A Book of Irish Verse Part 6

Though he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods, Though he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea, Though he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he, This sharp, sore sleet, these howling floods.

O mournful is my soul this night for Hugh Maguire!

Darkly, as in a dream he strays! Before him and behind Triumphs the tyrannous anger of the wounding wind, The wounding wind, that burns as fire!

It is my bitter grief--it cuts me to the heart-- That in the country of Clan Darry this should be his fate!

O, woe is me, where is he? Wandering, houseless, desolate, Alone, without or guide or chart!

Medreams I see just now his face, the strawberry-bright, Uplifted to the blackened heavens, while the tempestuous winds Blow fiercely over and round him, and the smiting sleet-shower blinds The hero of Galang to-night!

Large, large affliction unto me and mine it is, That one of his majestic bearing, his fair, stately form, Should thus be tortured and o'erborne--that this unsparing storm Should wreak its wrath on head like his!

That his great hand, so oft the avenger of the oppressed, Should this chill churlish night, perchance, be paralyzed by frost-- While through some icicle-hung thicket--as one lorn and lost-- He walks and wanders without rest.

The tempest-driven torrent deluges the mead, It overflows the low banks of the rivulets and ponds-- The lawns and pasture-grounds lie locked in icy bonds So that the cattle cannot feed.

The pale bright margins of the streams are seen by none, Rushes and sweeps along the untamable flood on every side-- It penetrates and fills the cottagers' dwellings far and wide-- Water and land are blent in one.

Through some dark wood, 'mid bones of monsters, Hugh now strays, As he confronts the storm with anguished heart, but manly brow-- O, what a sword-wound to that tender heart of his were now A backward glance of peaceful days.

But other thoughts are his--thoughts that can still inspire With joy and onward-bounding hope the bosom of Mac-Nee-- Thoughts of his warriors charging like bright billows the sea, Borne on the wind's wings, flas.h.i.+ng fire!

And though frost glaze to-night the clear dew of his eyes, And white ice-gauntlets glove his n.o.ble fine fair fingers o'er, A warm dress is to him that lightning garb he ever wore, The lightning of the soul, not skies.

AVRAN

Hugh marched forth to the fight--I grieved to see him so depart; And lo! to-night he wanders frozen, rain-drenched, sad, betrayed-- _But the memory of the limewhite mansions his right hand hath laid In ashes, warms the hero's heart_!

_James Clarence Mangan_

THE NAMELESS ONE

Roll forth, my song, like the rus.h.i.+ng river, That sweeps along to the mighty sea; G.o.d will inspire me while I deliver My soul to thee!

Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening Amid the last homes of youth and eld, That there was once one whose blood ran lightning No eye beheld.

Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour, How shone for _him_, through its griefs and gloom, No star of all heaven sends to light our Path to the tomb.

Roll on, my song, and to after ages Tell how, disdaining all earth can give, He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages, The way to live.

And tell how trampled, derided, hated, And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong, He fled for shelter to G.o.d, who mated His soul with song--

With song which alway, sublime or vapid, Flowed like a rill in the morning-beam, Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid-- A mountain stream.

Tell how this Nameless, condemned for years long To herd with demons from h.e.l.l beneath, Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long For even death.

Go on to tell how, with genius wasted, Betrayed in friends.h.i.+p, befooled in love, With spirit s.h.i.+pwrecked, and young hopes blasted, He still, still strove.

Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others, And some whose hands should have wrought for _him_; (If children live not for sires and mothers,) His mind grew dim.

And he fell far through that pit abysmal The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns; And p.a.w.ned his soul for the devil's dismal Stock of returns.

But yet redeemed it in days of darkness, And shapes and signs of the final wrath, When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness, Stood on his path.

And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow, And want, and sickness, and houseless nights, He bides in calmness the silent morrow, That no ray lights.

And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and h.o.a.ry At thirty-nine, from despair and woe, He lives enduring what future story Will never know.

Him grant a grave to, ye pitying n.o.ble, Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell!

He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble, Here and in h.e.l.l!

_James Clarence Mangan_

SIBERIA

In Siberia's wastes The Ice-wind's breath Woundeth like the toothed steel.

Lost Siberia doth reveal Only blight and death.

Blight and death alone.

No Summer s.h.i.+nes.

Night is interblent with Day.

In Siberia's wastes alway The blood blackens, the heart pines.

In Siberia's wastes No tears are shed, For they freeze within the brain.

Nought is felt but dullest pain, Pain acute, yet dead;

Pain as in a dream, When years go by Funeral-paced, yet fugitive, When man lives, and doth not live, Doth not live--nor die.

In Siberia's wastes Are sands and rocks.

Nothing blooms of green or soft, But the snowpeaks rise aloft And the gaunt ice-blocks.

And the exile there Is one with those; They are part, and he is part, For the sands are in his heart, And the killing snows.

Therefore, in those wastes None curse the Czar.

Each man's tongue is cloven by The North Blast, who heweth nigh With sharp scymitar.

And such doom he drees, Till hunger gnawn, And cold-slain, he at length sinks there, Yet scarce more a corpse than ere His last breath was drawn.

_James Clarence Mangan_