QUERIES.

New Zealand Tablet, 15 July 1920, Page 33

QUERIES.

Oh I tell me, are the skies as blue In Ireland as of yore? • . Do valleys wear that verdant hue They once so proudly wore ? Do zephyrs o’er her meadows sigh? Can pilgrims’ eyes see still The fern leaves on the mountains high, And heather on the hill? Do rivers run Through forests dun. Or by each castle hold. With pattering feet. And cadence sweet, As in the days of old ? Tell me if yet round towers stand In silence to proclaim The glory of an ancient land— The splendor of her fame? Can man see still the rath so green, The abbey, lorn and lone, The holy well in glen serene, And quaint Druidic stone?— The castle eaves, Where ivy leaves, Sob, crooning in the blast, O'er bright hopes fled, Brave chieftains dead, And relics of the past ? Oh! tell me are the maids so fair As in the long ago, With laughing eyes - and raven hair To set one’s heart aglow ? Say, have they still the modest grace And blushes like the dawn ? The beauty of the classic face ? The meekness of the fawn? Or are they true. Dear land to you, As they who scorned the frown And ruthless swords Of Saxon hordes By Limerick’s leagured town? Oh 1 tell me if the grand old names Have magic power still To kindle freedom’s sacred flames Like Baal fires on the hill?— The saintly Laurence, brave Red Hindi O’Neill of famed Tyrone, ” And Sarsfield bold, and Emmet true, Fitzgerald, and Wolfe Tone? And all who died In manly pride On scaffold or in fray To save the Isle From Saxon wile, Or shatter Saxon sway ? Oh 1 tell me if the night bo done. And daylight’s on the strand ? And if a Summer’s lustrous sun Shines on a risen land Have voices from each hill and glen Taught men to do and dare— The path to tread — goal to win The glorious crowft to wear ? If so, may soon A cloudless noon Our aspirations hail. And man acclaim, In freedom’s name, The triumph of the Gael! ■ —Eugene Davis. The past belongs to God; the present only s ours. And short as it is, there is more in it and of it than we can well manage. The man who can grapple it and measure it and fill it with his purpose is dong a man’s work • none can do more, but there are thousands who do less. ’ Most of our resentments dwell in our hearts, not because of any present claim to be there, but simply because having once found entrance they have never been put out Most of our enmities are-old-timers, owing their existence now to the fact that pride will- not let us admit that they never had any right to exist at all. If hearts, like homes had them periodic house-cleaning days and burnt up the rubbish, how much easier life would be !