John Boyle O'Reilly

“ Not mine your passions, yet I weigh them well—
Who loves a greater sinks all lesser love,
Who hates a tyrant loses lesser hate.
My Land! I see thee in the marble, bowed
Before thy tyrant, bound at foot and wrist—
Thy garments rent—thy wounded shoulder bare—
Thy chained hand raised to ward the cruel blow—
My poor love round thee scarf-like, weak to hide
And powerless to shield thee—but a boy
I wound it round thee, dearest, and a man
I drew it close and kissed thee—Mother, wife!
For thee the past and future days; for thee
The will to trample wrong and strike for slaves ”

“ And every purple veinlet thrills with exquisite desire.
O, let me see the glance, dear, the gleam of soft confession
You give my amorous roses for the tender hope they prove;
And press their heart-leaves back, love, to drink their deeper passion,
For their sweetest, wildest perfume is the whisper of my love!
My roses, tell her, pleading, all the fondness and the sighing,
All the longing of a heart that reaches thirsting for its bliss ”

“ To own the earth in their lifetime and hand it down to their children!
Emperors, stand to the bar! Chancellors, halt at the barracks!
Landlords and Lawlords and Tradelords, the spectres you conjured have risen—
Communists, Socialists, Nihilists, Rent-rebels, Strikers, behold!
They are fruit of the seed you have sown—God has prospered your planting. They come
From the earth, like the army of death. You have sowed the teeth of the dragon! ”

“ And her eyes searched mine with a patient yearning;
And I kissed her, renewing the words so dear,
While she listened and smiled, as if slowly learning.
"Do you love me?" she asked, when we sat at rest
By the stream enshadowed with autumn glory;
Her cheek had been laid as in peace on my breast,
But she raised it to ask for the sweet old story.
And I said: "I will tell her the tale again
I will swear by the earth and the stars above me!" ”

“ Muley the King is afield, but sick to the death.
Borne on a litter he lies, his blood on fire, his eyes
Flaming with fever light.
Hamah Tabah the Captain, stands by the curtained bed,
Telling him news of the fight—how the waves roll and
rise, and clash and mingle and seethe.
And Hamah bends to the scene. He peers under archéd hand—
As an eagle he stoops to the field. One hand on the hilt
Is white at the knuckles, so fiercely gripped ”

“ The mated bosoms heard this benediction:
"Love lies within the brimming bowl of sense:
Who keeps this full has joy—who drains, affliction"
They heard the rustle as he smiling fled:
She reached her hand to pull the roses blowing.
He stretched to take the purple grapes o'erhead;
Love whispered back, "Nay, keep their beauties growing."
They paused, and understood: one flower alone
They took and kept, and Love flew smiling over. ”

“ Flinging aside disease as a wrestler flings his tunic;
Strong with the smothered fire of fever, and fiercer far than its flaming,
Rises in mail from the litter Muley Malek the King!
Down on his plunging stallion, in the eyes of the shuddered troops,
His bent plume like a smoke, and his sword like a flame,
Smelting their souls with his courage, he rides before his soldiers! ”

“ And falsehood wins from truth, and the vile and cunning succeed,
And manhood and love are dwarfed, and virtue and friendship sick,
And the law of Christ is a cloak for the corpse that stands for Justice! ”

“ By the stream, in the silent shade, he walks where the two have made
Their resting-place for the noon: "'T is Friendship!" they cry; and soon
Love's guile on their hearts is laid.
"O, the goddess is good!" ”

“ Comes from the Cheyenne braves, though their firing slackens in vigor
To grow in fatal precision—grim as the cliff above them
They fight their fight, and the valley is lined with death from their rifles. ”

“ With radiance hoarded from the vanished sun.
"The meteor-stone is dense and dark in space,
But bursts in flame when through the air it rushes;
And our dull life is like an aerolite
That leaps to fire within the sphere of love." ”

“ By the shadowed stream they strayed, where often the heavenly maid
Would smile upon their rest.
One day, with her white robe flown, she passed like a dream alone,
Where they sat in a converse sweet, with the silver stream at their feet
As still and as wise as they.
To the innermost temple's room, to the couch, and the sacred loom
Where she weaves her placid will, the goddess came, smiling still,
Unrobing for blissful rest. ”

“ They were watched from a cloud above by the mischievous god of Love,
Who envied Friendship's reign.
They dreamt not of danger near, and their hearts felt no shade of fear,
As they laid their rich offerings of flowers and precious things
At Friendship's lovely feet. ”

“ Behold our honor, honesty, and freedom,
And, last, our brotherhood! For we are born
In Christian times and ruled by Christian rules!
Bah! God is mild, or he would strike the world
As men should smite a liar on the mouth. ”

“ At the one and other, and spoke them o'er,
And they saw what the heart of man must see,
That the uttermost blessing is Liberty!
Ah, pity them, God! they must always choose,
For the life to gain and the death to lose. ”

“ The thousands of Muley stand, like bison dazed by an earthquake;
They are stunned by the thud of the fight, they are deer without a leader;
Their charge has died like the impulse of missiles freed from the sling ”

“ Terrible getting ready of men who prepare for a death-fight:—
Scabbards are thrown aside and belts unstrapped for the striking,
Ominous outward signs of the deadlier inner preparing
When the soul flings danger aside and the human heart its mercy. ”

“ The skies were dumb—she dared not swoon or scream.
As Indian mothers see babes die for food,
She watched dry-eyed beside her starving heart,
And only sobbed in secret for its gasps,
And only raved one wild hour when it died!
O Pain, have pity! Numb her quivering sense;
O Fame, bring guerdon! Thrice a thousand years
Thy boy-thief with the fox beneath his cloak
Has let it gnaw his side unmoved, and held the world ”

“ To serve for common duty, while the brain
Is hot with high desire to be distinct;
To fill the sand-grain place among the stones
That build the social wall in million sameness,
Is life by leave, and death by insignificance. ”

“ And since then,—O, why the burden?—when the joyous faces greet me,
With their eyes of limpid innocence, and words devoid of art,
I cannot trust their seeming, but must ask what eyes would meet me
Could I look in sudden silence at the secrets of the heart! ”

“ I held the tiny body like a leaf
All day and night within my arms; and so,
Close nestled to my yearning heart, Death passed,
As merciless as God, but left that look
Of two dead loves, as if Death's self knew pity. ”

“ While the voice that was hard grows husky deep,
And the face is a-tremble as if to weep?
The Chains on the brink of the cliff are lined;
The living are bowed o'er the dead—they rise
And they face the rifles with burning eyes ”

“ As planet-men, who own the earth, and pass;
Him we must follow till foul Cant and Caste
Die like disease, and Mankind, freed at last,
Tramples the complex life and laws and limits
That stand between all living things and Freedom! ”

“ With scornful lips and ensanguined hands;
O, blood of the weak, unbought, unpriced,
Thy smoke is a piteous prayer to Christ!
They stand on the brink of the cliff—they bend
To the dead in their chains ”

“ The mean of soul are sure their faults to gloss,
And find a secret gain in others' loss.
vii.
Applause the bold man wins, respect the grave;
Some, only being not modest, think they're brave.
viii.
The petty wrong-doer may escape unseen;
But what from sight the moon eclipsed shall screen?
Superior minds must err in sight of men,
Their eclipse o'er, they rule the world again. ”

“ Our absent one to fill his pedestal.
Soldier, why do you shrink from the hiss of the hungry lead?
The bullet that whizzed is past: the approaching ball is dumb.
Stand straight! you cannot shrink from Fate: let it come! ”

“ With the ranged dead men and the dying,
And slowly he treads till they pass away ——
Then a pause, and a start, and a scuffling sound,
And a glance beneath, at a battle-ground,
Where the lines are drawn, and the Chains are found
Their armed guards defying! ”

“ The landlord's rent and let his children starve;
Go find the thief, whose father was a thief,
And ask what Christian leech has cured his sin?
Honesty? Our law of life is Gain—
We must get gold or be accounted fools ”

“ Under every sweet leaf that appears
Lurks a pain for the loss of that kiss.
The Infinite always is silent;
It is only the Finite speaks.
Our words are the idle wave-caps
On the deep that never breaks. ”

“ They bend from his face like the sun—their eyes are blind with shame—
They thrill as a stricken tiger thrills, gathering his limbs from a blow;
They raise their faces, and watch him, sworded and mailed and strong ”

“ Each bore rich tribute, some for joys fulfilled,
And some for blisses lingering on the road.
The pious peasant drives his laden car;
The fisher youth bears treasure from the sea;
A wife brings honey for the sweets that are ”

“ And grimly the soldiers return, reluctantly leaving the conflict.
Still on the rocks two forms of bronze, as if prepared for the stormers,
Then down to the field, and behold, they dash toward the wondering troopers!
The soldiers stare at the charge, but no man laughs at the foemen,
Instead of a sneer a tremor at many a mouth in sorrow.
On they come to their death, and, standing at fifty paces,
They fire in the face of the squadron, and dash with their knives to the death-grip
Fifty rifles give flame, and the breasts of the heroes are shattered ”

“ Then all night long the gambling dens were bright.
The days sped slowly; but the Friday came,
And flocked the miners to the shooting-ground;
They chose six riflemen of deadly aim,
And with low voices sat and lounged around.
"He will not come." "He's not a fool." "The men
Who set the savage free must face the blame." ”

“ ⁠But the gods are dead
Ay, Zeus is dead, and all the gods but Doubt,
And Doubt is brother devil to Despair! ”

“ The sons of God came upon the earth and took wives of the daughters of men."—Legends of the Talmud.
DEAR islands of the Orient,
Where Nature's first of love was spent;
Sweet hill-tops of the summered land
Where gods and men went hand in hand
In golden days of sinless earth! ”

“ With rich men and workmen and judges and preachers,
The shops full of skill and the schools full of teachers.
The people were proud of their opulent town:
The rich men spent millions to bring it renown ”