Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherished Isle which he loved like his—bride.
2.
True, the great of her bright and brief Era are gone,
The rain-bow-like Epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betrayed not, or crushed not, or wept not her cause.
3.
True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The Castle still stands, and the Senate's no more,
And the Famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.
4.
To her desolate shore—where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.
5.
But he comes! the Messiah of Royalty comes!
Like a goodly Leviathan rolled from the waves;
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes,[1]
With a legion of cooks,[2] and an army of slaves!
- ↑ —— such a hero becomes.—[MS. M.]
- ↑ ["Seven covered waggons arrived at the Castle (August 3). They were laden with plate.... Upwards of forty men cooks will be employed."—Morning Chronicle, August 8.]
but afterwards, in "another edition," published in 1824, reinstated them. Murray did not publish the Irish Avatar in any collected edition till 1831. According to Crabb Robinson (Diary, 1869, ii. 437), Goethe said that "Byron's verses on George IV. (Query? The Irish Avatar) were the sublime of hatred."]
