Chapter II

And I have seen thee in the West's red setting
Stand like some Monarch in a crimson field,
With fleeing clouds empurpling as they yield.
And sunset still the glorious sham abetting.
While high above thy purple forest's fretting
Thy mighty chest in tranquil gold concealed,
And on thy brows of the dead days begetting
A light that comes from higher things revealed.

So shows there in a passing soul's transgression
A light of hope beyond these prison bars
Divinely rendered, that, when doubting mars
Our day's decline, we still may find progression
Of light to light, as day with silent cession
Makes o'er to night--articulate with stars.

Hamilcar Barca

Thou that didst mark from Heircte's spacious hill
The Roman spears, like mist, uprise each morn,
Yet held, with Hesper's shining point of scorn,
Thy sword unsheathed above Panormus still;
Thou that were leagued with nought but thine own will,
Eurythmic vastness to that stronghold torn
From foes above, below, where, though forlorn,
Thou still hadst claws to cling, and beak to kill--
Eagle of Eryx!--When the Ægation shoal
Rolled westward all the hopes that Hanno wrecked
With mighty wing, unwearying, didst thou
Seek far beyond the wolf's grim protocol,
Within the Iberian sunset faintly specked
A rock where Punic faith should bide its vow.

Verses

(_Sent from the Congo Free State in response to Mr. Harrison's appeal
for the Restoration of the Elgin Marbles to Greece._)

Give back the Elgin marbles; let them lie
Unsullied, pure beneath an Attic sky.
The smoky fingers of our northern clime
More ruin work than all the ancient time.
How oft the roar of the Piraen sea
Through column'd hall and dusky temple stealing
Hath struck these marble ears, that now must flee
The whirling hum of London, noonward reeling.

Ah! let them hear again the sounds that float
Around Athene's shrine on morning's breeze,--
The lowing ox, the bell of climbing goat
And drowsy drone of far Hymettus' bees.
Give back the marbles; let them vigil keep
Where art still lies, o'er Pheidias' tomb, asleep.

_Lukunga Valley,
Cataract Region of the Lower Congo._

Lost Youth

(_Written on receiving a letter from a friend, T. H., who had spent
the best years of his life as a missionary in Central Africa, in
which he speaks of "the glorious superfluity of strength and spirits
one remembers as a lad, but alas! only remembers."_)

Weep not that you no longer feel the tide
High breasting sun and storm, that bore along
Your youth on currents of perpetual song:
For in these mid-stream waters, still and wide,
A sleepless purpose the great deep doth hide;
Here spring the mighty fountains pure and strong,
That bear sweet change of breath to city throng,
Who, had the sea no breeze, would soon have died.
So though the sun shines not in such a blue,
Nor have the stars the meaning youth deviced,
The heavens are nigher, and a light shines through
The brightness that nor sun nor stars sufficed;
And on this lonely waste we find it true
Lost youth and love, not lost, are hid with Christ.

The Streets of Catania

(_The streets of Catania are paved with blocks of the lava of Aetna._)

All that was beautiful and just,
All that was pure and sad
Went in one little, moving plot of dust
The world called bad.

Came like a highwayman, and went,
One who was bold and gay,
Left when his lightly loving mood was spent
Thy heart to pay.

By-word of little streets and men,
Narrower theirs the shame,
Tread thou the lava loving leaves, and then
Turn whence it came.

Aetna, all wonderful, whose heart
Glows as thine throbbing glows,
Almond and citron bloom quivering at start,
Ends in pure snows.

The Irish Language

It is gone from the hill and the glen--
The strong speech of our sires;
It is sunk in the mire and the fen
Of our nameless desires:
We have bartered the speech of the Gael
For a tongue that would pay,
And we stand with the lips of us pale
And all bloodless to-day;
We have bartered the birthright of men
That our sons should be liars.
It is gone from the hill and the glen,
The strong speech of our sires.

Like the flicker of gold on the whin
That the Spring breath unites,
It is deep in our hearts, and shall win
Into flame where it smites:
It is there with the blood in our veins,
With the stream in the glen,
With the hill and the heath and the weans
They shall _think_ it again;
It shall surge to their lips and shall win
The high road to our rights--
Like the flicker of gold on the whin
That the sun-burst unites.

Parnell

(_October 6th, 1891._)

Hush--let no whisper of the cruel strife,
Wherein he fell so bravely fighting, fall
Nigh these dead ears; fain would our hearts recall
Nought but proud memories of a noble life--
Of unmatched skill to lead by pathways rife
With danger and dark doubt, where slander's knife
Gleamed ever bare to wound, yet over all
He pressed triumphant on--lo, thus to fall.
Through and beyond the breach he living made
Shall Erin pass to freedom and to will,
And shape her fate: there where his limbs are laid
No harsh reproach dare penetrate the shade;
Death's angel guards the door, and o'er the sill
A mightier voice than Death's speaks "Peace, be still!"

Benburb

Since treason triumphed when O'Neill was forced to foreign flight,
The ancient people felt the heel of Scotch usurper's might;
The barren hills of Ulster held a race proscribed and banned
Who from their lofty refuge viewed their own so fertile land.
Their churches in the sunny vales; the homes that once were theirs,
Torn from them and their Faith to feed some canting minion's prayers:
Oh Lord! from many a cloudy hill then streamed our prayers to Thee,
And like the dawn on summer hills, that only watchers see,
Thy glorious hope shone on us long before the sleeping foe
Knew that their doom had broken on the sword of Owen Roe.

'Twas dawn of fair June morning, while Blackwater still drew grey,
His valley'd mists about him that we saw at Killylea,
The Scottish colours waving as they headed to the ford
Where never foemen waded yet, but paid it with the sword;
And fair it was to see them in the golden morning light,
Climb up the hill by Caledon and turn them to the right;
As they neared Yellow Ford, where Bagnall met O'Neill,
Joy gathered in our throats and broke above their cannons' peal,
And oh! a thrill went through our ranks, as straining towards the foe,
Like hounds in leash we panted for the word of Owen Roe.

Not yet--altho' O'Ferrall's horse come riding in amain;
Not yet--altho' fierce Cunningham pursues with slackened rein;
Not yet--altho' in skirmish and in many a scattered fight
We hold them--still with waiting eye, O'Neill smiles in despite;
Till slanting on our backs the sun full on their faces fell.
Then blinding axe and battle spear rose with a sudden swell
"For God, and Church, and Country now--upon them every man;
But hold your strength until ye see them scarce a pike-length's span;
The Red Hand, ever uppermost, strike home your strongest blow";
And with a yell our feet outsped the words of Owen Roe.

Like heaving lift of yellow wave that drags the sandy shore
On with it to its foaming fall, our rushing pikemen bore
Horse, foot, and gun, and falling flags, like streamers of red wrack,
Torn from their dripping hold, in one broad swell of carnage back;
Stout Blayney's gallant horse withstood that seething tide in vain;
It bore them down, and redder raced with life-blood of the slain;
One regiment only fought its way from out that ghastly fight,
And Conway slew two horses on the Newry road that night;
While Monroe fled so fast he left both hat and wig to show
How full the breeze that lifted up the flag of Owen Roe.

Ho! Ironsides of Cromwell, ye've got grimmer work to do,
Than when on Naseby's ruddy morn your ready swords ye drew--
Than when your headlong charges routed Rupert's tried and best,
Ere yet the glare of battle fainted in the loyal West.
Those swords must break a stouter foe ere ye break Erin's weal
Or stamp your bloody title-deeds with Cromwell's bloodier seal;
The dead men of Elizabeth's red reign for comrades call,
The Scots we sent to-day have need of ye to bear their pall;
There's room for undertakers still, and none will say ye no
To such fair holdings--measured by the sword of Owen Roe.

Ho! ring your bells, Kilkenny town; ho! Dublin burghers pass
In open day, with open brow, to celebrate the Mass.
The Sword of State that Tudor hate laid sore on Church of God,
Hath fallen here with shattered hilt and vain point in the sod.
Ho! holy Rinnuncini, and ye high lords of the Pale
Lay by your sheets of parchment, and put on your sheeted mail,
For God hath spoke in battle, and His face the foe is toward,
And ye must hold by valour what He hath freed by sword.
Yea, God in fight hath spoken, and thro' cloud hath bent His brow
In wrath upon the routed--but in hope o'er Owen Roe.

Oliver Cromwell

1650-1659

(_Addressed to the Liberal Members who "went back" on their previous
vote and rejected the grant for his statue._)

"Tear out the page his hand hath writ in blood."
Aye! tho' a decade filled with mighty deeds
That page records; what though in it the seeds
Of greater freedom sprung, than ever stood
On any shore, to shadow freedom's brood.
The lordly oak from which a fleet proceeds
May fall unhonoured; can mere party needs
Fill _your_ hands too, with this consenting mud?
We Irishmen found only shade to die
Within the shadow of that mighty tree;
But you base Englishmen it bore on high,
And girt your commerce safe on many a sea:
O! may the people Cromwell taught, deny
Your right within these walls, and turn the key!

The Triumph of Hugh O'Neill

_Beal an Altra Buidhe_ (_The Fight of the Yellow Ford, 1598._)

Speed the joyful news of victory from Dungannon to Gweedore,
Let the shout of triumph echo 'mid the cliffs of dark Benmore,
Let the flame that gleams on Sperrin light a flame on every strand,
Till one mighty blaze shall tell it to all men throughout the land.

The haughty Saxon boasted he would ravage broad Tyrone,
And lay our fields in ashes, and make our flocks his own,
Nor hold his hand 'till humbled each Irish kerne should kneel
To England's monarch only, and not to Hugh O'Neill.

But vain was all his boasting, and vain was all he swore,
For, like the storms of winter when from the hills they pour,
With clouds of long-haired spearmen, and ranks of flashing steel,
O'er the broken host of Saxons swept the children of O'Neill.

Arquebus and gun were fired, yet were fired all in vain,
For their owners' heads were cloven by the lightening sweeping _skean_,
But the sturdy English yeomen, who had ne'er been known to reel,
Like the withered leaves of autumn, fell before the fierce O'Neill.

Blackwater's tide ran darker than e'er it ran before,
The "Yellow Ford" was crimsoned, the fields were drenched with gore.
The Saxon host had vanished; and Armagh rang out a peal
Of triumph o'er the vanquished, and of welcome to O'Neill.

No more the feet of foemen shall taint our Northern soil,
No more the waving cornfields shall be the Saxon's spoil.
Our flag no longer drooping, each fold shall now reveal,
And wave for God and Erin and our darling Hugh O'Neill.

Translation from Victor Hugo's "Feuilles d'Automne"

"I hate oppression with a hate profound,
And wheresoever in the wide world round,
Beneath a traitor king, a cruel sky,
I hear appeal a strangled people's cry--
Where mother Greece, by Christian kings betrayed
To butcher Turks, hangs disembowelled, flayed.
Where Ireland, bleeding on her Cross expires,
And German truth in vain fronts royal liars.

"Oh then, upon their heads my curse I launch,
These kings whose steeds pace bloody to the paunch:
I feel the poet speaks their judgment, and
The indignant Muse, with unrelenting hand,
Shall bind them pilloried to their thrones of shame,
And press their dastard crowns to shape a name
That on their brows the poet's hand shall trace--
So Man may read their calling in their face."

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Transcriber's notes:

Italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=.

End of Project Gutenberg's Some Poems of Roger Casement, by Roger Casement