, and not to feed.
Wretched Ierne! with what grief I see
The fatal changes time has made in thee!
The Christian rites I introduced in vain:
Lo! infidelity return'd again!
Freedom and virtue in thy sons I found,
Who now in vice and slavery are drown'd.
By faith and prayer, this crosier in my hand,
I drove the venom'd serpent from thy land:
The shepherd in his bower might sleep or sing,[6]
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor scorpion's sting.
With omens oft I strove to warn thy swains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains.
I sent the magpie from the British soil,
With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil;
To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,
And haunt thy holy walls in white and black.
What else are those thou seest in bishop's gear,
Who crop the nurseries of learning here;
Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state?
As you grew more degenerate and base,
I sent you millions of the croaking race;
Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn
Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn;
A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls,
And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls!
See, where that new devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns!
With harpy-claws it undermines the ground,
And sudden spreads a numerous offspring round.
Th' amphibious tyrant, with his ravenous band,
Drains all thy lakes of fish, of fruits thy land.
Where is the holy well that bore my name?
Fled to the fountain back, from whence it came!
Fair Freedom's emblem once, which smoothly flows,
And blessings equally on all bestows.
Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts,[7]
The students, drinking, raised their wit and parts;
Here, for an age and more, improved their vein,
Their Phoebus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
Discouraged youths! now all their hopes must fail,
Condemn'd to country cottages and ale;
To foreign prelates make a slavish court,
And by their sweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the classics, read "The Attorney's Guide;"
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.
Oh! had I been apostle to the Swiss,
Or hardy Scot, or any land but this;
Combined in arms, they had their foes defied,
And kept their liberty, or bravely died;
Thou still with tyrants in succession curst,
The last invaders trampling on the first;
Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of misery is run,
Thy