Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

The Peal of Another Trumpet (Author: James Clarence Mangan)

p.109

1. Youths of Ireland, patriots, friends!
   Know ye what shall be your course
   When the storm that now impends
   Shall come down in all its force?

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   p.110

   Glance around you! You behold
   How the horizon of the Time
   Hourly wears a duskier hue,
   From all else await we bold
   Bearing, and Resolve sublime—
   Youths of Ireland, what from you?
2. Will you bide irresolute?
   Will you stand with folded arms,
   Purposeless, disheartened, mute,
   As men hopeless of escape,
   Till the wildest, worst alarms
   Of your souls take giant shape?
   Are you dastards? Are you dolts?
   Irishmen! shall you be seen
   With white lips and faltering mien,
   When all on earth, when heaven above,
   Torn by thousand thunderbolts,
   Rocks and reels which way you move?
3. Oh, no! no! forfend it, Heaven!
   Such debasement cannot be!
   Pillaged of your liberty,
   You are not as yet bereaven
   Of that heritage of bravery
   Which descends to you through ages,
   And ennobles all—save slavery.
   Yours, thank God, are manhood still,
   And the inborn strength of soul,
   Which nought outward can control,
   And the headlong chariot—Will,
   Ever-bounding, never-bending,

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   p.111

   Which alike with Sword or Song,
   As befits the season, wages
   Unrelenting war with Wrong—
   Unrelenting and unending.
4. Gentler gifts are yours, no less,
   Tolerance of the faults of others,
   Love of mankind as your brothers,
   Generous Pity, Tenderness,
   Soul-felt sympathy with grief:
   The warm heart, the winged hand,
   Whereso suffering craves relief.
   Through all regions hath your fame
   For such virtues long gone forth.
   The swart slave of Kaffirland,
   The frozen denizen of the North,
   The dusk Indian Mingo chief
   In his lone savannahs green,
   The wild, wandering Beddaween
   Mid his wastes of sand and flame;
   All have heard how, unsubdued
   By long centuries of sorrow,
   You still cherish in your bosoms
   The deep Love no wrongs can slay,
   And the Hopes which, crushed to-day,
   Rear their crests afresh, renewed,
   In immortal youth, to-morrow,
   Like the Spring's rejoicing blossoms.
5. And 'tis well you thus can blend
   Softest moods of mind with sternest—
   Well you thus can temper earnest
   Might with more than Feminine meekness,

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   p.112

   Thus can soar and thus descend;
   For even now the wail of Want,
   The despairing cry of Weakness,
   Rings throughout a stricken land,
   And blood-blackening Plague and gaunt
   Famine roam it hand-in-hand!
   To you, now, the millions turn
   With glazed eyes and lips that burn—
   To you lies their last appeal,
   To your hearts—your feelings—reason!
   Oh, stretch forth your hands in season!
   Soothe and solace—help and heal!
   Rich in blessings, bright with beauty,
   Shine their names throughout all æons,
   Theirs who nobly consecrate
   To self-sacrificing Duty
   Their best years—the new St. Leons,
   Who thus conquer Time and Fate!²
6. But for more, far more, than this,
   Youths of Ireland, stand prepared!
   Revolution's red abyss
   Burns beneath us, all but bared—
   And on high the fire-charged Cloud
   Blackens in the firmament,
   And afar we list the loud
   Sea-voice of the unknown Event.
   Youths of Ireland, stand prepared!
   For all woes the Meek have dree'd,
   For all risks the Brave have dared,

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   p.113

   As for suffering, so for Deed,
   Stand prepared!
   For the Pestilence that striketh
   Where it listeth, whom it liketh,
   For the Blight whose deadly might
   Desolateth day and night—
   For a Sword that never spared
   Stand prepared!
   Though that gory Sword be bared
   Be not scared!
   Do not blench and dare not falter!
   For the axe and for the halter
   Stand prepared!
   And give God the glory
   If, whene'er the Wreath of Story
   Swathe your names, the men whose hands
   Brightly twine it,
   May enshrine it
   In one temple with your lands!