Was it the sound of his bells, as they swung in the purified air,
That drove from the bosom of Paolo the dark-wing`ed demons of care? 
Was it their magical tone that for many a shadowless day
(So faith once believed) swept the clouds and the black-boding tempests
  away? 
Ah! never may Fate with their music a harsh-grating dissonance blend! 
Sure an evening so calm and so bright will glide peacefully on to the
  end. 
Sure the course of his life, to its close, like his own native river
  must be,
Flowing on through the valley of flowers to its home in the bright
  summer sea!

PART III.—­VICISSITUDE AND REST.

O Erin! thou broad-spreading valley—­thou well-watered land of fresh
  streams,
When I gaze on thy hills greenly sloping, where the light of such
  loveliness beams,
When I rest by the rim of thy fountains, or stray where thy streams
  disembogue,
Then I think that the fairies have brought me to dwell in the bright
  Tir-na-n-oge.[96]
But when on the face of thy children I look, and behold the big tears
Still stream down their grief-eaten channels, which widen and deepen
  with years,
I fear that some dark blight for ever will fall on thy harvests of
  peace,
And that, like thy lakes and thy rivers, thy sorrows must ever
  increase.[97]

O land! which the heavens made for joy, but where wretchedness buildeth
  its throne—­
O prodigal spendthrift of sorrow! and hast thou not heirs of thine own? 
Thus to lavish thy sons’ only portion, and bring one sad claimant the
  more,
From the sweet sunny lands of the south, to thy crowded and sorrowful
  shore? 
For this proud bark that cleaveth thy waters, she is not a corrach of
  thine,
And the broad purple sails that spread o’er her seem dyed in the juice
  of the vine. 
Not thine is that flag, backward floating, nor the olive-cheek’d seamen
  who guide,
Nor that heart-broken old man who gazes so listlessly over the tide.

Accurs’d be the monster, who selfishly draweth his sword from its
  sheath;
Let his garland be twined by the furies, and the upas tree furnish the
  wreath;
Let the blood he has shed steam around him, through the length of
  eternity’s years,
And the anguish-wrung screams of his victims for ever resound in his
  ears. 
For all that makes life worth possessing must yield to his self-seeking
  lust: 
He trampleth on home and on love, as his war-horses trample the dust;
He loosens the red streams of ruin, which wildly, though partially,
  stray—­
They but chafe round the rock-bastion’d castle, while they sweep the
  frail cottage away.