Homes are hearthless, harps in fetters, Guerdon’s none for men of letters, Banquets none, nor merry meetings, Hills ring not the chase’s greetings. Songs of war make no heart stronger, Songs of peace inspire no longer,-- In great halls, at close of days, Sound no more our fathers’ lays. Foemen camp in Neimid’s plains; Who shall break our heavy chains? What Naisi, son of Conn, shall prove A Moses to the land we love? She has none who now can aid her, All have gone before the invader; Banba’s bonds and cruel cross Steal the very soul from us! _George Sigerson._ CLXXXIII LAMENT FOR EOGHAN RUA O’NEILL (_From the Irish_) How great the loss is thy loss to me! A loss to all who had speech with thee:-- On earth can so hard a heart there be As not to weep for the death of Eoghan? Och, ochón! ’tis I am stricken, Unto death the isle may sicken, Thine the soul which all did quicken; --And thou ’neath the sod! I stood at Cavan o’er thy tomb, Thou spok’st no word through all thy gloom; O want! O ruin! O bitter doom! O great, lost heir of the house of Niall! I care not now whom Death may borrow, Despair sits by me, night and morrow, My life henceforth is one long sorrow; --And thou ’neath the sod! O child of heroes, heroic child! Thou’dst smite our foe in battle wild, Thou’dst right all wrong, O just and mild! And who lives now--since dead is Eoghan? In place of feasts, alas! there’s crying, In place of song, sad woe and sighing, Alas, I live with my heart a-dying, --And thou ’neath the sod! My woe, was ever so cruel woe? My heart is torn with rending throe! I grieve that I am not lying low In silent death by thy side, Eoghan! Thou wast skilled all straits to ravel, And thousands broughtst from death and cavil, They journey safe who with thee travel, --And thou with thy God! _George Sigerson._ SAVAGE-ARMSTRONG CLXXXIV THE OLD COUNTRY Not tasselled palm or bended cypress wooing The languid wind on temple-crownèd heights, Not heaven’s myriad stars in lustre strewing Smooth sapphire bays in hushed Ionian nights, Not the clear peak of dawn-encrimsoned snow, Or plumage-lighted wood, or gilded pile Sparkling amid the imperial city’s glow, Endears our Isle. Thine the weird splendour of the restless billow For ever breaking over lonely shores, The reedy mere that is the wild-swan’s pillow, The crag to whose torn spire the eagle soars, The moorland where the solitary hern Spreads his grey wings upon the breezes cold, The pink sweet heather’s bloom, the waving fern, The gorse’s gold.