We could triumph while mourning the brave,
Dead for all that was holy and just,
And write, through our tears, on the grave,
As we flung down the dust to dust -
"They died for their country, but led
Her up from the sleep of the dead."
"A million a decade!
A nation dying of inner decay-
A churchyard silence where life has been
The base of the pyramid crumbling away :
A drift of men gone over the sea,
A drift of the dead where men should be.
Was it for this ye plighted your word,
Crowned and crownless rulers of men?
Have ye kept faith with your crucified Lord,
And fed his sheep till he comes again?
Or fled like hireling shepherds away,
Leaving the fold the gaunt wolf's prey?
Have ye given of your purple to cover,
Have ye given of your gold to cheer,
Have ye given of your love, as a lover
Might cherish the bride he held dear,
Broken the sacrament-bread to feed
Souls and bodies in uttermost need?
Ye stand at the judgment-bar to-day-
The angels are counting the dead-roll, too;
Have ye
trod in the pure and perfect way,
And ruled for God as the crowned should do?
Count our dead-before angels and men,
Ye're judged and doomed by the statist's pen.
Y country, wounded to the heart,
Could I but flash along thy soul
Electric power to rive apart
The thunder-clouds that round thee roll,
And, by my burning words, uplift
Thy life from out Death's icy drift,
Till the full splendors of our age
Shone round thee for thy heritage-
As Miriam's, by the Red Sea strand
Clashing proud cymbals, so my hand
Would strike thy harp,
Loved Ireland!
She flung her triumphs to the stars
In glorious chants for freedom won,
While over Pharaoh's gilded cars
The fierce, death-bearing waves rolled on;
I can but look in God's great face,
And pray him for our fated race,
To come in Sinai thunders down,
And, with his mystic radiance, crown
Some prophet-leader, with command
To break the strength of Egypt's band,
And set thee free,
New energies, from higher source,
Must make the strong life-currents flow,
As Alpine glaciers in their course
Stir the deep torrents 'neath the snow.
The woman's voice dies in the strife
Of Liberty's awakening life;
We wait the hero heart to lead,
The hero, who can guide at need,
And strike with bolder, stronger hand,
Though towering hosts his path withstand,
Thy golden harp,
For I can breathe no trumpet call,
To make the slumbering soul arise;
I only lift the funeral-pall,
That so God's light might touch thine eyes,
And ring the silver prayer-bell clear,
To rouse thee from thy trance of fear;
Yet, if thy mighty heart has stirred,
Even with one pulse-throb at my word,
Then not in vain my woman's hand
Has struck the gold harp while I stand,
Waiting thy rise,
OSCAR WILDE
(1856-1900)
AMOR INTELLECTUALIS
FT have we trod the vales of Castaly
And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown From antique reeds to common folk unknown: And often launched our bark upon that sea
Which the nine Muses hold in empery,
And plowed free furrows through the wave and foam
Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
Till we had freighted well our argosy.
Of which despoiled treasures these remain,
Sordello's passion, and the honeyed line
Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
Driving his pampered jades, and more than these, The sevenfold vision of the Florentine,
And grave-browed Milton's solemn harmonies.
S it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden gray, And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?
Is it thy will-Love that I love so well
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?
Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart, And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.
Perchance it may be better so—at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.
Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
While all the forest sang of liberty.
Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,
To where the steep untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.
Or how the little flower he trod upon,
The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,
Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun,
Content if once its leaves were aureoled.
But surely it is something to have been
The best beloved for a little while,
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
His purple wings flit once across thy smile.
Ay! though the gorged asp of passion feed
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,
Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!
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