For all that's bright indeed must fade and perish,
And all that's sweet when sweetest not endure,
Before the world shall cease to love and cherish
The wit and song, the name and fame of Moore.

IRELAND
(1847)

HEY are dying! they are dying! where the

THE golden corn is growing;

They are dying! they are dying! where the crowded herds are lowing:

They are gasping for existence where the streams of life are flowing,

And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing!

God of justice! God of power!

Do we dream? can it be,

In this land, at this hour,

:

With the blossom of the tree,

In the gladsome month of May,
When the young lambs play,
When Nature looks around

On her waking children now,
The seed within the ground,
The bud upon the bough?
Is it right, is it fair,
That we perish of despair
In this land, on this soil
Where our destiny is set,
Which we cultured with our toil,

And watered with our sweat?

We have ploughed, we have sown
But the crop was not our own;
We have reaped, but harpy hands
Swept the harvest from our lands;
We were perishing for food,
When lo! in pitying mood
Our kindly rulers gave
The fat fluid of the slave,

While our corn filled the manger
Of the war-house of the stranger!
God of mercy! must this last?
Is this land preordained,
For the present and the past
And the future, to be chained,-
To be ravaged, to be drained,
To be robbed, to be spoiled,
To be hushed, to be whipt,
Its soaring pinions clipt,
And its every effort foiled?

Do our numbers multiply

But to perish and to die?

Is this all our destiny below,-
That our bodies, as they rot,
May fertilize the spot

Where the harvest of the stranger grow?
If this be, indeed, our fate,

Far, far better now, though late,

That we seek some other land and try some other zone;

The coldest, bleakest shore
Will surely yield us more

Than the storehouse of the stranger that we

dare not call our own.

Kindly brothers of the West

Who from Liberty's full breast

Have fed us, who are orphans beneath a stepdame's frown,

Behold our happy state

And weep your wretched fate

That you share not in the splendors of an empire and our crown!

Kindly brothers of the East,-
Thou great tiaraed priest,

Thou sanctified Rienzi of Rome and of the earth,—
O thou who bear'st control

Over golden Istambol

Who felt for our misfortunes and helped us in our dearth,

Turn here your wondering eyes,
Call your wisest of the wise,

Your muftis and your ministers, your men of deepest

lore ;

Let the sagest of your sages

Ope our island's mystic pages,

And explain unto your highness the wonders of our shore.

A fruitful, teeming soil,

Where the patient peasants toil

Beneath the summer's sun and the watery winter sky; Where they tend the golden grain

Till it bends up on the plain,

it for the stranger, and turn aside to die;

Where they watch their flocks increase,
And store the snowy fleece

Till they send it to their masters to be woven o'er the

waves;

Where, having sent their meat,

For the foreigner to eat,

Their mission is fulfilled, and they creep into their

graves.

'Tis for this they are dying where the golden corn is growing,

'Tis for this they are dying where the crowded herds are lowing,

'Tis for this they are dying where the streams of life are flowing,

And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing!

WAITING FOR THE MAY

A1

H! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May,-

Waiting for the pleasant rambles,
Where the fragrant hawthorn brambles,
With the woodbine alternating,
Scent the dewy way.

Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May,-

Longing to escape from study

To the fair young face and ruddy,

And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May,-.
Sighing for their sure returning,
When the summer beams are burning,
Hopes and flowers that dead or dying
All the winter lay..

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,
Throbbing for the May,-
Throbbing for the seaside billows,
Or the water-wooing willows,

Where in laughter and in sobbing
Glide the streams away.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,
Throbbing for the May.

Waiting, sad, dejected, weary,
Waiting for the May.

Spring goes by with wasted warnings,-
Moonlit evenings, sun-bright mornings,—
Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
Life still ebbs away.
Man is ever weary, weary,
Waiting for the May.