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CONSOLATION AND COUNSEL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Is all, then, gone, for ever lost and gone?
Last Line: For teaching how to dare to live!


I.
Is all, then, gone, for ever lost and gone?
And have our brilliant hopes been quenched in tears?
Doth darkness veil the suns that lately shone,
The beacons of a thousand years?
Have we we grown the byword of the earth-
Our own reproach-our country's shame-the scorn
And proverb of all time to come-the mirth
Of names and nations, yet unborn?


II.
In sheer despair, and dreariness of soul,
I sometimes yield me to such thoughts of gloom:
I sigh least Inisfail have reached her goal,
And be, indeed , the Isle of Doom!
Her glories wane and darken, star by star;
Her highest hopes turn out but swindling dreams;
Her lamp of freedom, seen through clouds afar,
Shines but by cold phosphoric gleams!

III.
Alas! we have vaunted all too much our past,
Or fondly hearkened those who vaunted us!
We have scarcely deigned to mark how creed and caste
Divide us wide as Pole and Russ.
Drinking, like wine, the flattery of that chief,
Who rarely scourged us but with bulrush rods,
We have waxed o'erwanton, till our own belief,
If sane, would make us demi- gods!


IV.
My countrymen! you have much to learn and see;
You have yet to know yourselves, and what you are,
And what you are not, and cannot hope to be,
Till fate shall break the severing bar,
That insulates you now from Europe's mind,
And leaves you what you have been too truly named,
Une nation d'enfants--but you are still not blind-
Why let your views of life be shamed?


V.
Eye not arch, pillar, hall alone; but glance
At MANKIND's mighty temple, roof to base;
The Clootzes, Dantons, Lafayettes of France
Were orators of the human race,
Not Celtic only. Praise be theirs!
Not seldom golden. They had words for even the foes
They drew their steel on.
Is't not somewhat sad
The niggard show we make of those?


VI.
Yet, courage! Still bear up! Who beareth up,
At last bears down all obstacles, be sure!
What, though you have deeply quaffed affliction's cup,
It may have left your hearts more pure.
Invoke the help that comes from heaven above;
Make Him who sits on heaven's high throne your friend.
And doubt it not, as his best name is love,
Your groans and woes ere long shall end!


VII. Curst be revenge! Oh! teach-and learn- to think.
Be all your aims and objects just and high.
GOD gave you hearts that must not shrink or sink:
He gave you souls that cannot die.
Knowledge is power, not powder. That man strikes
A blow for Ireland worth a hundred guns
Who trains one reasoner. Smash your heads of pikes,
And form the heads of men, my sons.


VIII.
And with their heads their hearts-for, if you shut
The gates on feeling, what's your man? A horse!
(Or ass, more likely) . Mind sans soul is but
A Plato's vizard on a corse!
Form soul and mind alike, and then your man
Walks forth like Howard or Haughton, and can give
The best example of the noblest plan,
For teaching how to dare to live!






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