Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark, What then? 'Tis day! We sleep no more; the cock crows--hark! To arms! away! They come! they come! the knell is rung Of us or them; Wide o'er their march the pomp is flung Of gold and gem. What collar'd hound of lawless sway To famine dear-- What pensioned slave of Attila, Leads in the rear? Come they from Scythian lands afar, Our blood to spill? Wear they the livery of the Czar? They do his will. Nor tassell'd silk, nor epaulet, Nor plume, nor torse-- No splendour gilds, all sternly met, Our foot and horse. But, dark and still, we only glow, Condensed in ire! Strike, tawdry slaves and ye shall know Our gloom is fire. In vain your pomp, ye evil powers, Insults the land; Wrongs, vengeance, and the Cause are ours, And God's right hand! Madmen! they trample into snakes The wormy clod! Like fire, beneath their feet awakes The sword of God! Behind, before, above, below, They rouse the brave; Where'er they go, they make a foe, Or find a grave. REPEAL OF THE UNION (1833). =Source.=--_Lord Macaulay's Speeches_, 1854. _Speech of Lord Macaulay. Delivered in House of Commons, Feb. 6, 1833._ Ireland has undoubtedly just causes of complaint. We heard those causes recapitulated last night by the honourable and learned member,[6] who tells us that he represents not Dublin alone, but Ireland, and that he stands between his country and civil war. I do not deny that most of the grievances which he recounted exist, that they are serious, and that they ought to be remedied as far as it is in the power of legislation to remedy them. What I do deny is that they were caused by the union, and that the repeal of the union would remove them. I listened attentively while the honourable and learned gentleman went through that long and melancholy list: and I am confident that he did not mention a single evil which was not a subject of bitter complaint while Ireland had a domestic parliament. Is it fair, is it reasonable in the honourable gentleman to impute to the union evils which, as he knows better than any other man in this House, existed long before the union? _Post hoc: ergo, propter hoc_ is not always sound reasoning. But _ante hoc: ergo, non propter hoc_ is unanswerable. The old rustic who told Sir Thomas More that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Godwin sands reasoned much better than the honourable and learned gentleman. For it was not till after Tenterden steeple was built that the frightful wrecks on the Godwin sands were heard of. But the honourable and learned gentleman would make Godwin sands the cause of Tenterden steeple. Some of the Irish grievances which he ascribes to the union are not only older than the union,