To Ireland

Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle

Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile,

Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep

The billowy surface of thy circling deep!

Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave

Peace, wealth and beauty, to its friendly wave, its blossoms fade,

And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade;

Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit,

Whose chillness struck a canker to its root.

I could stand

Upon thy shores, O Erin, and could count

The billows that, in their unceasing swell,

Dash on thy beach, and every wave might seem

An instrument in Time the giant's grasp,

To burst the barriers of Eternity.

Proceed, thou giant, conquering and to conquer;

March on thy lonely way! The nations fall

Beneath thy noiseless footstep; pyramids

That for millenniums have defied the blast,

And laughed at lightnings, thou dost crush to nought.

Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp,

Is but the fungus of a winter day

That thy light footstep presses into dust.

Thou art a conqueror, Time; all things give way

Before thee but the 'fixed and virtuous will';

The sacred sympathy of soul which was

When thou wert not, which shall be when thou perishest.

...