We're fallen upon gloomy days![1]
Star after star decays,
Every bright name, that shed
Light o'er the land, is fled.
Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth
Lost joy, or hope that ne'er returneth;
But brightly flows the tear,
Wept o'er a hero's bier.
Quenched are our beacon lights--
Thou, of the Hundred Fights![2]
Thou, on whose burning tongue
Truth, peace, and freedom hung!
Both mute,--but long as valor shineth,
Or Mercy's soul at war repineth,
So long shall Erin's pride
Tell how they lived and died.
[1] I have endeavored here, without losing that Irish character, which it
is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and
ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and
good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and
integrity.
[2] This designation, which has been before applied to Lord Nelson, is the
title given to a celebrated Irish Hero, in a Poem by O'Guive, the bard of
O'Niel, which is quoted in the "Philosophical Survey of the South of
Ireland," page 433. "Con, of the hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass-grown
tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories."
WE MAY ROAM THROUGH THIS WORLD.
We may roam thro' this world, like a child at a feast,
Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest;
And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,
We may order our wings and be off to the west;
But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile,
Are the dearest gifts that heaven supplies,
We never need leave our own green isle,
For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes.
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