Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis

145
Still some scenes are yet enchanted by the charms that Nature granted,
Still are peopled, still are haunted, by a graceful spirit band.
Peace and beauty have their dwelling where the infant streams are
welling,
Where the mournful waves are knelling on Glengariff's coral strand;
Or where, on Killarney's mountains, Grace and Terror smiling stand,
Like sisters, hand in hand!
Still we have a new romance in fire-ships through the tamed sea
glancing,
And the snorting and the prancing of the mighty engine steed;
Still, Astolpho-like, we wander through the boundless azure yonder,
Realizing what seemed fonder than the magic tales we read:
Tales of wild Arabian wonder, where the fancy all is freed--
Wilder far indeed!
Now that Earth once more hath woken, and the trance of Time is broken,
And the sweet word--Hope--is spoken, soft and sure, though none know
how,
Could we, could we only see all these, the glories of the Real,
Blended with the lost Ideal, happy were the old world now--
Woman in its fond believing--man with iron arm and brow--
Faith and work its vow!
Yes! the Past shines clear and pleasant, and there's glory in the
Present;
And the Future, like a crescent, lights the deepening sky of Time;
And that sky will yet grow brighter, if the Worker and the Writer--
If the Sceptre and the Mitre join in sacred bonds sublime.
With two glories shining o'er them, up the coming years they'll climb,
Earth's great evening as its prime!
With a sigh for what is fading, but, O Earth! with no upbraiding,
For we feel that time is braiding newer, fresher flowers for thee,
We will speak, despite our grieving, words of loving and believing,
Tales we vowed when we were leaving awful Ceim-an-eich,
Where the sever'd rocks resemble fragments of a frozen sea,
And the wild deer flee!
'Tis the hour when flowers are shrinking, when the weary sun is sinking,