A Living Land, such as Nature plann’d,
  When she hollowed our harbours deep,
When she bade the grain wave o’er the plain,
  And the oak wave over the steep: 
When she bade the tide roll deep and wide,
  From its source to the ocean strand,
Oh! it was not to slaves she gave these waves,
  But to sons of a Living Land! 
Sons who have eyes and hearts to prize
  The worth of a Living Land!

Oh! when shall we lose the hostile hues,
  That have kept us so long apart? 
Or cease from the strife, that is crushing the life
  From out of our mother’s heart? 
Could we lay aside our doubts and our pride,
  And join in a common band,
One hour would see our country free,
  A young and a Living Land! 
With a nation’s heart and a nation’s part,
  A free and a Living Land!

106.  Thomas Davis.

THE DEAD TRIBUNE.

  The awful shadow of a great man’s death
    Falls on this land, so sad and dark before—­
  Dark with the famine and the fever breath,
    And mad dissensions knawing at its core. 
  Oh! let us hush foul discord’s maniac roar,
    And make a mournful truce, however brief,
  Like hostile armies when the day is o’er! 
    And thus devote the night-time of our grief
To tears and prayers for him, the great departed chief.

  In “Genoa the Superb” O’Connell dies—­
    That city of Columbus by the sea,
  Beneath the canopy of azure skies,
    As high and cloudless as his fame must be. 
  Is it mere chance or higher destiny
    That brings these names together?  One, the bold
  Wanderer in ways that none had trod but he—­
    The other, too, exploring paths untold;
One a new world would seek, and one would save the old!

  With childlike incredulity we cry,
    It cannot be that great career is run,
  It cannot be but in the eastern sky
    Again will blaze that mighty world-watch’d sun! 
  Ah! fond deceit, the east is dark and dun,
    Death’s black, impervious cloud is on the skies;
  Toll the deep bell, and fire the evening gun,
    Let honest sorrow moisten manly eyes: 
A glorious sun has set that never more shall rise!

  Brothers, who struggle yet in Freedom’s van,
    Where’er your forces o’er the world are spread,
  The last great champion of the rights of man—­
    The last great Tribune of the world is dead! 
  Join in our grief, and let our tears be shed
    Without reserve or coldness on his bier;
  Look on his life as on a map outspread—­
    His fight for freedom—­freedom far and near—­
And if a speck should rise, oh! hide it with a tear!

  To speak his praises little need have we
    To tell the wonders wrought within these waves
  Enough, so well he taught us to be free,
    That even to him we could not kneel as slaves. 
  Oh! let our tears be fast-destroying graves,
    Where doubt and difference may for ever lie,
  Buried and hid as in sepulchral caves;
    And let love’s fond and reverential eye
Alone behold the star new risen in the sky!