Was it a hind who loved the king
That held his court beyond the sea,
A hind who taught his child to sing
Of Stuart rose and Stuart tree?
Was it a swain whose soul adored
A maid who went to London town?
And did she choose some spangled lord
And coldly flout her country clown?
“Time trieth troth.” And was he true
Whose chisel carved that rugged line?
And was he loyal till the yew
O’erarched his heart’s now silent shrine?
Then, though bereft of king or love,
He found the poet’s secret gain,
The sympathy of suns above,
The friendship of the falling rain.
X
A MEMORY OF IRELAND
Where the saints of Holy Ireland sleep
No chancels pen them round,
But the waving trees their vigils keep
Above each verdant mound.
Here they climbed no lofty marble beds
To find a frigid rest,
But a canopy of golden threads
Hangs o’er them in the west.
When the larks have ceased their thankful hymn,
The ocean booms his bell,
And the lamps of heaven swing o’er the rim
Of every holy well.
May the Lord bring back that race of men
Whom charity enticed
To desert the world for some poor glen
And give the people Christ.