-08_Lines on Ireland.htm

After six hundred years did Fate intend
Her perfect perseverance thus should end?
So many years she strove, so many years,

Enduring toil, enduring bitter tears,
She waged religious war, with sword and song

Insurgent against Fate and numbers, strong
To inflict as to sustain; her weak estate
Could not conceal the goddess in her gait;

Goddess her mood. Therefore that light was she

In whom races of weaker destiny
Their beauteous image of rebellion saw;

Treason could not unnerve, violence o’erawe—

A mirror to enslavèd nations, never
O’ercome, though in the field defeated ever.
O mutability of human merit!
How changed, how fallen from her ancient spirit!

She that was Ireland, Ireland now no more,
In beggar’s weeds behold at England’s door

Neglected sues or at the best returned
With hollow promise, happy if not spurned

Perforce, she that had yesterday disdained
Less than her mighty purpose to have gained.

Had few short change of seasons puissance then,

O nurse and mother of heroic men,
Thy genius to outwear, thy strength well-placed

And  old  traditionary courage, waste
Thy vehement nature? Nay, not time, but thou

These ancient praises strov’st to disavow.
For ’tis not foreign force, nor weight of wars,

Nor treason, nor surprise, nor opposite stars,

Not all these have enslaved nor can, whate’er

Vulgar opinion bruit, nor years impair,
Ruin discourage, nor disease abate
A nation. Men are fathers of their fate;
They dig the prison, they the crown command.

Yet thine own self a little understand,
Unhappy country, and be wise at length.

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An outward weakness doing deeds of strength

Amazed the nations, but a power within

Directed, like effective spirit unseen
Behind the mask of trivial forms, a source
And fund of tranquil and collected force.
This was the sense that made thee royal, blessed

With sanction from on high and that impressed

Which could thyself transfigure and infuse

Thine action with such pride as kings do use.
But thou to thine own self disloyal, hast
Renounced the help divine, turning thy past

To idle legends and fierce tales of blood,

Mere violent wrath with no proposèd good.
Therefore effective wisdom, skill to bend
All human things to one predestined end
Renounce thee. Honest purpose, labour true,

These dwell not with the self-appointed crew

Who, having conquered by death's aid, abuse

The public ear, — for seldom men refuse

Credence, when mediocrity multiplied
Equals itself with genius - fools! whose pride

Absurd the gods permit a little space
To please their souls with laughter, then replace

In the loud limbo of futilities.
How fallen art thou being ruled by these!

Ignoble hearts, courageous to effect
Their country’s ruin; such the heavens reject

For their high agencies and leave exempt
Of  force, mere mouths and vessels of contempt.
They of thy famous past and nature real
Uncareful, have denied thy rich ideal
For private gains, the burden would not brook

Of  that sustaining genius, when it took

A form of visible power, since it demanded

All  meaner passions for its sake disbanded.

As once against the loud Euphratic host

The lax Ionians of the Asian coast
Drew out their numbers, but not long enduring
Rigorous hard-hearted toil to the alluring
Cool shadow of the olives green withdrew;

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Freedom’s preparators though well they knew

Labour exact, discipline, pains well nerved
In the severe unpitying sun, yet swerved
From their ordeal; Ireland so deceiving

The world’s great hope, her temples large relieving

Of the too heavy laurel, rather chose
Misery, civil battle, triumphant foes
Than rational order and divine control.

Therefore her brighter fate and nobler soul

Glasnevin with that hardly-honoured bier

Received. But the immortal mind austere,
By man rejected, of eternal praise
Has won its meed and sits with heavenly bays,

Not variable breath of favour, crowned
On high. And grieves it not, spirit renowned,

Mortal ingratitude though now forgiven,
Grieves it not, even on the hills of heaven,

After so many mighty toils, defeats

So many, cold repulse and vernal heats
Of hope, iron endurance throned apart
In lonely strength within thy godlike heart,

Obloquy faced, health lost, the goal nigh won,

To see at last thy strenuous work undone?
So falls it ever when a race condemned
To strict and lasting bondage, have contemned

Their great deliverer, self and ease preferring
To labour’s crown, by their own vileness erring.

Thus the uncounselled Israelites of old,
Binding their mightiest, for their own ease sold,  

Who else had won them glorious liberty
To his Philistian foes, as thine did thee.
Thou likewise, had thy puissant soul endured
Within its ruined house to stay immured,
With parallel disaster and o’erthrow
Hadst daunted and their conjured strength laid low.

But time was adverse. Thus too Heracles
In exile closed by the Olynthian seas,
Not seeing Thebes nor Dirce any more,
His friendless eyelids on an alien shore.
Yet not unbidden of heaven the men renowned

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Have laboured, though no fruit apparent crowned

Nor praise contemporary touched with leaf

Of civic favour, who for joy or grief
To throned injustice never bowed the head.
They triumph from the houses of the dead.
Thou too, high spirit, mighty genius, glass
Of patriots, into others’ deeds shalt pass
With force and tranquil fortitude thy dower,
An inspiration and a fount of power.
Nor to thy country only nor thy day
Art thou a name and a possession, stay
Of loftiest natures, but where’er and when
In time’s full ripeness and the date of men
Alien oppression maddened has the wise,—
For ever thus preparing Nemesis
In ruling nations unjust power has borne
Insolence, injustice, madness, outrage, scorn,

Its natural children, then, by high disdain

And brave example pushed to meet their pain,

The pupils of thy greatness shall appear,

Souls regal to the mould divine most near,

And reign, or rise on throne-intending wings,

Making thee father to a line of kings.

Charles Stewart Parnell

1891

O pale and guiding light, now star unsphered,

Deliver lately hailed, since by our lords

Most feared, most hated, hated because feared,

Who smot'st them with an edge surpassing swords!

Thou too wert then a child of tragic earth,

Since vainly filled thy luminous doom of birth.

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