FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259  
260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   >>   >|  
gh but humble, was raised for thy right: My vote, as a freeman's, still voted thee free; This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy fight, And this heart, though outworn, had a throb still for _thee_! Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not my land; I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy sons, And I wept with the world o'er the patriot band Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once. For happy are they now reposing afar,-- Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan, all Who for years were the chiefs in the eloquent war, And redeemed, if they have not retarded, thy fall. Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves! Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day,-- Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves Be stamped in the turf o'er their fetterless clay. Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore, Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled; There was something so warm and sublime in the core Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy--thy _dead_. Or if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore. Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power, 'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore! THE DREAM I Our life is twofold: sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence; sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality; And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being; they become A portion of ourselves as of our time, And look like heralds of eternity; They pass like spirits of the past,--they speak Like sibyls of the future; they have power-- The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; They make us what we were not--what they will, And make us with the vision that's gone by, The dread of vanished shadows.--Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creations of the mind?--The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. I would recall a vision which I dreamed Per
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259  
260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
vision
 

Grattan

 

weight

 

waking

 

breath

 

genius

 

development

 

tortures

 

thoughts

 
humble

dreams

 

things

 

twofold

 

raised

 

boundary

 

misnamed

 

existence

 
reality
 
Creations
 
Substance

people

 

planets

 

shadow

 

vanished

 

shadows

 

beings

 

recall

 

dreamed

 
outlive
 

brighter


heralds
 
eternity
 

portion

 
divide
 
spirits
 
pleasure
 

tyranny

 

future

 
sibyls
 
Curran

Sheridan
 

reposing

 

longer

 
English
 
graves
 

retarded

 

chiefs

 

eloquent

 

redeemed

 

outworn