Then here’s their memory! may it be
For us a guiding light,
To cheer our strife for liberty
And teach us to unite.
Through good and ill, be Ireland’s still,
Though sad as theirs your fate,
And true men, be you, men,
Like those of Ninety-Eight!
John Kells Ingram.
CLXXXI
NATIONAL PRESAGE
Unhappy Erin, what a lot was thine!
Half-conquer’d by a greedy robber band;
Ill govern’d now with lax, now ruthless hand;
Mislead by zealots, wresting laws divine
To sanction every dark or mad design;
Lured by false lights of pseudo-patriot league
Through crooked paths of faction and intrigue;
And drugg’d with selfish flattery’s poison’d wine.
Yet, reading all thy mournful history,
Thy children, with a mystic faith sublime,
Turn to the future, confident that Fate,
Become at last thy friend, reserves for thee,
To be thy portion in the coming time,
They know not what—but surely something great.
John Kells Ingram.