This is a conquered city;
It speaks of war not peace;
And that’s one of the English soldiers
The English call “police.”
THE CAGED EAGLE.
. . . I went the other day
To see the birds and beasts they keep enmewed
In the London Zoo. One of the first I saw—
One of the first I noticed, was an eagle.
Ragged, befouled, within his iron bars
He sat without a movement or a sound,
And, when I stood and pitying looked at him,
I saw his great sad eyes that winkless gazed
Out to the horizon sky. I passed from there,
And walked about the gardens, hither and thither,
Till all the afternoon was spent. Returning then
To seek my home, again by chance I passed
The eagle’s cage, and stood again, and looked,
And saw his great sad eyes that winkless gazed
Out to the horizon sky. So I went home . . .
The eagle is Ireland!
“IRELAND.”
O we have loved you through cold and rain
And pitiless frost,
Consuming our offering of blood and of brain
Gladly again and again and again,
Though it all seemed lost,
Ireland, Ireland!
O we will fight, fight on for you till
Your anguish is past,
The wronged ones righted, the tyrants still.—
Though God has not saved you, yet we will,
At the last, at the last,
Ireland, Ireland!
O we will love you in warmth and light
And the happy day,
When you have forgotten the terrible night,
Standing proud and beautiful bright
For ever and aye,
Ireland, Ireland!
TO CHARLES PARNELL.
One thing we praise you for that is past praise—
The dauntless eyes that faced the rain and night,
The hand that never wearied in the fight,
Till, through the dark’s despair, the dawn’s delays,
It rose, that vision of forgotten days,
Ireland, a nation in her right and might,
As fearless of the lightning as the Light,—
Freedom, the noon-tide sun that shines and stays!
O brave, O pure, O hater of the wrong,
(The wrong that is as one with England’s name,
Tyranny with cant of liberty, and shame
With boast of righteousness), to you belong
Trust for the hate that blinds our foes like flame,
Love for the hope that makes our hearts so strong!