Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis

168
A free and a Living Land!
106. Thomas Davis.
THE DEAD TRIBUNE.
The awful shadow of a great man's death
Falls on this land, so sad and dark before--
Dark with the famine and the fever breath,
And mad dissensions knawing at its core.
Oh! let us hush foul discord's maniac roar,
And make a mournful truce, however brief,
Like hostile armies when the day is o'er!
And thus devote the night-time of our grief
To tears and prayers for him, the great departed chief.
In "Genoa the Superb" O'Connell dies--
That city of Columbus by the sea,
Beneath the canopy of azure skies,
As high and cloudless as his fame must be.
Is it mere chance or higher destiny
That brings these names together? One, the bold
Wanderer in ways that none had trod but he--
The other, too, exploring paths untold;
One a new world would seek, and one would save the old!
With childlike incredulity we cry,
It cannot be that great career is run,
It cannot be but in the eastern sky
Again will blaze that mighty world-watch'd sun!
Ah! fond deceit, the east is dark and dun,
Death's black, impervious cloud is on the skies;
Toll the deep bell, and fire the evening gun,
Let honest sorrow moisten manly eyes:
A glorious sun has set that never more shall rise!
Brothers, who struggle yet in Freedom's van,
Where'er your forces o'er the world are spread,