Who slipt his foot on holy ground,
And plung'd into the lake profound;
Or, by the load of life oppress'd,
Sought refuge in its peaceful breast.
What! Did not Peace delighted dwell
The hermit of the mountain cell?
No-'twas a cage of iron rule,
Of pride and selfishness the school,
Of dark desires, and doubts profane,
And harsh repentings, late but vain :
To fast-to watch-to scourge to praise
The golden legend of their days;
To idolise a stick or bone,
And turn the bread of life to stone;
"Till, mock'd and marr'd by miracles,
Great Nature from her laws rebels,
And man becomes-by monkish art—
A prodigy-without a heart.
No friend sincere, no smiling wife,
The blessing and the balm of life;
And knowledge, by a forg'd decree,
Still stands an interdicted tree.
Majestic tree! that proudly waves
Thy branching, words, thy letter leaves,
Whether with strength, that time commands,
An oak of ages Homer stands ;
Or Milton, high-topt mountain pine,
Aspiring to the light divine;
Or laurel of perennial green,
The Shakespeare of the living scene,
Whate'er thy form, in prose sublime,
Or train'd by art and prun'd by rhyme,
All hail-thou priest-forbidden tree!
For God had bless'd, and made thee free.
God did the foodful blessing give,
That man might eat of it, and live:
But they who have usurp'd his throne,
To keep his paradise their own,
Have spread around a Demon's breath,
And nam'd thee Upas, Tree of Death.
Thy root is Truth, thy stem is Pow'r,
And Virtue thy consummate flow'r.
Receive the circling nations' vows,
And the world's garland deck thy boughs.
From the bleak Scandinavian shore
The DANE his raven standard bore:
It rose amidst the whit'ning foam,
When the fierce robber hated home;
And, as he plough'd the wat'ry way,
The raven seem'd to scent its prey;
Outstretch'd the gloomy ominous wing,
For feast of carnage war must bring.
"Twas HERE the Christian savage stood,
To seal his faith in flame and blood.
The sword of midnight murder fell
On the calm siceper of the cell.
Flash'd thro' the trees with horrid glare
The flames-and poison'd all the air.
the lark began to raise,
As she had seen the solar blaze;
But, smote with terrifying sound,
Forsook the death-polluted ground;
And never since, these limits near,
Was heard to hymn her vigil clear.
This periodic ravage fell,
How oft our bloody annals tell!
But, ah! how much of woe untold,
How many groans of young and old,
Has hist'ry, in this early age,
Sunk in the margin of her page,
Which, at the best, but stamps a name
On Vice, and Misery, and Shame.
Thus flow'd in flames, and blood, and tears,
A lava of two hundred years;
And tho' some seeds of science seen
Shot forth, in heart-enliv'ning green,
To cloath the gaps of civil strife,
And smooth a savage-temper'd life,
Yet soon new torrents black'ning came,
Wrapt the young growth in rolling flame,
And, as it blasted, left behind
Dark desolation of the mind.
But now no more the rugged north
Pours half its population forth;
No more that iron-girded coast
(The sheath of many a sworded host)
That rush'd abroad for bloody spoil,
Still won on hapless Erin's soil,
Where Discord wav'd her flaming brand,
Sure guide to a devoted land;
A land, by fav'ring Nature nurs'd,
By human fraud and folly curs'd,
Which never foreign friend shall know,
While to herself the direst foe.
Is that a friend, who, sword in hand,
Leaps, pond'rous, on the sinking strand,
Full plum'd, with ANGLO-NORMAN pride,
The base adult'rer by his side,
Pointing to Leinster's fertile plain,
Where (wretch!) he thinks once more to reign? Yes, thou shalt reign, and live to know
Thy own, amid thy country's woe.
That country's curse upon thy head,
Torments thee living, haunts thee dead;
And, howling thro' the vaults of Time,
E'en now proclaims and damns thy crime;
Six cent'ries past, her curse still lives,
Nor yet forgets, nor yet forgives,
DERMOD, who bade the Normans come
To sack and spoil his native home.
Sown by this Traitor's bloody hand,
Dissension rooted in the land;
Mix'd with the seed of springing years,
Their hopeful blossoms steep'd in tears;
And late posterity can tell
The fruitage rotted as it fell.
Then Destiny was heard to wail,
While on black stone of INISFAIL
She mark'd this nation's dreadful doom,
And character'd the woes to come.
Battle, and plague, and famine, plac'd
The epochs of th' historic waste;
And, crowning every ill of life,
Self-conquer'd by domestic strife.
Was this the scheme of mercy plann'd
In Adrien's heart, thro' Henry's hand,
To draw the savage from his den,
And train Hibernia's sons to men;
To fertilize the human clay,
And turn the stubborn soil to day?
No-'twas two Englishmen who play'd
The mast'ry of their sep'rate trade:
Conquest was then, and ever since,
The real design of Priest and Prince;
And while his flag the King unfurl'd,
The father of the Christian world
Bless'd it, and hail'd the hallow'd deed,
For none but savages would bleed;
Yet when these savages began
To turn upon their hunter, man,
Rush'd from their forests to assail
Th' encroaching circuit of the pale,
The cause of quarrel still was good;
The enemy must be subdued.
Subdued! The nation still was gor'd
By law more penal than the sword;
Till Vengeance, with a tiger start,
Sprang from the covert of the heart.
Resistance took a blacker name,
The scaffold's penalty and shame;
There was the wretched rebel led,
Uplifted there the Traitor's head.
Still there was hope th' avenging hand
Of Heav'n would spare a hapless land;
That days of ruin, havoc, spoil,
Would cease to desolate the soil;
Justice, tho' late, begin her course,
Subdued the lion law of force;
There was a hope that civil hate,
No more a policy of state;
Religion not the tool of pow'r,
Her only office—to adore;
That Education, HERE, might stand,
The harp of Orpheus in her hand,
Of pow'r t'infuse the social charm,
With love of peace and order warm,
The ruder passions all repress'd,
And tam'd the tigers of the breast,
By love of country and of kind,
And magic of a master mind.
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