Has given us more than bread unto our dearth
And more than water to our aching drouth;
Though death has been as wormwood in your mouth
Your blood shall fructify the barren earth.
JOHN REDMOND
SHALL it be told in tragic song and story
Of two who went embittered all their days,
Two lovely Queens divided in their ways
Until their hearts grew hard, their tresses hoary?
Or shall the flying wings of oratory
Of him who bore a great hope on his face
Bring from the grave reunion to the grace
That men call Ireland and to England’s glory?
Courageous soul, not yet the work is ended:
The perfect pact you never lived to see,
The peace between the warring sisters mended
Must of your patient labours come to be,
When in a noise of trumpets loud and splendid
The Gael hears blown the name of liberty.
BEAUTY
I
(RELATIVE)
HOW many are the forms that beauty shows;
To what dim shrines of sweet, forgotten art
She calls; on what wide seas her strong wind blows
The proud and perilous passion of the heart!
How many are the forms of her decay;
The blood that stains the dying of the sun,
The love and loveliness that pass away
Like roses’ petals scattered one by one.