The Prince's Day.[1]

        "This clamor which pretends to be raised for the safety of religion has almost worn put the very appearance of it, and rendered us not only the most divided but the most immoral people upon the face of the earth."

        ADDISON, Freeholder, No. 37.


Start not, my friend, nor think the Muse will stain
Her classic fingers with the dust profane
Of Bulls, Decrees and all those thundering scrolls
Which took such freedom once with royal souls,[1]
When heaven was yet the pope's exclusive trade,
And kings were damned as fast as now they're made,
No, no--let Duigenan search the papal chair
For fragrant treasures long forgotten there;
And, as the witch of sunless Lapland thinks
That little swarthy gnomes delight in stinks,
Let sall...

'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking,
    Like Heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead--
When Man, from the slumber of ages awaking,
    Looked upward, and blest the pure ray, ere it fled.
'Tis gone, and the gleams it has left of its burning
But deepen the long night of bondage and mourning,
That dark o'er the kingdoms of earth is returning,
    And darkest of all, hapless Erin, o'er thee.

For high was thy hope, when those glories were darting
    Around thee, thro' all the gross clouds of the world;
When Truth, from her fetters indignantly starting,
    At once, like a Sun-burst, her banner unfurled.[1]
Oh! never shall earth see a moment so splendid!
Then, then--had one Hymn of Deliverance blended
The tongues of all nations--how sw...

Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave
    To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave,
    Where the first--where the last of her Patriots lies?

No--faint tho' the death-song may fall from his lips,
    Tho' his Harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost,
Yet, yet shall it sound, mid a nation's eclipse,
    And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost;--[1]

What a union of all the affections and powers
    By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,
Was embraced in that spirit--whose centre was ours,
    While its mighty circumference circled mankind.

Oh, who that loves Erin, or who that can see,
    Thro' the waste of her annals, that epoch sublime--
Lik...

By the hope within us springing,
    Herald of to-morrow's strife;
By that sun, whose light is bringing
    Chains or freedom, death or life--
    Oh! remember life can be
No charm for him, who lives not free!
    Like the day-star in the wave,
    Sinks a hero in his grave,
Midst the dew-fall of a nation's tears.

    Happy is he o'er whose decline
    The smiles of home may soothing shine
And light him down the steep of years:--
    But oh, how blest they sink to rest,
    Who close their eyes on victory's breast!

O'er his watch-fire's fading embers
    Now the foeman's cheek turns white,
When his heart that field remembers,
    Where we tamed his tyrant might.
Never let him bind again
A chain; like that we broke from then.
   ...

The valley lay smiling before me,
    Where lately I left her behind;
Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me,
    That saddened the joy of my mind.
I looked for the lamp which, she told me,
    Should shine, when her Pilgrim returned;
But, tho' darkness began to infold me,
    No lamp from the battlements burned!

I flew to her chamber--'twas lonely,
    As if the loved tenant lay dead;--
Ah, would it were death, and death only!
    But no, the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute that could soften
    My very worst pains into bliss;
While the hand, that had waked it so often,
    Now throbbed to a proud rival's kiss.

There was a time, falsest of women,
    When Breffni's good sword would have sought
That man, thro'...

While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
    Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
    For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright,
When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame,
        She saw History write,
        With a pencil of light
That illumed the whole volume, her Wellington's name.

"Hail, Star of my Isle!" said the Spirit, all sparkling
    With beams, such as break from her own dewy skies--
"Thro' ages of sorrow, deserted and darkling,
    "I've watched for some glory like thine to arise.
"For, tho' heroes I've numbered, unblest was their lot,
"And unhallowed they sleep in the crossways of Fame;--
        "But oh! there is not
        "...