Poems (Ford)/A Voice from Exile
A VOICE FROM EXILE.
The god of day, whose blazing eye The earth with glory fills,Has rolled his golden chariot down Behind the western hills;Like hope's bright ray has passed away The holy vesper light;Alone and in a stranger land, My heart is sad to-night.
The broken links of mem'ry now Are bound into a chainWhose golden windings draw my heart Across the Western main,Back to my own blue native hills, By ocean's breezes fanned—Back to my childhood's home and thee, My worshipped native land.
The spectres of the dead years rise, And, in their misty track,From ocean waves and scattered graves My loved ones, too, come back;Our homestead's ancient walls once more Resound with song and mirth—But strangers gather now at eve Round our once happy hearth.
Though dwelling in a distant land— The fair land of the free—Each breeze that sweeps thy mountains bears A dirge-like wail to me;How can thy children's hearts be glad On Freedom's smiling plains,While thou art groaning, Motherland, Beneath thy load of chains?
The bitter wrongs that bow thy head And tinge thy cheek with shame, Are graven on thy children's hearts In lines of quenchless flame.On other nations' battle-fields Thy life-blood gushes free:Is there no resurrection, then, From living death for thee?
Oh, hapless mother of a race Of helots, born in chainsThat rankle in the heart, and freeze Life's current in the veins,Up!—cast the shackles from thy limbs— In power majestic rise,Unfettered as proud Freedom's bird, Whose dark wing cleaves the skies!
Thy voice is heard, but heeded not; Why stoop thy rights to crave?Does Liberty her smiles bestow On weak or coward slave?The voices of thy martyred dead Rise from the blood-stained sod;They bid thee bow the knee no more Save to the throne of God.
Now Tyranny, on crumbling throne, In abject terror quakes,And Revolution's mighty hand The earth's foundation shakes; No nation tamely bows the neck Or bends the conquered knee—Why shouldst thou crawl? Thy fitting place Is 'mongst the brave and free!
The clarion voice of Liberty Rings over land and main—'Wake, Erin, 'wake! and never sleep In slavery again!Oh, while thou'rt trampled in the dust, Deprived of Freedom's light,A fettered slave, the exile's heart May well be sad to-night.