This is the true and circumstantial history of the catastrophe which shortened the stay of the lynx-eyed Timmins in the Emerald Isle, albeit those wonderfully informed London journals, the Standard and Daily Telegraph, published paragraphs to the effect that Timmins’ unsleeping vigilance had made him such a marked man that it was deemed advisable to remove him from the sphere of danger. Mrs. T. knows better, and Timmins himself has registered an awful vow never to let loose the torrents of his policeman’s soul again except in the glare of broad noonday, or at least beneath the effulgence of a three-thousand-candle-power electric light.
BALFOUR’S WISH.
WHEN members have taken their usual places,
And, insult to Bradlaugh, the prayers have been read,
The exiles of Erin, with pitiless faces,
Fling queries by scores at the Sassenach’s head;
And as, one by one, question follows on question,
Lost Balfour, still farther and farther at sea,
In agony mental that spoils his digestion,
But murmurs, “I wish I were out in Fiji!”
“Can you tell me,” asks one, in a deep tone of thunder,
“How much buckshot is fatal, administered where?”
“Don’t you know,” cries another, in accents of wonder,
“The average size of potatoes in Clare?”
A third seeks a legal opinion, without
Even gratitude proffered by way of a fee,
And a youth wants to know has the premier the gout,
While Balfour would fain be exiled to Fiji.
Affairs of the person, affairs of the State,
Affairs of the church, and affairs of the bar,
What should be a sub-constable’s average weight?
Does he ever indulge in the national car?
Is he properly versed in diseases of cattle?
Is it whiskey he swigs when he’s out on a spree?
And he moans as the queries about his ears rattle,
“Great God, how I wish I were out in Fiji!”
OUR CAUSE.
SEVEN hundred years of blood and tears, of famine and of chains,
Of outlaws on the mountain path and victims on the plains,
Of blazing homes and bleeding hearts to glut a tyrant’s rage,
Of every crime that ever time recorded in his page,
Have failed to quench the burning sparks of freedom that illume,
With radiance bright, the centuried night of fettered Ireland’s gloom:
Nor guile nor force could stay its course beyond a moment’s pause,
For ever still, through good or ill, marched on the glorious cause!
Its heroes flung their naked breasts on Strongbow’s hireling spears,
And Essex saw them shatter his proud line of cavaliers,
And what though Cromwell’s fraud and craft had blunted Irish swords,
They still could deal rude blows of steel on William’s German hordes.
The after years beheld, ’tis true, the old green flag laid by,
No gleaming of its sunburst flashed across the ambient sky,
But yet in many a faithful breast, spite cruel penal laws,
The love remained, undimmed, unstained, that glorified the cause.
It sprang to life, in brief, stern strife, in storied Ninety-eight;
It only slept when Erin wept o’er gallant Emmet’s fate;
O’Connell’s accent broke the trance, and found the cause once more
Still burning in the nation’s soul as brightly as of yore.
Hunger and fever stifled for an hour its thrilling tones,
And paved the deep encircling seas with bleaching Irish bones;
But, ah, the brave old race too well its inspiration draws,
And how it flamed when Three brave lives were given for the cause.
What is that cause that time nor change has ever known retreat,
That smiles at persecution and that triumphs in defeat,
That mingles with the ozone in the Irish infant’s breath,
Whose memories soothe the pillow in the lonely exile’s death?
’Tis mother Ireland’s liberty, expansive and complete,
No aliens in her senate, in her armies or her fleet;
Faithful to this the tribune gains the multitude’s applause,
And the scaffold is a kingly throne ascended for the cause!