Work While It Is Called To-Day

“No man hath hired us”—strong hands drooping,
Listless, falling in idleness down;
Men in the silent market‐place grouping
Round Christ’s cross of silent stone.

“No man hath hired us”—pale hands twining,
Stalwart forms bowed down to sue.
“The red dawn is passed, the noon is shining,
But no man hath given us work to do.”
Then a voice pealed down from the heights of Heaven:
Men, it said, of the Irish soil!
I gave you a land as a Garden of Eden,
Where you and your sons should till and toil;
I set your throne by the glorious waters,
Where ocean flung round you her mighty bands,
That your sails, like those of your Tyrian fathers,
Might sweep the shores of a hundred lands.
Power I gave to the hands of your leaders,
Wisdom I gave to the lips of the wise,
And your children grew as the stately cedars,
That shadowed the rivers of Paradise.
What have ye done with my land of beauty
Has the spoiler bereft her of robe and crown?
Have my people failed in a people’s duty?
Has the wild boar trampled my vineyard down?
True, they answered, faint in replying
Our vines are rent by the wild boar’s tusks;
The corn on our golden slopes is lying,
But our children feed on the remnant husks.
Our strong men lavish their blood for others;
Our prophets and wise men are heard no more;
Our young men give a last kiss to their mothers,
Then sail away for a foreign shore.
From wooded valleys and mountain gorges,
Emerald meadow and purple glen,
Across the foam of the wild sea surges,
They flee away like exiled men.
Yet, the chant we hear of the new Evangels,
Rising like incense from earth’s green sod;

We—we alone, before worshipping Angels,
Idly stand in the Garden of God.
Then the Lord came down from the heights of Heaven,
Came down that garden fair to view,
Where the weary men waited from morn till even,
For some one to give them work to do.
Ye have sinned, He said, and the angel lustre
Darkened slowly as summer clouds may;
Weeds are growing where fruit should cluster,
Yet, ye stand idle all the day.
Have ye trod in the furrows, and worked as truly
As men who knew they should reap as they sow?
Have ye flung in the seed and watched it duly,
Day and night, lest the tares should grow?
Have ye tended the vine my hand hath planted,
Pruned and guided its tendrils fair;
Ready with life‐blood, if it were wanted,
To strengthen the fruit its branches bear?
Have ye striven in earnest, working solely
To guard my flock in their native fold?
Are your hands as pure, and your hearts as holy,
As the saints who walk in the City of Gold?
Go! work in my vineyard, let none deceive ye,
Each for himself his work must do;
And whatever is right shall my Angels give ye,
The work and the workman shall have their due.
Who knoweth the times of the new dispensations?
Go on in faith, and the light will come;
The last may yet be the first amongst nations,
Wait till the end for the final doom.
The last may be first! Shall our Country’s glory
Ever flash light on the path we have trod?
Who knows?—who knows?—for our future story
Lies hid in the great sealed Book of God.

The Faithless Shepherds

Dead! Dead! Ye are dead while ye live;
Ye've a name that ye live—but are dead.
Neither counsel nor love did ye give,
And your lips never uttered a word
While swift ruin downward sped,
And the plague raged on undisturbed.
Not a throb of true life in your veins,
Not a pulse in your passionless heart,
Not a thought in the dull, cold brains,
Of how ye should bear your part,
When summoned the strife to brave,
For our Country, with Death and the Grave.
Ye have gold for the follies of fashion,
And gold for its tinsel glare,
But none for the wild, sobbing passion
Wrung from the lips of despair.
False Shepherds and Guides are ye,
For the heart in each bosom is cold
As the ice on a frozen sea;
And your trappings of velvet and gold

Lie heavy and close as a pall,
When the steps of the bearers fall
On a grave, with measured tread;
For ye seem to live—but are dead.
Ye are dead! —ye are dead! stone by stone
The temple is crumbling down;
It will fall with a crash of doom,
For the night deepens dark in its gloom.
But ye look on with vacant stare,
Like men lying still in the tomb.
Stand forth! face the sun, if ye dare,
With your cold eyes unwet by a tear,
For your Country laid low on your bier,
And say—have ye stretched forth a hand
To raise up our desolate Land?
She dies—but ye flourish and grow
In the midst of the deadly maze:
Like the palm springing heavenward? —No,
But like weeds in the churchyard fed
By the vapours of death below,
Breathing round you a poisonous haze.
Go! —go! True life is not so
For decay lies beneath your tread,
And the staff in your hand is a reed
Too weak for your Country's need;
For you seem to live—but are dead.
Ye are dead! —ye are dead! Fling the clay
On the noble names—noble no more;
Leave the sword in the sheath to rust;
Let the banners be trailed in the dust;
And the memory perish away
Of the dead, who are dead evermore;
Blot them out from the book writ in gold.
Noble neither in deed nor in soul,
Are ye worthy to stand in the roll
Of the glorified heroes of old?

Has Ireland need of such sons?
Floating down with a silken sail,
On the crimson tide of her life, that runs
With a mournful, ceaseless wail,
Like rain pouring down from the eaves.
And ye laugh when the strangers deride
Her trials, the saddest and sorest,
And plunge the sword deep in her side;
And no kindly heart sighs or grieves
For her branches, all bare as a forest,
When the autumn wind scatters the leaves.
Laugh low with your perfumed breath,
For the air is heavy with death.
But ye hear not the gliding feet
Of the Future, that stands at your door;
For the roses lie heavy and sweet,
And too thick on your marble floor,
And the dead soul is dead to his call.
And your eyes are heavy with wine;
Ye see not the letters of flame,
Traced by a hand divine
The writing of God on the wall
"Ye are weighed, and found wanting"—Oh, shame!
Your life is a gilded lie;
And the wide world that doom has read,
With a shudder and chill of dread;
For the judgment of God is nigh,
And the universe echoes the cry
You've a name that ye live—but are Dead.

Who Will Show Us Any Good?

Beautiful Ireland! Who will preach to thee?
Souls are waiting for lips to vow;
And outstretched hands, that fain would reach to thee,
Yearn to help, if they knew but how,
To lift the thorn‐wreath off thy brow.

Passionate dreamers have fought and died for thee,
Poets poured forth their lava song;
But dreamer and poet have failed as a guide for thee
Still are unriven the chains of wrong.

Suffering Ireland! Martyr‐Nation!
Blind with tears thick as mountain mist;
Can none amidst all the new generation
Change them to glory, as hills sun‐kissed
Flash lights of opal and amethyst?

Welcome a Hero! A man to lead for us,
Sifting true men from chaff and weeds;
Daring and doing as those who, indeed, for us
Proved their zeal by their life and deeds.

Desolate Ireland! Saddest of mothers,
Waits and weeps in her island home;
But the Western Land—has she help for others
Who feeds her eagles on blood of brothers?
Not with cannon or roll of drum,
Or foreign flag can our triumph come.

Why seek aid from the arm of a stranger?
Trust thy sons, O Mother! for good;
Braver can none be in hours of danger,
Proudly claiming thy rights withstood.
VII.
Then, Ireland! wake from thy vain despairing!
Grand the uses of life may be;
Heights can be reached by heroic daring,
Crowns are won by the brave and free,
And Nations create their own destiny.

But, Time and the hour fleet fast unbidden,
A turbid stream over golden sands;
And too often the gold is scattered or hidden,
While we stand by with listless hands.

Then seize the least grain as it glistens and passes,
Swift and sure is that river’s flight:
The glory of morning the bright wave glasses,
But the gold and glory soon fade from sight,
And noon‐tide splendours will change to night.

Ah! life is too brief for languor or quarrel,
Second by second the dead dropp down;
And souls, all eager to strive for the laurel,
Faint and fall ere they win the crown.

Ireland rests mid the rush of progression,
As a frozen ship in a frozen sea;
And the changeless stillness of life’s stagnation,
Is worse than the wildest waves could be,
Rending the rocks eternally.

Then, trumpet‐tongued, to a people sleeping,
Who will speak with magic command,
Bidding them rise—these dead men, keeping
Watch by the dead in a silent land?

Grandly, solemnly, earnestly preaching,
Man’s great gospel of Truth and light;
With lips like saints’ in their love beseeching,
Hands as strong as a prophet’s to smite
The foes to Humanity’s sacred right.
.
Earth is thrilling with new aspirations,
Rending the fetters that bar and ban;
But we alone of the Christian nations
Fall to the rear in the march of Man.

Alas! can I help? but a nameless singer
Weak the words of a woman to save;
We wait the advent of some light‐bringer,
Strong to roll the stone from the grave,
And summon to life the death‐bound slave.

Down from heights of the Infinite drifting,
Raising the prisoned soul from gloom;
Like the white angels of God uplifting
Seal and stone from the Saviour’s tomb.
XVII.
Yet, hear me now, for a Nation pleading;
Strike! but with swords yet keener than steel;
Flash on the path the new Age is treading,
As sparks from grooves of the iron wheel,
In star‐flames its onward march reveal.

Work by the shore where our broad ocean rages,
Bridging it over by wraiths of steam;
Linking two worlds by a chain that sages
Forged in the heat of a science dream.

For Nature has stamped us with brand immortal,
Highway of nations our Land must be:
We hold the keys of the Old‐world portal,
We guard the pass of the Western Sea
Ireland, sole in her majesty!

Work! there is work for the thinker and doer,
And glory for all when the goal is won;
So we are true to our Country, or truer
Than Planets are to the central Sun.

Call from the hills our own Irish Eagle,
Spread its plumes on the “The Green” of old;
With a sunrise blaze, as a mantle regal,
Turning the dust‐brown wings to gold
Symbol and flag be it then unrolled!

Face Heaven’s light with as proud a daring,
Tread the heights with a step as grand,
Breast the wild storm with brave hearts unfearing
As kings might do for their rightful land.

Irish daring by land and by river,
Irish wealth from mountain and mine,
Irish courage so strong to deliver,
Irish love as strong to combine
Separate chords in one strain divine;

These are the forces of conquering power,
Chains to sever, if slaves we be;
Then strike in your might, O Men of the hour!
And Ireland springs on the path of the free!