SONG.
Oh, how hard it is to find
The one just suited to our mind;
And if that one should be
False, unkind, or found too late,
What can we do but sigh at fate,
And sing, Woe’s me—Woe’s me!
Love’s a boundless burning waste,
Where Bliss’s stream we seldom taste,
And still more seldom flee
Suspense’s thorns, Suspicion’s stings;
Yet somehow Love a something brings
That’s sweet—e’en when we sigh, “Woe’s me!”
STANZAS
ON THE THREATENED INVASION 1803.
Our bosoms we’ll bare for the glorious strife,
And our oath is recorded on high,
To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,
Or crushed in its ruins to die!
Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
’Tis the home we hold sacred is laid to our trust—
God bless the green Isle of the brave!
Should a conqueror tread on our forefathers’ dust,
It would rouse the old dead from their grave!
Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
In a Briton’s sweet home shall a spoiler abide,
Profaning its loves and its charms?
Shall a Frenchman insult the loved fair at our side?
To arms! oh, my Country, to arms!
Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
Shall a tyrant enslave us, my countrymen!—No!
His head to the sword shall be given—
A death-bed repentance be taught the proud foe,
And his blood be an offering to Heaven!
Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
EXILE OF ERIN.[78]
There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill:
For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.
But the day-star attracted his eye’s sad devotion,
For it rose o’er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once in the fire of his youthful emotion,
He sang the bold anthem of “Erin go bragh!”[79]
“Sad is my fate!” said the heart-broken stranger;
“The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again, in the green sunny bowers,
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,
Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of ‘Erin go bragh!’
“Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,
In dreams I revisit the sea-beaten shore;
But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken,
And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more!
Oh cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me
In a mansion of peace—where no perils can chase me?
Never again shall my brothers embrace me?
They die to defend me, or live to deplore!
“Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild-wood?
Sisters and sire! did ye weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?
And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all?
Oh! my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure,
Why did it doat on a fast-fading treasure?
Tears, like the rain-drop, may fall without measure,
But rapture and beauty they cannot recall.
“Yet all its sad recollections suppressing,
One dying wish my lone bosom can draw:
Erin! an exile bequeaths thee his blessing!
Land of my forefathers! ‘Erin go bragh!’
Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion,
Green be thy fields,—sweetest isle of the ocean!
And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion,—
Erin mavournin[80]—Erin go bragh!’”
[78] Anthony McCann, exiled for being implicated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Campbell met him at Hamburg.
[79] Ireland for ever.
[80] Ireland my darling.