When the sad earth, broken-hearted,
  Hath not even a tear to shed,
And her very soul seems parted
  For her children lying dead,
Send the streams with warmer pulses
  Through that frozen fount of fears,
And the sorrow that convulses,
  Soothe and soften down to tears.

Bear the sunshine and the shadow,
  Bear the rain-drop and the snow,
Bear the night-dew to the meadow,
  And to hope the promised bow,
Bear the moon, a moving mirror
  For her angel face and form,
Bear to guilt the flashing terror
  Of the lightning and the storm.

When thou thus hast done thy duty
  On the earth and o’er the sea,
Bearing many a beam of beauty,
  Ever bettering what must be,
Thus reflecting heaven’s pure splendour
  And concealing ruined clay,
Up to God thy spirit render,
  And dissolving pass away.

And with fond solicitation,
  Speaks another to the streams—­
Leave your airy isolation,
  Quit the cloudy land of dreams,
Break the lonely peak’s attraction,
  Burst the solemn, silent glen,
Seek the living world of action
  And the busy haunts of men.

Turn the mill-wheel with thy fingers,
  Turn the steam-wheel with thy breath,
With thy tide that never lingers
  Save the dying fields from death;
Let the swiftness of thy currents
  Bear to man the freight-fill’d ship,
And the crystal of thy torrents
  Bring refreshment to his lip.

And when thou, O rapid river,
  Thy eternal home dost seek,
When no more the willows quiver
  But to touch thy passing cheek,
When the groves no longer greet thee
  And the shore no longer kiss,
Let infinitude come meet thee
  On the verge of the abyss.

Other voices seek to win us—­
  Low, suggestive, like the rest—­
But the sweetest is within us
  In the stillness of the breast;
Be it ours, with fond desiring,
  The same harvest to produce,
As the cloud in its aspiring
  And the river in its use.

Centenary Odes.

O’CONNELL.  AUGUST 6TH, 1875.

Harp of my native land
That lived anew ’neath Carolan’s master hand;
Harp on whose electric chords,
The minstrel Moore’s melodious words,
Each word a bird that sings,
Borne as if on Ariel’s wings,
      Touched every tender soul
      From listening pole to pole. 
Sweet harp, awake once more: 
What, though a ruder hand disturbs thy rest,
      A theme so high
      Will its own worth supply. 
As finest gold is ever moulded best: 
Or as a cannon on some festive day,
When sea and sky, when winds and waves rejoice,
Out-booms with thunderous voice,
Bids echo speak, and all the hills obey—­

So let the verse in echoing accents ring,
      So proudly sing,
      With intermittent wail,
The nation’s dead, but sceptred King,
The glory of the Gael.