And writes on low-hung clouds its lines Of cyphered flame, with hurrying hand; And flings amid the topmost pines That crown the steep, a burning brand. Make answer, Year, for all they dead, Who found not rest in hallowed earth, The widowed wife, the father fled, The babe age-stricken from his birth. Make answer, Year, for virtue lost; For Faith, that vanquished fraud and force, Now waning like a noontide ghost; Affections poisoned at their source: The labourer spurned his lying spade; The yeoman spurned his useless plough; The pauper spurned the unwholesome aid, Obtruded once, exhausted now. The weaver wove till all was dark, And, long ere morning, bent and bowed Above his work with fingers stark; And made, nor knew he made, a shroud. The roof-trees fall of hut and hall, I hear them fall, and falling cry-- "One fate for each, one fate for all; So wills the Law that willed a lie." Dread power of Man! what spread the waste In circles, hour by hour more wide, And would not let the past be past?-- The Law that promised much, and lied. Dread power of God! whom mortal years Nor touch, nor tempt; who sitt'st sublime In night of night,--O bid thy spheres Resound at last a funeral chime. Call up, at last, the afflicted Race Whom Man not God abolished. Sore, For centuries, their strife: the place That knew them once shall know no more. IRELAND--1849. WINTER DIRGE. Fall, Snow, and cease not! Flake by flake The decent winding-sheet compose: Thy task is just and pious; make An end of blasphemies and woes. Fall flake by flake: by thee alone, Last friend, the sleeping draught is given: Kind nurse, by thee the couch is strewn, The couch whose covering is from heaven. Descend and clasp the mountain's crest; Possess wide plain and valley deep:-- This night, in thy maternal breast Forsaken myriads die in sleep. Lo! from the starry Temple gates Death rides, and bears the flag of peace: The combatants he separates; He bids the wrath of ages cease. Descend, benignant Power! But O, Ye torrents, shake no more the vale; Dark streams, in silence seaward flow; Thou rising storm, remit thy wail. Shake not, to-night, the cliffs of Moher, Or Brandon's base, rough sea! Thou Isle, The Rite proceeds:--from shore to shore Hold in thy gathered breath the while. Fall, snow! in stillness fall, like dew On temple roof, and cedar's fan; And mould thyself on pine and yew, And on the awful face of man. Without a sound, without a stir, In streets and wolds, on rock and mound, O omnipresent comforter, By thee, this night, the lost are found.