Part 10

Long, long may our land guard and treasure each name, Till a nation made free hymns their glorious fame; And our grandsons shall tell that from yonder cold grave Sprang the spirit yet destined our nation to save!

DEATH’S VICTORY.

IN MEMORIAM JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.

The Poet may grieve for his Art’s vacant throne; The Patriot mourn for a brave spirit flown; For the loss of a hero the Soldier may sigh, And the Church miss a star from her glorious sky.

But with these ’tis not death--for through every age, In the lore of the Student, in History’s page, In the stories they tell, the examples they give, Of Genius and Truth--he will live! he will live!

With the cypress the laurel of glory shall twine To deck the white shaft that will rise o’er his shrine; In sunshine a banner, in darkness a flame, To his land and his kindred shall long be his name.

But to those who have loved him, oh! what can replace The grasp of his hand or the light of his face, The true, tender friendship an angel might prize, That played round his lips and that shone in his eyes?

Ah! for us, faithful heart, he is lost in the grave Till he welcomes us, too, over death’s dismal wave; No solace can sweeten one tear that we shed-- He lives to the world, but to us he is dead.

THE GREEN FLAG AT FREDERICKSBURG.

Bear it up, bear it up, through the clouds of the battle, On, on, through the smoke and the glare; Though in hail-storms the balls from yon black ramparts rattle, We will plant it triumphantly there. Though now, by the eddying war-dust beclouded, ’Twas lost at the base of the hill, See again, on its summit, in flame-wreaths enshrouded, Our flag waves triumphantly still!

We have marched ’neath its folds over meadow and mountain, In sunshine and shower, side by side; To guard it we opened our hearts’ living fountain, Till it flowed in a hot crimson tide; And guard it we will for the dear ones who love us, Till death bids our warm hearts be chill, And our foes even then shall behold that above us Our flag waves triumphantly still!

’Tis the flag that our sires and our grandsires died under; The flag that our children shall bear When at home in the old land the cannon’s dread thunder Knells Tyranny’s doom on the air. ’Twill be born o’er the foam-crested waves of the ocean, And true hearts in Ireland shall thrill To see in the land of their love and devotion Our flag wave triumphantly still.

THE FLAG OF OUR LAND.

Come kinsmen, come clansmen, from South and from North, Hark! hark! the wild slogan of war pealing forth! It rings through each vale, and from peak unto peak The heather-clad mountains in thunder-tones speak; It calls on our loyal, our true, and our brave, From the whispering heath and the hollow-toned wave, With sabre and musket, and red battle-brand, To gather once more ’neath the Flag of our Land.

Shall the stranger still rule in the halls of our sires? Shall our waters still mirror the plunderers’ fires? Shall our manhood be lost, and our darling old sod By tyrants and traitors forever be trod? ’Mid the nations around us, oh, say, shall our name, Our cause, and our people be bywords for shame? No! We swear by the graves of our fathers to stand For freedom or death ’neath the Flag of our Land!

By the fame of our martyrs, the memory of those Who fell, side by side, ever fronting their foes; By the plunderers’ fires and the murderers’ steel; By the wrongs we have felt and the hatred we feel; By the scaffold’s red path and the dungeon’s dread gloom, And their myriad victims who call from the tomb, Meet the foe and strike home with a vengeance-nerved hand, Till his false blood shall crimson the Flag of our Land!

HURRAH FOR LIBERTY.

Arouse ye from your slumbering, Awake to life once more, The time for idle pleadings And for vain regrets is o’er; We’ll bend and crouch no more like hounds, But in a fight like men, With men’s brave hearts and men’s stout arms We’ll win our own again.

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for liberty! Till death we stand, To make our land A nation proud and free.

We bent unto the tyrant, And we prayed in vain for years, But now we’re going to try, boys, Rifle-balls instead of tears. Our sighs shall be the trumpet’s call, The rolling of the drum, And in future our petitions From the cannon’s mouth shall come.--Hurrah!

From Galway right to Wicklow, And from Cork to Donegal, We’ll march once more for liberty To win it or to fall. We’ll flaunt our flag from cliff and crag, And guard it with our steel; We’ll show our foes what deadly blows Each Irish arm can deal.--Hurrah!

In ages past the redcoats quailed Before our fathers’ might; Have we not still the courage left To battle for the right? Though cowards dread the troops in red, We’ll cross their steel with joy, And show that Irish valor was Not spent at Fontenoy.

The wily knave, the coward slave, To home and life may cling, But there’s no place for falsehood’s face Where gleaming sabres ring! We’ve thrown our gage, our lives we wage For Freedom and for Right; Appeals we’ve tried; now, God decide, Our last appeal is fight!

THE MESSENGER.

NOVEMBER 23, 1867.[E]

With bated breath and trembling lips, we gathered round him there-- Tall, sinewy men with faces bronzed, and maidens young and fair; We questioned him with eager eyes--we had not power to speak, For a nameless dread was in each heart, and whitened every cheek!

Twice, thrice his lips moved silently, his tongue refused its task, We spoke not, but he knew right well the question we would ask; And thrice he strove to answer it, but thrice he strove in vain, While down his cheeks the tear-drops fell in blinding showers like rain!

And by his grief at last we knew the news he could not tell, And over every hope a black and blighting shadow fell; A sickening weight seemed pressing, oh! so heavy on each heart, That it stayed our bitter wailings, and forbade our tears to start!

And stalwart men, whose fiery wrath and fierce, resistless might Had turned the ebbing tide of war in many a bloody fight; Whose whirlwind charge and wild hurrah made Southern foemen reel, Whose breasts had pressed unshrinkingly ’gainst triple lines of steel--

Aye, men like these, true scions of our fearless Celtic race, Who fear not death, but meet it with a smile upon the face-- Now stood so still, so motionless, so silent in their woe, It seemed as if they’d fallen, too, beneath the crushing blow!

Oh! who shall say what mournful tears that bitter night were shed, And who shall count the curses heaped upon the murderer’s head; What heartfelt prayers ascended to the throne of the Divine, For the heroes who had fallen on their suff’ring country’s shrine!

He,[F] boy in years but man in heart, who, pale and fearless, trod The scaffold’s path as proudly as if ’twere his native sod; Who stood upon the grave’s dark brink with heart that never failed, With lips that never quivered, and with eyes that never quailed!

And he,[G] the dark-eyed soldier, who, unhurt, untouched, had pass’d Through many a hard-fought battle-field, now fronted death at last; And such a death--the felon’s death--the death that villains die-- He met it with a smiling face, and with a flashing eye!

And, last of all, the father,[H] who that day would leave behind Poor helpless children to a world, harsh, pitiless, unkind: No wonder if he faltered--’twas, oh God! a fearful test; Yet he met his fate as bravely and as proudly as the rest.

And these are murderers, they say--are cowards, base and vile: These gallant ones who perished for their distant native isle-- Cowards and murderers, they say; oh, grant us patience, God! Oh, grant us patience yet to bear the tyrant’s heavy rod.

A TYPICAL TRIAL.

Joseph O’Graball, ex-Indian police inspector, and previously major in the Boomerang Blazers, has for the past two years looked after the peace and well-being of a southern district in Ireland, which, to avoid offending the sensitive susceptibilities of its loyal squireocracy, I shall designate as Kilslippery, which is about as unlike its real cognomen as any word I am capable of coining. Joseph is unquestionably one of the most energetic of the many remarkably energetic divisional magistrates whose lively imaginations and diseased livers have found temporary fields for exercise in Ireland since the coercion act passed into law.

Major O’Graball is a terror not merely to all evil-doers in the locality decorated by his rubicund nose and enlivened by his oriental profanity, but he has managed to establish himself as an unmitigated nuisance to nine-tenths of the entire population. He possesses the disturbing faculty of becoming “reasonably suspicious” of anybody on the slightest provocation and at the shortest notice. He firmly believes that he can tell an Invincible or a Moonlighter half a mile away by the manner of his stride or the cut of his pants. He perambulates the country-side with a mounted escort daily, and scrutinizes the features of every individual he meets, irrespective of age, sex, garb, or occupation. He is prepared to detect treason in the shape of a nose, read murder and arson in the twinkle of an eye, and discover dynamite in the curl of a mustache.

Christy Connell was a small farmer whose evil fate made his path of life lie in the scope of the major’s inquisitorial vision. Christy was a simple, hard-working man, with such a numerous progeny that there is little fear of the name of Connell ever dying out in those parts unless there’s an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. His task of supporting this battalion of Connells was such a difficult one that he had no leisure to attend to politics or concern himself with the agitation. But the very fact of his constant attention to his farm only served to arouse O’Graball’s suspicion. Why, he argued, should a man keep sober, unless he was afraid to get drunk? and why should he stick so closely to his business, unless he wanted to conceal his treasonable sympathies? Then he wore an American goatee. Suspicious, decidedly suspicious. A goatee is military. Except the goatee, there was nothing military about Christy, for he was bow-legged and squinted. But then his bow-legs might have been induced by cavalry exercise, and his squint would be useful in enabling him to spot an objectionable landlord round the corner.

With O’Graball, to suspect was to act. So one dark April night a sergeant and half-a-dozen of the R. I. C. broke suddenly into Connell’s, and, after one of those clever searches for which that corps is famed, they succeeded in discovering a hatchet, a sledge-hammer, several rusty nails, a rude drawing which appeared utterly incomprehensible to the indefatigable sergeant, and a letter bearing the New York post-mark, which, to the official mind, seemed an invaluable piece of documentary evidence.

“Make haste, Connell,” said the sergeant. “You must come along with us.”

“Musha, phwat for?” queried the bewildered Connell.

“To answer a charge of having unlawfully and illegally planned, devised, and conspired, with seditious, felonious, and treasonable intent, to destroy, deprive, rob, upset, and otherwise confuse Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria of her title and right as sovereign lady of England, Scotland, Ireland, and also Kilslippery, so help me God!” and the sergeant wound up as if he were on oath in the witness-box.

“Arrah, thin,” said the overwhelmed Christy, “how could I rob or upset or confuse the Queen at all, at all. Sure, I niver cast my eyes on the ould heifer, good, bad, or indifferent.”

“Silence! Every word you say will be taken in evidence. That’s the law.”

“Wirra, thin, bad luck to that same law.”

“Silence, I say again. I cannot tolerate treasonable expressions before my men. Come along.”

Amid the sobbing of his wife and little ones, and utterly amazed and confounded, Christy was handcuffed and dragged to the police barracks, where he passed a miserable night. In the morning he was brought into the awful presence of O’Graball, who at once commenced in grave tones what he intended for a solemn interrogatory, but which proved in reality a rich burlesque:--

“Prisoner, what is your name?”

“Christy Connell, plaze your worship.”

“It does not please me. It is a notoriously disloyal name. There have been several Connells hanged at various times. Your very possession of such a name is in itself a suspicious circumstance. Sergeant, make a note of it. He confesses his name is Connell. So far our information is correct. Now, prisoner, tell me, had you a mother?”

“Arrah, to be sure I had. What do you think I am, at all, at all?”

“No prevarication, sir. You had also, I suppose, a father of the male gender?”

“He wore breeches, anyhow.”

“Prisoner, I must caution you against this unseeming levity. Sergeant, make another note. We have established the fact of his birth. He had the customary pair of parents, and he admits his name is Connell. The case is proved already. But we have further and overpowering testimony. Now, prisoner, does this axe belong to you?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“And this hammer?”

“Yes, your lordship.”

“And these nails?”

“Yes, your worship’s reverence.”

“Now, Christopher Connell, farmer, aged forty-two, were not that axe and this hammer and those nails designed to be used for nefarious and revolutionary purposes? You see we are thoroughly posted on your diabolical plots. Make an open breast of the matter, and I’ll try how far my influence will go with the Crown in procuring a mitigation of your penalty. Conceal anything, and you will find me adamant. What do you say?”

“Well, thin, your grace, I had the axe for nothin’ but cuttin’ firewood with; the hammer was my father’s; sure, he was a blacksmith, the heavens be his bed; and the nails--the nails--the troth, I don’t know what I wanted the nails for at all. You can make a present of them to the sarjent.”

“Miserable man! Your ill-timed wit will injure instead of serving you. The axe and hammer were to be used in breaking open the doors of police barracks, and the nails, no doubt, were to be employed in hand grenades.”

“Well, by the blessid St. Patrick!” ejaculated the amazed Connell, but he was speedily checked with a peremptory “Silence!” while the sapient magistrate proceeded:--

“We have even stronger proofs. Sergeant, did you find these documents?”

“Yes, your washup.”

“The first is a drawing, sketch, or plan. Where did you find that?”

“Under one of the children’s heads, your washup.”

“Evidently placed there for concealment. The second is a letter--a very important letter--from New York. Where did you discover that?”

“On the chimney-piece, your washup.”

“Ha! It was left there, no doubt, in the hope that you would not dream of looking for dangerous documents in such an exposed position. Now, prisoner, what is this drawing?”

“Well, plaze your majesty, its a pictur’ that Terry, the child, was thryin’ to mek av the goat, the craytur, and the poor gossoon was so proud av it he tuk it to bed with him.”

“A goat! Gracious heavens! Christopher Connell, you are trifling with the court. That sketch, sir, I take to be a military map of Ireland, with the rivers and boundaries left out to mislead us. But learn that the eye of the law can discern everything, and it can penetrate through that goat’s mask and see the grim secret behind!”

“Troth, your iminence, if that’s a map of Ireland, it’s proud the goat should be av his resemblance to the ould country. But sure it’s joking you are.”

“You’ll find it a serious joke, my man. But let us proceed. This letter is dated New York--the most treasonable locality on the face of the earth. It begins: ‘Dear brother--(of course you’re all brothers. Sergeant, make a note of that)--I write these few lines hoping they will find you in good health, as they lave me at present, thanks be to God. (There’s some deep, hidden, occult meaning in that sentence, but I cannot discern it just now.) I met the ould man--(Rossa, I suppose. Make a note, sergeant)--on landing. He would advise you not to kill the ould pig just yet. (Old pig? old--oh! horrible! I see it all. They have actually contemplated the assassination of her Majesty. Terrible!) You might, however, get rid of the litter of young sucklings (the miscreant, to apply such language to the royal family.) I hope the praties and the rye are going on well. (Pikes and rifles he means--they begin with the same letter.) How’s ould coffin-head these times?’ Sergeant, who can he mean by that?”

“Um--um--yourself, I think, your washup.”

“Sergeant, you forget yourself. I am not coffin-headed. Not even a rebel would dare apply such a term to me. Prisoner, in the face of the overwhelming evidence adduced, I do not think it necessary to proceed further; besides, there are other allusions which a thoughtless world might associate with me. Society must be preserved against such desperadoes. If I could trust the honesty of a jury of your countrymen, I would commit you for trial; but, alas! they would not see the evidence with the clear gaze which I bend upon it. Therefore I give you the highest sentence in my power--three months’ imprisonment--and, sergeant, just look over the act and see under what clause we shall record it.”

Christy Connell served the three months, but to this day neither himself, the magistrate, the jailer, nor the county member who brought his case before Parliament have been able to find out for what he was convicted. And that’s one specimen out of a hundred of the working of the coercion act.

JOHN BULL’S APPEAL TO JONATHAN.

Oh pray, good Cousin Jonathan, assist me in my plight; And ease my aching brain of this perpetual affright That keeps me quaking all the day and shivering all night-- An incubus I can’t shake off, a shade I cannot fight. I am very, very sorry for the _Alabama’s_ pranks, I regret that I contributed to arm Secession’s ranks, But if you’ll only aid me now to crush these Irish cranks, Upon my knees I’ll pledge eternal gratitude and thanks.

As empress of the ocean, and as mistress of the waves, Britannia has a perfect right to string up Afghan braves; To blow to bits, with dynamite, the Zulus in their caves, And to burn the huts of savages who will not be her slaves. But when the men she drove from home with steel and buckshot dare Return with nasty bombs to beard the lion in his lair, And send his best establishments cavorting through the air-- Good Heavens! you must admit it’s quite a different affair.

Poor Gladstone dare not crack an egg for fear it might explode, A hundred picked detectives guard her Majesty’s abode. Sir William Harcourt feels unsafe by river, rail, or road, And letter-carriers tremble ’neath the lightest postal load. There is terror in the country and anxiety in town, Insurance rates are rising, while stocks are going down, And since his kilts and plaids were doffed, forever, by John Brown, Uneasy lies the royal head that wears the British crown.

Then, pray, good Cousin Jonathan, vouchsafe to us some ease, I beg, implore, and crave of you, upon my bended knees. And in return I’ll take of you whatever you may please, Pay homage to your bacon, and monopolize your cheese. But, oh, my brave blood relative, in Heaven’s name don’t delay, Do not hesitate a moment, do not hold your hand a day, Our statesmen in another month will all be bald or gray, Unless vile nitro-glycerine has blown the lot away.

THE STORY OF A BOMB.

Where Shannon’s waves with smiling face Woo smiling banks with soft embrace, A modest cabin stood beside Its gentle perfume-laden tide. The sunshine of an honest life, A prattling child, a loving wife, The joys of home, their blessings shed Around the peasant tenant’s head. The twinkling stars of summer skies Reflected back his colleen’s eyes, His baby’s locks the noonday rays Encircled with a golden haze.

But drear December, dark and chill, Whirled blighting blasts adown the hill, Sickness and famine scourged the land; And in their train the landlord band, And aiding in their mission dire The liveried hounds in England’s hire. In one brief hour their work was o’er, A happy home was home no more. The wintry skies looked sadly down, Half veiled in tears, half wrapt in frown, Upon the babe that sobbed to rest Upon its dying mother’s breast.

A week--a month--he had no power To mark or count each anguished hour, He knew not if ’twere night or day When wife and infant passed away. Without a hope to dull the pain That numbed his heart and seared his brain, Despair behind and gloom before, He left his native Shannon’s shore, Whose rippling wavelets seemed to press The ship’s dark side with fond caress, While chimes from many a distant bell Breathed Mother Erin’s last farewell.

Uncouth in dress, but huge of limb, With earnest faces fierce and grim, Are gathered near a silent swamp, Rough toilers from a mining camp; The rasping tones of Ulster greet The voice of Munster soft and sweet, And Connaught’s mellow accent blends, But one and all are Ireland’s friends. Yet whispering pines that bend above Hear words of hatred, not of love; Tears that from eyes of strong men fall Are not of mercy, but of gall.

Each has a sickening tale to tell Of England’s robber rule of hell, Each has a deeply cherished cause To hate her power and curse her laws. “Then who will venture life, and go To wreak our vengeance on this foe, Though ’mid the ruins he may lie?” And he from Shannon answers “I!” The western breezes catch the vow That surges from his bosom now, The exile’s vengeful brand to bear And smite the tiger in his lair.

In Babylonian halls to-night Are strains of mirth and flashing light, The sheen of satin, gleaming gems In scores of priceless diadems; These are the butterflies, the drones, Vampires who feed on blood and bones. Ah, cruel parasites, beware, One victim of your wrong is there. The London skies are black with cloud The earth enwrapt in night’s dark shroud, As by the despot’s citadel A hand from Shannon fires the shell.

England, to thee and thine belongs The memory of uncounted wrongs That, multiplied through all the years, Have dried the fount of Ireland’s tears. Thy fate is sealed, thy knell has tolled, Not thrice the sum of thrice thy gold Can turn the wrath thou hast defied Of hearts like those from Shannon’s side. Thy future sky is overcast, Thy halcyon days forever past, Earthquake and storm shall overwhelm Thy towers and fanes, thy laws and realm.

AVENGING, THOUGH DIM (1798).