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WILLIAM CARLETON.
DIED, JANUARY 30TH, 1869.
- OUR land has lost a glory! Never more,
- Tho’ years roll on, can Ireland hope to see
- Another Carleton, cradled in the lore
- Of our loved Country’s rich humanity.
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- The weird traditions, the old, plaintive strain,
- The murmured legends of a vengeful past,
- When a down‐trodden people stove in vain
- To rend the fetters centuries made fast;
- These, with the song and dance and tender tale,
- Linked to our ancient music, have swept on
- And died in far‐off echoes, like the wail
- Of Israel’s broken Harps in Babylon.
- No hand like his can wake them now, for he
- Sprang from amidst the people: bathed his soul
- In their strong passions, stormy as the sea,
- And wild as skies before the thunder‐roll.
- Yet, was he gentle; with divinest art
- And tears that shook his nature over much,
- He struck the key‐note of a people’s heart,
- And all the nation answered to his touch,
- Even as he swayed them, giving smiles for gloom,
- And childlike tenderness for hate that kills—
- As rain clouds threat’ning with a weight of doom
- Flash sudden, silver light upon the hills.
- But, he had faults—men said. Oh, fling them back,
- These cold deductions, marring praise with blame;
- When earthquakes rend the rocks they leave a track
- For central fires issuing forth in flame;
- And by the passionate heat of gifted minds
- The ruddest stones are crystallised to gems
- Of glorious worth, such as a poet binds
- Upon his brow, right royal diadems!
- Like the great image of the Monarch’s dream,
- Genius lifts up on high the head of gold,
- And cleaves with iron limbs Time’s mighty stream,
- Tho’ all too deep the feet may press earth’s mould.
- Yet, by his gifts made dedicate to God
- In noblest teachings of each gentle grace,
- Through every land that Irishmen have trod
- We claim for him the homage of our race.
- With pen of light he drew great pictures when
- Nothing but scorn was ours; and without fear
- He flung them down before the face of men,
- Saying, in words the whole world paused to hear:
- So brave, so pure, so noble, grand, and true
- Is this, our Irish People. Thus he gave
- His fame to build our glory, and undo
- The taunts of ages,—strong to lift and save
- So, with a nation’s gratitude we vow
- In every Irish heart a shrine shall be
- To The Great Peasant, on whose deathless brow
- Rests the star‐crown of immortality.
- The kings of mind, unlike the kings of earth,
- Can bear their honours with them to illume
- The grave’s dark vault; so Carleton passes forth,
- As through triumphal triumpal arches, to the tomb!
