THE IRISH MURDERS.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 87, 13 May 1882, Page 132

THE IRISH MURDERS.

[" There will be a cry that not such a one as an amiable Lord Frederick Cavendish should be sent with overtures of conciliation and peace, but rather an Oliver Cromwell with a destroying sword in his hand."] When widows in the legs are shot, Their crops and cattle left to rot ; When lawlessness on every hand Despoils and devastates the land ; When men who dare to pay due rent, Swift to their long account are sent ; Rapine and murder stalk abroad, A brutal, wild unreas'ning horde, We seek to palliate the crimes With buried wrongs of bygone times. But when the victim is a Lord We cry aloud " unsheath the sword !" Let some new Cromwell now arise, A new Drogheda sacrifice ; Let helpless maids and babes be slain That meek-eyed peace may smile again j Let faggots llare, let patriots roast, And military butchers boast Of triumphs won o'er heathen hordes By belching cannon, rifles, swords, And Irish caitiffs be abhorred, — They've sacrificed a British Lord ! Can he who toils from day to day And scarce can keep the wolf away : Can he in rags and squalor clad, In dumb despair, heartbroken, sad : Can she who hears the wailing cry Of children in some human stye : Can he, who at his mother's breast Drank in old wrongs still unredressed : Can these not feel — these wretched hinds — The pangs of hunger, wintry winds, The rain, the frost, the fever's scourge : Can they not hear the funeral dirge : Can they not mourn as well as ye, Great British aristocracy ? Can they whose sad affrighted eyes Behold the lurid flames arise Aloft to light the midnight sky, When forced to flee, perchance to die Of hunger, cold, the knife's keen edge, Like beasts beneath some wayside hedge ; Can they who see the fruits of toil Of midnight ruffians fall the spoil : Can he who lives in nightly dread Of being butchered in his bed, Who hears in every passing breeze That lifts tlie thatch or stirs the trees The stealthy tread that marks his doom, Like spectres stalking through the gloom : Can those not feel— can those not cry Midst Famine, Fire, arid Anarchy ? Oh, ye who hear the wild despair Of groaning millions rend the air, Note how a hopeless nation bleeds From your misrule and past misdeeds ; Behold how legacies of wrong Through rolling ages borne along, Like thistle down in breezes blown, Or dragon's teeth by Cadmos sown, Will rise again on every hand To overrun and vex the land ; For wrong eternally will bear A subtle spirit in the air, Like some old ghost that hovers near The confines of this earthly sphere, Till some fell deed of ages past Be expiated at the last. And ye, the Noble and the Great, Who wield the mighty powers of State, Take heed how ye employ that power. The reckless act of one brief hour, The guilt of one dark moment's crime, May last through centimes of time ; While every noble deed of thine Like the eternal sun shall shine, Or, like some melody of yore, Will echo on for evermore, Its widening waves in cycling years Fall on the unseen far off spheres ; Like that seraphic strain that runs Through myriad stars and shining suns, That man may feel from Heaven above The Universal Soul of Love. Atttomathes. Auckland, May 9th, 1882. [The above is very sentimental and all that, but we have no sympathy with murder and lawlessness; and if we understand " Automathes" aright, he has none either. His poem appears to be pretty general, and to express sympathy with the innocent sufferers of all classes from the present condition of anarchy. At the same time the recent murder forms the climax to a long series of outrages, and calls for severely repressive measures. — Ed. Obsebyeb.]

On Monday next, Messrs S. Cochrane and Son will sell at their Land Mart, Fort-street, at 12 o'clock, that valuable freehold property, situated on the New North Road, now occupied by Mr John McElwain. Lithograph plans axe now obtainable at the omce ol the auctioneers. - On Tuesday next, the 16th mst., and the following day Mr Gabriel Lewis will sell at his Auction Rooms, Queen-street, a large stock of well-assorted clothingtweeds, shirts, and general drapery. This stock has been recently purchased, and offers splendid advantages to storekeepers and others, as every line must be sold without reserve to close a partnership account. Some of our day dreamers idly wish and vainly sigh for what they are pleased to term a restoration of the good old times. Others have a longing for the millennium or golden age, which, they say, may come at some dismally remote' period of the future. But most genuine old smokers believe, in thb sentiment of the late American worthy, H.W. Longfellow, i.e., in. the living present; ; arid when their stock of fragrant weed is exhaustedi take iafbeeline 'to Tilly's 'baccy ahop for afresh supply of 'his 'Mellow 'Mixture, :prepare& ; only ■ • at : 64* 1 Queen-street, opposite the Bank of New Zealand;