, and his note-book and pencil in ----. But to abbreviate.

“We found him a pale, calm, intellectual-looking gentleman, upon whose brow the impress of truth and candor were stamped in Nature’s indelible marking-ink. He was accompanied by a miserable anatomy of a greyhound, whose spectral leanness was a miracle. It had no tail. The thin elongation of its body was so superlative that it seemed as if Nature had given up in despair the task of adding a caudal appendage in shadowy proportion to the other outlines. Our curiosity was excited, and we asked him how he came into possession of the canine ghost.

“‘I do not like telling the story,’ he answered; ‘I have a horror of being suspected of giving utterance to an untruth. But this mute witness will corroborate my tale by the want of his own. You remember I was down in the West of Ireland during the recent famine. My mission brought me into Ballykill--something or somebody. I never witnessed anything like the destitution among the landlords there in my life before. They were worn to threads.

“‘I was informed that on a moonlight night it took three of them to make a shadow. I would not have believed myself that less than a dozen could produce anything like a respectable shade.

“‘Well, one landlord, who had been master of the hounds, had only two of the pack left. He and his family had lived during the winter upon the others.

“‘The first of these two dogs, poor creature, fell to pieces trying to bark at me--just collapsed like a house of cards.

“‘The second animal you see with me. His sagacity was remarkable. He felt it his duty to bark at the stranger, but the fate of his companion warned him of the danger. So he leaned carefully against a wall, and succeeded in emitting a howl. I was struck by his extraordinary instinct. I bought him from his skeleton owner, a poor lath of a fellow you could blow out with a puff like a rush-light.

“‘I gave the man a shilling for him--in two sixpences, so that he could balance himself. If he had got the shilling to carry in either side pocket, it would have brought him down.

“‘I shall always take credit to myself for preserving that poor man’s centre of gravity.

“‘I brought the dog to my hotel. I left him in the dining-room, but, fearing he might slip under the door, I tied a double knot on his tail. In my brief temporary absence he smelt some scraps of meat in the bottom of a cupboard. He got through the keyhole as far as his tail. He couldn’t get the double knot through but he was able to reach the meat. He fed. You see the result. He could get no farther in, and after his feed he couldn’t get back past his stomach. I found him in that position when I returned. To save him from a lingering death, I had to vivisect his tail.’

“We ventured to hint that there might be a mistake about the double knot. The dog was of a breed whose tails are naturally short; so much so, that it would require hydraulic pressure to squeeze a double knot out of one. Our special was too virtuously indignant to reply for a moment, but, coming to, he explained that, going to rest supperless, the Irish landlords’ dogs had acquired a habit of sleeping with their tails in their mouths, which filled their minds with dreams of food. This had a tendency to lengthen out the canine latter end. ‘And, at any rate,’ concluded our contributor, ‘I would scorn to tell a lie for the sake of a knot on a dog’s tail!’”

THE IRISH BRIGADE.

When in sorrow and darkness they left their lov’d home,
They won, far away, o’er the ocean’s salt foam,
A bright wreath of laurels that never shall fade.
A welcome they found from fair France and proud Spain,
Whose honor and glory they fought to maintain;
And wherever the Sassenach showed his false face,
’Twas to meet the avengers of Erin’s disgrace,
And front the bright steel of the Irish Brigade!

Oh wild was their rush and exultant their shout,
When the signal to charge from the bugle rang out,--
The fire of their hearts seemed to temper each blade.
They thought of the land they had left o’er the sea,
And the brave who had perished, dear Erin, for thee,
Then one cheer for Old Ireland, a curse on her foes,
Like the peal of the thunder to heaven arose
From the lips and the souls of the Irish Brigade!

When France, torn and bleeding, her chivalry slain,
Lay gasping and faint upon Fontenoy’s plain,
Not vain the appeal that her proud monarch made;
The war-cry of Erin, a wild slogan, rang
O’er the clamor of battle, as swiftly they sprang
From their feet to the charge, and with avalanche might
Swept down on the victors, who scattered in flight,
Borne back by the steel of the Irish Brigade!

Then, hurrah! for the fame of our faithful and brave,
Unforgotten they rest, though across the deep wave,
In far distant lands, are their weary bones laid.
Long, long be remembered the lesson they taught,
They loved the green island, and died where they fought;
With face to the foeman unconquered they fell.
May we fight the battle of freedom as well
For the flag and the cause of the Irish Brigade!

SNOOKS.

Justice in Ireland, as administered by those awful instruments of the law, the omniscient J. P.’s, is a profoundly solemn thing. The high priest of the Jewish sanctuary, the sacred Brahmin of the Buddhist temple, the Sheikh-ul-Islam of the Mohammedan faith, has only about one-tenth the idea of his own stupendous importance that a West British honorary magistrate possesses. They believe themselves to be not only pillars and ornaments of the glorious English Constitution, but its very corner-stones. Therefore, when one of these Olympic deities condescends to unbend to our more humble level, and actually makes a joke, we should be grateful to his Mightiness for letting us know that, great as he is, he is but human after all. Such an incident is worthy of imperishable record, and we eagerly copy the following from an Irish exchange:--

“In giving his decision at the Abbeyfeale quarter sessions relative
to an alleged insult to a sub-constable, which insult consisted of
the defendant’s whistling ‘Harvey Duff,’ the chairman said: ‘There
is a difference between a policeman and an ordinary individual.
When a policeman is hooted or whistled at, it is the office he
holds is held up to contempt. It is not Sub-Constable Snooks
[_laughter_] that is insulted, but it is the office that is held by
Snooks.’ [_Laughter._]”

Who but an Irish J. P. could have emitted from his brilliant intellect that bright sparkle about Snooks? The delicacy and yet the pungency of the wit, added to the simplicity and yet profundity of the reasoning, deserve immortalizing in glowing verse, and with feelings of deepest admiration I dedicate this rhythmic paraphrase of his wonderful ideas to that gorgeous Abbeyfeale chairman:--

If you notice a policeman at the corner of a street
In an energetic struggle with a pair of erring feet,
A decided inclination to lie down upon his beat,
And confusion quite apparent in his looks,
An odor floating round him you’d no reason to expect,
You have not got the slightest cause to cavil or object;
The law is oft mysterious, and, stranger, recollect,
’Tis the law’s inebriated, and not Snooks.

A policeman is no ordinary mortal; so suppose
It unfortunately happens, as it might do, that there grows
A pimple at the end of 27’s Roman nose,
Which his dignity but very little brooks.
You must not, at your peril, venture carelessly to laugh,
And avoid like trichinosis any tendency to chaff,
Unless you wish to seek the rude acquaintance of his staff--
’Tis the law that has that pimple, and not Snooks!

CALEDONIAN CANDLESTICKS.

Towards the close of the year 1867, that mighty empire, the drum-beat of whose soldiers welcomes the sun all round the world, was plunged into one of those periodical visitations of panic which have afflicted her like an intermittent nightmare since the naughty pranks of Fenianism first disturbed the digestions of her statesmen. Three brave men had just been hanged in the city of Manchester for the rescue of two rebel leaders, and Ireland mourned them as martyrs, while the guilty conscience of England quaked in hourly fear of a retribution which was felt to be deserved, and of which more than one indication had been foreshadowed. For, to say nothing of the terrible explosion at Clerkenwell, London, by which some twenty people were killed and hundreds more or less seriously wounded, every metropolitan and provincial paper shrieked forth dire warnings of mysterious plots, awful conspiracies, and blood-curdling revelations. A red-headed Irishman had been discovered prowling round the Warrington Gas Works. That smoky Lancashire town was instantly declared in a state of siege. The volunteers were called out, every male between the ages of twelve and eighty was sworn in as a special constable, and in the terrible confusion of the time many of the sturdy Anglo-Saxons so far lost their presence of mind as to beat other fellows’ wives instead of their own, while some of them became such hopeless imbeciles as to behave like Christians for a whole week. Soon after the bodies of two dead cats were seen in the canal at Crewe, within a hundred yards of the mayor’s residence. So convinced was that functionary that they were stuffed with nitro-glycerine or fulminate of mercury that he took the first express for London, and thence telegraphed to the chief constable to seize the suspicious feline carcasses. With the assistance of a detachment of engineers and the entire police force of Crewe, the remains of the defunct tabbies were brought to land, but there wasn’t a chemist in England’s borders would undertake a post-mortem examination, so they were carefully conveyed far out into St. George’s channel, and committed to the depths of the silent waters.

It was in Manchester, however, that the most abject state of alarm existed. The military guards were trebled, the police force was augmented by all the men that could be spared from the county constabulary, the Irish population was placed under the closest surveillance; watchmen patrolled the neighborhood of all public buildings and important warehouses, which were amply supplied with bags of sand and buckets of water in view of any possible conflagration, the sand being for the especial contingency of Greek-fire, which is like Irish eloquence in one respect, that it can’t be quenched by cold water, and must therefore be smothered. So overwhelmed was the superintendent of the Manchester police, Capt. Palin, by his responsibilities, that he ran away from them along with the wife of the resident magistrate, Mr. Fowler. In his absence, the duty of guarding the city from the Fenian bombs, dynamite, powder, bullets, daggers, and shillelaghs devolved upon the commandant of the Ninety-second Highlanders, who were then in garrison at Manchester. It is easy to imagine the horror of this officer when, a few days after his appointment, he received a letter containing the details of a diabolical plot to destroy the city and annihilate the troops. On a given night the gas mains were to be severed, and in the ensuing darkness the town was to be fired in a hundred places, the barracks attacked by a few thousand wild Irishmen, armed with pikes, bowie-knives, hand grenades, bottles of vitriol, Remington rifles, sledge-hammers, and revolvers, and the devoted Cameron men chopped into as many fragments as the squares of their tartans.

Their chief at first was overwhelmed. He swallowed three mutchkins of Glenlivat and consumed a quarter-pound of snuff in two minutes without knowing it. Recovering somewhat, he summoned a hasty council of the Macintoshes and the Mackenzies and the Macgregors of those various ilks, and after many applications of the barley bree and sundry inhalations of Lundyfoot, a plan of defence was agreed upon. The sentries were doubled, and the remainder of the garrison ordered to sleep upon their arms. Sand-bags were piled in every convenient corner, barrels and buckets and tubs of water ranged on every staircase, and, greatest effort of the entire strategy, each kilted warrior was provided with two tallow candles and a box of matches. Unfortunately, they received no orders as to how the illuminating agents were to be utilized in the event of an Egyptian darkness suddenly enshrouding them in gloom. Consequently they were much divided in opinion as to whether one Highlander was to hold the candles while the other did the shooting; or should each Highlander carry his own candle in his bonnet or his kilt; or were they to pile the candles in a pyramid on the ground, and form a square around them; or was it possible the candles were intended for rations, should the siege last any time. Luckily no occasion arose for testing the brilliancy of the candle idea or of the candles themselves, but for days afterwards a doughty mountaineer from Inverness or Aberfeldy would be surprised, when at the friendly fireside of some hospitable countryman in Manchester, to find Niagaras of grease rolling impetuously down his nether limbs, and would learn too late that he had forgotten to take his strange munitions of war out of his pocket, and was consequently indulging in a warm tallow bath. In time the story oozed out, and until this day that battalion of the Ninety-second is known to the gamins of Manchester as the Caledonian Candlesticks.

FAITHFUL TO THE LAST.

So they’ve found another victim and another rebel dies,
A sacrifice to prejudice, to perjury and lies;
Another name is added to our country’s martyr-roll,
And our English rulers send to heaven another Irish soul;
All the tricks and all the meanness that their lawyers and their spies,
With months of preparation, could imagine and devise,
Like a network planned by Satan, round his gallant life was passed,
But God be with you, bouchal, you were faithful to the last!

When the abject, wretched Judas shrank and cowered like a hound,
Though thrice a score protecting British sabres gird him round,
Though you saw no friendly feature in that strange and dismal place,
Not a quiver stirred your muscles, not a pallor blanched your face;
With a smile upon your lips that spoke the gallant heart within,
With a courage that has never yet been known to fraud or sin,
You saw the hangman’s rope for you spun furiously and fast,
But God be with you, bouchal, you were faithful to the last!

No guilt was on your soul, but what had that to do with slaves?
You were far too grand and noble to recruit their band of knaves;
You were Irish, and a Fenian, blood and nerve and brain and bone,
And those were crimes which nothing but your young life could atone;
But not all the jailer’s terrors, and not all death’s awful gloom,
The horror of the dungeon, nor the silence of the tomb,
A shadow o’er your spirit for a single hour could cast,
So, God be with you, bouchal, you were faithful to the last!

FENIAN BATTLE-SONG.

Hurrah! we stand on Irish land,
Our hated foe before us,
And once for all, to rise or fall,
The green flag flying o’er us,
We’ve raised it proudly overhead.
God prosper our endeavor,
Unite our bands, and nerve our hands,
To keep it there forever!

We marched away at break of day,
And sweethearts left behind us,
To strike one blow at yon false foe,
Whose rusty fetters bind us.
For while we bear the name of men,
We’ll crouch no more as slaves, boys,
Oh, Ireland shall be free again,
Or we’ll be in our graves, boys!

We’ve listened long to traitors mean,
False England’s scarlet praising;
We’ve heard them mock our Irish green
Until our blood seemed blazing!
And chieftains, too, who should be true,
Have kept our ranks asunder,
But Faction’s sound to-day is drowned
In Freedom’s battle-thunder!

Then here’s hurrah for all the brave,
No matter who may lead ’em,
And here’s a curse on every slave
Who mars the cause of freedom!
Let leaders vain aside remain
Until their feuds are ended,
’Tis by the man who knows no clan
Our flag must be defended.

We’ve men from Galway to Kildare,
From Limerick’s walls to Derry,
Bold ramblers from the County Clare
And mountaineers from Kerry.
We’ll chase our alien foes away,
We’ll tear our bonds asunder;
We care not who’s to lead to-day,
_We’ll_ fight and conquer under!

THE GRAVE OF THE MARTYRS.[D]

Far away from the home and the friends they love best,
’Mid murd’rers and felons all silent they rest;
Not a cross, not a stone, marks the desolate spot
Where the bones of our martyred ones crumble and rot!

In the cold prison ground, sad and lone, side by side,
With their faces to Ireland, they sleep as they died;
And the Angel of Liberty, hovering near,
On the consecrate grave drops a pitying tear!

Surrounded by foemen, ’mid jeering and hate,
True as steel to the last, they went forth to their fate,
With a prayer for thy cause on the high gallows-tree--
Dear home of our fathers! they perished for thee!

When they took them away from that desolate place,
They found death had left a bright smile on each face,
So they buried them quickly, lest true men should see
How the hosts of the tyrant were baffled by Three!

For still are they free, as no tyrant can bind
The proud, chainless soul or the fetterless mind;
And though the cold limbs may be laid in the grave,
Soul and mind are enshrined in the hearts of the brave!

Long, long may our land guard and treasure each name,
Till a nation made free hymns their glorious fame;
And our grandsons shall tell that from yonder cold grave
Sprang the spirit yet destined our nation to save!

DEATH’S VICTORY.

IN MEMORIAM JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.

The Poet may grieve for his Art’s vacant throne;
The Patriot mourn for a brave spirit flown;
For the loss of a hero the Soldier may sigh,
And the Church miss a star from her glorious sky.

But with these ’tis not death--for through every age,
In the lore of the Student, in History’s page,
In the stories they tell, the examples they give,
Of Genius and Truth--he will live! he will live!

With the cypress the laurel of glory shall twine
To deck the white shaft that will rise o’er his shrine;
In sunshine a banner, in darkness a flame,
To his land and his kindred shall long be his name.

But to those who have loved him, oh! what can replace
The grasp of his hand or the light of his face,
The true, tender friendship an angel might prize,
That played round his lips and that shone in his eyes?

Ah! for us, faithful heart, he is lost in the grave
Till he welcomes us, too, over death’s dismal wave;
No solace can sweeten one tear that we shed--
He lives to the world, but to us he is dead.

THE GREEN FLAG AT FREDERICKSBURG.

Bear it up, bear it up, through the clouds of the battle,
On, on, through the smoke and the glare;
Though in hail-storms the balls from yon black ramparts rattle,
We will plant it triumphantly there.
Though now, by the eddying war-dust beclouded,
’Twas lost at the base of the hill,
See again, on its summit, in flame-wreaths enshrouded,
Our flag waves triumphantly still!

We have marched ’neath its folds over meadow and mountain,
In sunshine and shower, side by side;
To guard it we opened our hearts’ living fountain,
Till it flowed in a hot crimson tide;
And guard it we will for the dear ones who love us,
Till death bids our warm hearts be chill,
And our foes even then shall behold that above us
Our flag waves triumphantly still!

’Tis the flag that our sires and our grandsires died under;
The flag that our children shall bear
When at home in the old land the cannon’s dread thunder
Knells Tyranny’s doom on the air.
’Twill be born o’er the foam-crested waves of the ocean,
And true hearts in Ireland shall thrill
To see in the land of their love and devotion
Our flag wave triumphantly still.

THE FLAG OF OUR LAND.

Come kinsmen, come clansmen, from South and
from North,
Hark! hark! the wild slogan of war pealing forth!
It rings through each vale, and from peak unto peak
The heather-clad mountains in thunder-tones speak;
It calls on our loyal, our true, and our brave,
From the whispering heath and the hollow-toned wave,
With sabre and musket, and red battle-brand,
To gather once more ’neath the Flag of our Land.

Shall the stranger still rule in the halls of our sires?
Shall our waters still mirror the plunderers’ fires?
Shall our manhood be lost, and our darling old sod
By tyrants and traitors forever be trod?
’Mid the nations around us, oh, say, shall our name,
Our cause, and our people be bywords for shame?
No! We swear by the graves of our fathers to stand
For freedom or death ’neath the Flag of our Land!

By the fame of our martyrs, the memory of those
Who fell, side by side, ever fronting their foes;
By the plunderers’ fires and the murderers’ steel;
By the wrongs we have felt and the hatred we feel;
By the scaffold’s red path and the dungeon’s dread gloom,
And their myriad victims who call from the tomb,
Meet the foe and strike home with a vengeance-nerved hand,
Till his false blood shall crimson the Flag of our Land!

HURRAH FOR LIBERTY.

Arouse ye from your slumbering,
Awake to life once more,
The time for idle pleadings
And for vain regrets is o’er;
We’ll bend and crouch no more like hounds,
But in a fight like men,
With men’s brave hearts and men’s stout arms
We’ll win our own again.

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for liberty!
Till death we stand,
To make our land
A nation proud and free.

We bent unto the tyrant,
And we prayed in vain for years,
But now we’re going to try, boys,
Rifle-balls instead of tears.
Our sighs shall be the trumpet’s call,
The rolling of the drum,
And in future our petitions
From the cannon’s mouth shall come.--Hurrah!

From Galway right to Wicklow,
And from Cork to Donegal,
We’ll march once more for liberty
To win it or to fall.
We’ll flaunt our flag from cliff and crag,
And guard it with our steel;
We’ll show our foes what deadly blows
Each Irish arm can deal.--Hurrah!

In ages past the redcoats quailed
Before our fathers’ might;
Have we not still the courage left
To battle for the right?
Though cowards dread the troops in red,
We’ll cross their steel with joy,
And show that Irish valor was
Not spent at Fontenoy.

The wily knave, the coward slave,
To home and life may cling,
But there’s no place for falsehood’s face
Where gleaming sabres ring!
We’ve thrown our gage, our lives we wage
For Freedom and for Right;
Appeals we’ve tried; now, God decide,
Our last appeal is fight!

THE MESSENGER.

NOVEMBER 23, 1867.[E]

With bated breath and trembling lips, we gathered round him there--
Tall, sinewy men with faces bronzed, and maidens young and fair;
We questioned him with eager eyes--we had not power to speak,
For a nameless dread was in each heart, and whitened every cheek!

Twice, thrice his lips moved silently, his tongue refused its task,
We spoke not, but he knew right well the question we would ask;
And thrice he strove to answer it, but thrice he strove in vain,
While down his cheeks the tear-drops fell in blinding showers like rain!

And by his grief at last we knew the news he could not tell,
And over every hope a black and blighting shadow fell;
A sickening weight seemed pressing, oh! so heavy on each heart,
That it stayed our bitter wailings, and forbade our tears to start!

And stalwart men, whose fiery wrath and fierce, resistless might
Had turned the ebbing tide of war in many a bloody fight;
Whose whirlwind charge and wild hurrah made Southern foemen reel,
Whose breasts had pressed unshrinkingly ’gainst triple lines of steel--

Aye, men like these, true scions of our fearless Celtic race,
Who fear not death, but meet it with a smile upon the face--
Now stood so still, so motionless, so silent in their woe,
It seemed as if they’d fallen, too, beneath the crushing blow!

Oh! who shall say what mournful tears that bitter night were shed,
And who shall count the curses heaped upon the murderer’s head;
What heartfelt prayers ascended to the throne of the Divine,
For the heroes who had fallen on their suff’ring country’s shrine!

He,[F] boy in years but man in heart, who, pale and fearless, trod
The scaffold’s path as proudly as if ’twere his native sod;
Who stood upon the grave’s dark brink with heart that never failed,
With lips that never quivered, and with eyes that never quailed!

And he,[G] the dark-eyed soldier, who, unhurt, untouched, had pass’d
Through many a hard-fought battle-field, now fronted death at last;
And such a death--the felon’s death--the death that villains die--
He met it with a smiling face, and with a flashing eye!

And, last of all, the father,[H] who that day would leave behind
Poor helpless children to a world, harsh, pitiless, unkind:
No wonder if he faltered--’twas, oh God! a fearful test;
Yet he met his fate as bravely and as proudly as the rest.

And these are murderers, they say--are cowards, base and vile:
These gallant ones who perished for their distant native isle--
Cowards and murderers, they say; oh, grant us patience, God!
Oh, grant us patience yet to bear the tyrant’s heavy rod.

A TYPICAL TRIAL.

Joseph O’Graball, ex-Indian police inspector, and previously major in the Boomerang Blazers, has for the past two years looked after the peace and well-being of a southern district in Ireland, which, to avoid offending the sensitive susceptibilities of its loyal squireocracy, I shall designate as Kilslippery, which is about as unlike its real cognomen as any word I am capable of coining. Joseph is unquestionably one of the most energetic of the many remarkably energetic divisional magistrates whose lively imaginations and diseased livers have found temporary fields for exercise in Ireland since the coercion act passed into law.

Major O’Graball is a terror not merely to all evil-doers in the locality decorated by his rubicund nose and enlivened by his oriental profanity, but he has managed to establish himself as an unmitigated nuisance to nine-tenths of the entire population. He possesses the disturbing faculty of becoming “reasonably suspicious” of anybody on the slightest provocation and at the shortest notice. He firmly believes that he can tell an Invincible or a Moonlighter half a mile away by the manner of his stride or the cut of his pants. He perambulates the country-side with a mounted escort daily, and scrutinizes the features of every individual he meets, irrespective of age, sex, garb, or occupation. He is prepared to detect treason in the shape of a nose, read murder and arson in the twinkle of an eye, and discover dynamite in the curl of a mustache.

Christy Connell was a small farmer whose evil fate made his path of life lie in the scope of the major’s inquisitorial vision. Christy was a simple, hard-working man, with such a numerous progeny that there is little fear of the name of Connell ever dying out in those parts unless there’s an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. His task of supporting this battalion of Connells was such a difficult one that he had no leisure to attend to politics or concern himself with the agitation. But the very fact of his constant attention to his farm only served to arouse O’Graball’s suspicion. Why, he argued, should a man keep sober, unless he was afraid to get drunk? and why should he stick so closely to his business, unless he wanted to conceal his treasonable sympathies? Then he wore an American goatee. Suspicious, decidedly suspicious. A goatee is military. Except the goatee, there was nothing military about Christy, for he was bow-legged and squinted. But then his bow-legs might have been induced by cavalry exercise, and his squint would be useful in enabling him to spot an objectionable landlord round the corner.

With O’Graball, to suspect was to act. So one dark April night a sergeant and half-a-dozen of the R. I. C. broke suddenly into Connell’s, and, after one of those clever searches for which that corps is famed, they succeeded in discovering a hatchet, a sledge-hammer, several rusty nails, a rude drawing which appeared utterly incomprehensible to the indefatigable sergeant, and a letter bearing the New York post-mark, which, to the official mind, seemed an invaluable piece of documentary evidence.

“Make haste, Connell,” said the sergeant. “You must come along with us.”

“Musha, phwat for?” queried the bewildered Connell.

“To answer a charge of having unlawfully and illegally planned, devised, and conspired, with seditious, felonious, and treasonable intent, to destroy, deprive, rob, upset, and otherwise confuse Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria of her title and right as sovereign lady of England, Scotland, Ireland, and also Kilslippery, so help me God!” and the sergeant wound up as if he were on oath in the witness-box.

“Arrah, thin,” said the overwhelmed Christy, “how could I rob or upset or confuse the Queen at all, at all. Sure, I niver cast my eyes on the ould heifer, good, bad, or indifferent.”

“Silence! Every word you say will be taken in evidence. That’s the law.”

“Wirra, thin, bad luck to that same law.”

“Silence, I say again. I cannot tolerate treasonable expressions before my men. Come along.”

Amid the sobbing of his wife and little ones, and utterly amazed and confounded, Christy was handcuffed and dragged to the police barracks, where he passed a miserable night. In the morning he was brought into the awful presence of O’Graball, who at once commenced in grave tones what he intended for a solemn interrogatory, but which proved in reality a rich burlesque:--

“Prisoner, what is your name?”

“Christy Connell, plaze your worship.”

“It does not please me. It is a notoriously disloyal name. There have been several Connells hanged at various times. Your very possession of such a name is in itself a suspicious circumstance. Sergeant, make a note of it. He confesses his name is Connell. So far our information is correct. Now, prisoner, tell me, had you a mother?”

“Arrah, to be sure I had. What do you think I am, at all, at all?”

“No prevarication, sir. You had also, I suppose, a father of the male gender?”

“He wore breeches, anyhow.”

“Prisoner, I must caution you against this unseeming levity. Sergeant, make another note. We have established the fact of his birth. He had the customary pair of parents, and he admits his name is Connell. The case is proved already. But we have further and overpowering testimony. Now, prisoner, does this axe belong to you?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“And this hammer?”

“Yes, your lordship.”

“And these nails?”

“Yes, your worship’s reverence.”

“Now, Christopher Connell, farmer, aged forty-two, were not that axe and this hammer and those nails designed to be used for nefarious and revolutionary purposes? You see we are thoroughly posted on your diabolical plots. Make an open breast of the matter, and I’ll try how far my influence will go with the Crown in procuring a mitigation of your penalty. Conceal anything, and you will find me adamant. What do you say?”

“Well, thin, your grace, I had the axe for nothin’ but cuttin’ firewood with; the hammer was my father’s; sure, he was a blacksmith, the heavens be his bed; and the nails--the nails--the troth, I don’t know what I wanted the nails for at all. You can make a present of them to the sarjent.”

“Miserable man! Your ill-timed wit will injure instead of serving you. The axe and hammer were to be used in breaking open the doors of police barracks, and the nails, no doubt, were to be employed in hand grenades.”

“Well, by the blessid St. Patrick!” ejaculated the amazed Connell, but he was speedily checked with a peremptory “Silence!” while the sapient magistrate proceeded:--

“We have even stronger proofs. Sergeant, did you find these documents?”

“Yes, your washup.”

“The first is a drawing, sketch, or plan. Where did you find that?”

“Under one of the children’s heads, your washup.”

“Evidently placed there for concealment. The second is a letter--a very important letter--from New York. Where did you discover that?”

“On the chimney-piece, your washup.”

“Ha! It was left there, no doubt, in the hope that you would not dream of looking for dangerous documents in such an exposed position. Now, prisoner, what is this drawing?”

“Well, plaze your majesty, its a pictur’ that Terry, the child, was thryin’ to mek av the goat, the craytur, and the poor gossoon was so proud av it he tuk it to bed with him.”

“A goat! Gracious heavens! Christopher Connell, you are trifling with the court. That sketch, sir, I take to be a military map of Ireland, with the rivers and boundaries left out to mislead us. But learn that the eye of the law can discern everything, and it can penetrate through that goat’s mask and see the grim secret behind!”

“Troth, your iminence, if that’s a map of Ireland, it’s proud the goat should be av his resemblance to the ould country. But sure it’s joking you are.”

“You’ll find it a serious joke, my man. But let us proceed. This letter is dated New York--the most treasonable locality on the face of the earth. It begins: ‘Dear brother--(of course you’re all brothers. Sergeant, make a note of that)--I write these few lines hoping they will find you in good health, as they lave me at present, thanks be to God. (There’s some deep, hidden, occult meaning in that sentence, but I cannot discern it just now.) I met the ould man--(Rossa, I suppose. Make a note, sergeant)--on landing. He would advise you not to kill the ould pig just yet. (Old pig? old--oh! horrible! I see it all. They have actually contemplated the assassination of her Majesty. Terrible!) You might, however, get rid of the litter of young sucklings (the miscreant, to apply such language to the royal family.) I hope the praties and the rye are going on well. (Pikes and rifles he means--they begin with the same letter.) How’s ould coffin-head these times?’ Sergeant, who can he mean by that?”

“Um--um--yourself, I think, your washup.”

“Sergeant, you forget yourself. I am not coffin-headed. Not even a rebel would dare apply such a term to me. Prisoner, in the face of the overwhelming evidence adduced, I do not think it necessary to proceed further; besides, there are other allusions which a thoughtless world might associate with me. Society must be preserved against such desperadoes. If I could trust the honesty of a jury of your countrymen, I would commit you for trial; but, alas! they would not see the evidence with the clear gaze which I bend upon it. Therefore I give you the highest sentence in my power--three months’ imprisonment--and, sergeant, just look over the act and see under what clause we shall record it.”

Christy Connell served the three months, but to this day neither himself, the magistrate, the jailer, nor the county member who brought his case before Parliament have been able to find out for what he was convicted. And that’s one specimen out of a hundred of the working of the coercion act.

JOHN BULL’S APPEAL TO JONATHAN.

Oh pray, good Cousin Jonathan, assist me in my plight;
And ease my aching brain of this perpetual affright
That keeps me quaking all the day and shivering all night--
An incubus I can’t shake off, a shade I cannot fight.
I am very, very sorry for the _Alabama’s_ pranks,
I regret that I contributed to arm Secession’s ranks,
But if you’ll only aid me now to crush these Irish cranks,
Upon my knees I’ll pledge eternal gratitude and thanks.

As empress of the ocean, and as mistress of the waves,
Britannia has a perfect right to string up Afghan braves;
To blow to bits, with dynamite, the Zulus in their caves,
And to burn the huts of savages who will not be her slaves.
But when the men she drove from home with steel and buckshot dare
Return with nasty bombs to beard the lion in his lair,
And send his best establishments cavorting through the air--
Good Heavens! you must admit it’s quite a different affair.

Poor Gladstone dare not crack an egg for fear it might explode,
A hundred picked detectives guard her Majesty’s abode.
Sir William Harcourt feels unsafe by river, rail, or road,
And letter-carriers tremble ’neath the lightest postal load.
There is terror in the country and anxiety in town,
Insurance rates are rising, while stocks are going down,
And since his kilts and plaids were doffed, forever, by John Brown,
Uneasy lies the royal head that wears the British crown.

Then, pray, good Cousin Jonathan, vouchsafe to us some ease,
I beg, implore, and crave of you, upon my bended knees.
And in return I’ll take of you whatever you may please,
Pay homage to your bacon, and monopolize your cheese.
But, oh, my brave blood relative, in Heaven’s name don’t delay,
Do not hesitate a moment, do not hold your hand a day,
Our statesmen in another month will all be bald or gray,
Unless vile nitro-glycerine has blown the lot away.

THE STORY OF A BOMB.

Where Shannon’s waves with smiling face
Woo smiling banks with soft embrace,
A modest cabin stood beside
Its gentle perfume-laden tide.
The sunshine of an honest life,
A prattling child, a loving wife,
The joys of home, their blessings shed
Around the peasant tenant’s head.
The twinkling stars of summer skies
Reflected back his colleen’s eyes,
His baby’s locks the noonday rays
Encircled with a golden haze.

But drear December, dark and chill,
Whirled blighting blasts adown the hill,
Sickness and famine scourged the land;
And in their train the landlord band,
And aiding in their mission dire
The liveried hounds in England’s hire.
In one brief hour their work was o’er,
A happy home was home no more.
The wintry skies looked sadly down,
Half veiled in tears, half wrapt in frown,
Upon the babe that sobbed to rest
Upon its dying mother’s breast.

A week--a month--he had no power
To mark or count each anguished hour,
He knew not if ’twere night or day
When wife and infant passed away.
Without a hope to dull the pain
That numbed his heart and seared his brain,
Despair behind and gloom before,
He left his native Shannon’s shore,
Whose rippling wavelets seemed to press
The ship’s dark side with fond caress,
While chimes from many a distant bell
Breathed Mother Erin’s last farewell.

Uncouth in dress, but huge of limb,
With earnest faces fierce and grim,
Are gathered near a silent swamp,
Rough toilers from a mining camp;
The rasping tones of Ulster greet
The voice of Munster soft and sweet,
And Connaught’s mellow accent blends,
But one and all are Ireland’s friends.
Yet whispering pines that bend above
Hear words of hatred, not of love;
Tears that from eyes of strong men fall
Are not of mercy, but of gall.

Each has a sickening tale to tell
Of England’s robber rule of hell,
Each has a deeply cherished cause
To hate her power and curse her laws.
“Then who will venture life, and go
To wreak our vengeance on this foe,
Though ’mid the ruins he may lie?”
And he from Shannon answers “I!”
The western breezes catch the vow
That surges from his bosom now,
The exile’s vengeful brand to bear
And smite the tiger in his lair.

In Babylonian halls to-night
Are strains of mirth and flashing light,
The sheen of satin, gleaming gems
In scores of priceless diadems;
These are the butterflies, the drones,
Vampires who feed on blood and bones.
Ah, cruel parasites, beware,
One victim of your wrong is there.
The London skies are black with cloud
The earth enwrapt in night’s dark shroud,
As by the despot’s citadel
A hand from Shannon fires the shell.

England, to thee and thine belongs
The memory of uncounted wrongs
That, multiplied through all the years,
Have dried the fount of Ireland’s tears.
Thy fate is sealed, thy knell has tolled,
Not thrice the sum of thrice thy gold
Can turn the wrath thou hast defied
Of hearts like those from Shannon’s side.
Thy future sky is overcast,
Thy halcyon days forever past,
Earthquake and storm shall overwhelm
Thy towers and fanes, thy laws and realm.

AVENGING, THOUGH DIM (1798).

Avenging, though dim, with the dust of inaction,
And dinted and blunted through fraud and delay,
With the hilt spoilt and scarred by the rude hands of faction,
And the blade rusting slowly to useless decay,
The swift sword of Erin, its temper unbroken,
Leaped forth after years from its vain, idle shield,
To smite to the earth the vile slander oft spoken,
That true men e’er falter or brave spirits yield.

The hearts that had dared to disturb its long slumber,
With resolute nerve, may be laid in the clay,
But they woke from the harp-strings of Erin a number
That throbs through the soul of the nation to-day.
And be it in future for joy or for sorrow,
To clothe her in glory or shroud her in pall,
The tyrants of Ireland shall find from to-morrow
The sweets of their empire embittered with gall.

CHRISTMAS DIRGE OF THE LONDON POLICE (1885).