IRELAND'S STORY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 1, 26 April 1889, Page 21

IRELAND'S STORY.

(New York Mercury.") Oh, wail a dirge o'er the deep, ye winds ; and sob my sorrow, oh sea! For my banished children, scattered afar, and evermore lost to me I I reared them with more than a mother's lovt-love quickens when most oppressed — . But the tyrant fate that has crushed my soul ever snatched them from my breast I It drove them away from my bosom's shield— from the shelter I fain For not in their own but in other lands might they claim the right That commonest right that is given by God is denied to them and to And the merciless hate of a ravening foe still feeds on my misery ! The ocean pathways sailed by ships are paved with their whitening They weep by the waters in many lands and wander in all the nones ; And oft in my feverish eleep I hear, as if borne on a spirit gale, i The cobs of their sore distress for me and their sorrow s despairing ' wail. I start to my feet in the midnight dark with a mother's instinctive I call aloud upon God for help and aid from the spirits above I With brain distracted and tortured soul 1 beg for the end to come Till anguish exhaasts my feeble strength and I fall in my fettersdumb I Ob, God, must it Last? Will it never end? Must my heart* blood drain its tide . „ To the outer oceans, day by day, and the continents far and wide / Exhausted and prone I manacled lie 'mid the ruins of glorious days, With nothing but pictures of wretchedness to everywhere meet my gaze I No grief like mine has a mother known since the mother who stood And miners "a type of her agonised soul in her whole soul's absolute My sons have been hunted, and scourged, and Blain, while my heart in my bosom died ; , . Yes, God, my heart, with my patriot sons, on the CroBS has been crucified I Ob, my sister lands, will you still look on, unmoved at my wretched A slavefabused, and bleeding, and torn, at a merciless master* gate I If my voice I raise and justice ask in the sacred name of Hi™— The answer comes, " Let the bloodhounds loose and |tear her 4 litnO from limb I " In vain I cry ! In vain I plead 1 But the thought still fillß my Such cent'uried fight as mine has been could never be meant in vain I But bark I What murmurous sounds are those that rise ocr the 'Tis theTranvp of a million returning eons I A slave ? No I Nevermore ! And I see their eyes are ablaze with love for me, and with dreadful For tbVmerciless monster, cruel as strong, who has doomed me to Ob, God, I * thank Thee 1 But do I dream? Is this but a Hope'i But dreaming or waking, oh, God, I pray, let me die in such hour ot ]oy Patbick Sabsfield Cassidy,