Sympathetic contributors soon flocked in, among them a Professor of Maynooth[1] whose verses, however, were of the peaceful school of O'Connell. After a little, local poets sang the revival of national spirit in the North and the decay of British ascendancy, and correspondents sent to the Vindicator, as to their natural habitat, verses disinterred from commercial and statistical newspapers of the day. Here is a specimen:—
"Thou shalt not die—thou shalt not die—
No—beautiful country!—no!
Though thy valleys are rank with a race of slaves
Who laugh as they look on their fathers' graves,
And hug the red hand of the foe,
Thou shalt not die thou shall not die—
No—beautiful country—no!
Thou shalt not die—thou shalt not die—
No—beautiful country—no!
Whilst the soul and the spirit of Liberty fills
The depth of the valleys—the height of the hills,
And the crags where the strong winds blow—
Thou shalt not die—thou shalt not die—
No—beautiful country—no!
Thou shalt not die—thou shalt not die—
No—beautiful country—no!
Whilst pulses are panting and glowing each eye,
And the front of the freeman looks holy and high,
With his banner and breast to the foe—
Thou never shall die—thou never shall die—
No—beautiful country—no!"
The worm at the root of the whole social system in Ireland, the land laws, was not forgotten in these tirades.
"Degenerate race, not a sod is your own,
Of the soil where your fathers coursed free as the air:
Not a bird dare you mesh, where their falcons have flown—
Not a fish dare you draw from the stream which were theirs,
Of park, grove, or garden, which smile in the morn,
If you lift but a latch, by their mastiffs you're riven:
The food you have grown, they refuse you with scorn;
If you starve by their law, you deserve it by heaven."
I copy these rude experiments because they were the precursors and precedents of the poetry of the Nation, which produced a memorable and permanent change in the spirit of the country.
- ↑ Rev. Dr. Murray, of whom the reader shall hear more later. His ordinary life was that of a spiritual recluse, but there was a reserve of passion and force in his nature easily evoked by injustice.
