Poems (Ford)/Our Mourning Motherland
OUR MOURNING MOTHERLAND.
With heavy heart sad Erin, Beside the rolling main,Like Niobe, sits mourning Above her children slain;She sees them fall around her, As by the moaning blastThe russet leaves of Autumn To earth's cold breast are cast.
She saw the yellow harvest Rise o'er the smiling land—The bursting sheaves were gathered By careful reaper's hand. Not to reward the toilers There golden plenty waves—To them our land can only Give chains and famine graves.
Strong arms that find no labor, Now weak and nerveless fall—Arms that might wield a sabre To break the Nation's thrall;Far better to die striving In Freedom's holy cause,Than perish, unresisting, By cruel, blood-stained laws.
The infant's cheek, once rosy, Is sunken, cold and pale;In vain the stricken mother To hush its piteous wailEssays with song to soothe it— The drear, death-burdened airGives forth but hopeless moanings Of anguish and despair.
The merry laugh of childhood Rings round the hearth no more;The aged tell no stories Of deeds and days of yore;In hopeless desolation All sit while Death's cold hand His sable pall is folding Around that hapless land.
Great Lord of power and glory, How long shall such things be?How long shall tyrants trample The hearts that would be free?In life-blood quench the sunlight That gilds our glorious sky?Rend from defenceless bodies The souls they can not buy?
How long shall we list coldly Our dying brothers' moan?Yes, brothers, though their faces Perhaps we ne'er have known;Our motherland is praying Her children o'er the mainTo aid her in her sorrow— Let not her prayers be vain.
Divide your scanty earnings, Give from your hoarded gold;As Joseph saved his people In Egypt's land of old,Save ye your suffering kindred— Stretch forth a helping handTo shield from utter ruin Our famine-stricken land.
Hope for a glorious dawning Beyond this night of gloom,For Justice dwells in heaven, And yet to earth shall come;Soon Freedom's voice shall silence Our mourning Nation's wail—Though Might awhile be master, Right shall at last prevail.
When strong right hands of freemen In characters sublimeShall write the doom of tyrants Upon the wall of time,'T were needless, haughty Britain, Thy crafty seers to call;The words of light thus written Shall then be read by all.
Base Babylon of nations, How great thy fall shall be;Intolerant in power, How few shall mourn for thee;While o'er thy crumbling ruins The raven flaps its wing,A pæan rescued Erin Above thy grave shall sing.
1862.