"Up Liberty's steep by Truth and Eloquence led, With eyes on her temple fix'd, how proud was thy tread! Ah, better thou ne'er hadst lived that summit to gain, Or died in the porch, than thus dishonour the fane." A footnote pointed the meaning in these words. "Written in one of those moods of hopelessness and disgust which come occasionally over the mind, in contemplating the present state of Irish patriotism." Not unnaturally, O'Connell was angry, and his friend Con Lyne wrote to Moore, entreating "an alleviating word." Moore replied, the Journal notes-- "that I was not surprised at O'Connell's feeling those verses, as I had felt them deeply myself in writing them; but that they were wrung from me by a desire to put on record (in the only work of mine likely to reach after-times) that though going along, heart and soul, with the great cause of Ireland, I by no means went with the spirit or the manner in which that cause had been for a long time conducted." He admitted that, though the verses were addressed to Ireland, O'Connell had a right to take them to himself, "as he is and has been for a long time, to all public intents and purposes, Ireland." That was just what Moore complained of. He disliked the removal of "all independent and really public-spirited co-operators"; he regarded the position of this "mighty unit of a legion of ciphers" as a threat to freedom, certain to lead to an abuse of power. "Against such abuse of power, let it be placed in what hands it might," he "had all his life revolted and would to the last revolt." From the dignity of this really serious criticism he detracted somewhat by adding that O'Connell's resolution against duelling had done much "to lower the once high tone of feeling in Ireland"; for he omitted to make the necessary observation that, when O'Connell forswore duelling, he by no means forswore personal vituperation. The letter contained no allusion to a feeling which certainly was in Moore's mind when he wrote the verses--namely, his dislike of the "annual stipend from the begging-box." But even without this, it was an explanation ill calculated to alleviate, and Moore thought that public feeling in Ireland might probably run strong against him.