| |
I. WHEN Irish hills were fair and green, | |
| And Irish fields were white with daisies, | |
| And harvests, golden and serene, | |
| Slept in the lazy summer hazes; | |
| When bards went singing through the land | 5 |
| Their grand old songs of knightly story, | |
| And hearts were found in every hand, | |
| And all was peace, and love, and glory, | |
| ’Twas in those happy, happy days | |
| When every peasant lived in clover, | 10 |
| And in the pleasant woodland ways | |
| One never met the begging rover; | |
| When all was honest, large and true | |
| And naught was hollow or theatric;— | |
| ’Twas in those days of golden hue | 15 |
| That Erin knew the great Saint Patrick. | |
| |
II. He came among the rustics rude | |
| With shining robes and splendid crosier | |
| And swayed the listening multitude | |
| As breezes sway the beds of ozier. | 20 |
| He preached the love of man for man, | |
| And moved the unlettered Celt with wonder, | |
| Till through the simple crowd there ran | |
| A murmur like repeated thunder. | |
| He preached the grand Incarnate Word | 25 |
| By rock and ruin, hill and hollow, | |
| Till warring princes dropped the sword | |
| And left the fields of blood to follow. | |
| For never yet did bardic song, | |
| Though graced with harp and poet’s diction, | 30 |
| With such strange charm enchain the throng | |
| As that sad tale of crucifixion. | |
| |
III. Though fair the isle and brave the men, | |
| Yet still a blight the land infested; | |
| Green vipers darted through each glen | 35 |
| And snakes within the woodlands nested, | |
| And ’mid the banks where violets blew | |
| And on the slopes where bloomed the primrose, | |
| Lurked spotted toads of loathsome hue, | |
| And coiling, poisonous serpents grim rose. | 40 |
| Saint Patrick said: “The reptile race | |
| Are types of human degradation; | |
| From other ills I’ve cleansed the place, | |
| And now of these I’ll rid the nation.” | |
| He waved his crosier o’er his head, | 45 |
| And lo! each venomed thing took motion, | |
| And toads and snakes and vipers fled | |
| In terror to the circling ocean. | |
| |
IV. Why is Saint Patrick dead? or why | |
| Does he not seek this soil to aid us? | 50 |
| To wave his mystic crook on high, | |
| And rout the vermin that degrade us? | |
| Our land is fertile, broad, and fair, | |
| And should be fairer yet and broader; | |
| But noxious reptiles taint the air, | 55 |
| And poison peace, and law, and order. | |
| For murder stalks along each street, | |
| And theft goes lurking through our alleys,— | |
| What reptiles worse does traveller meet | |
| On India’s hills, in Java’s valleys? | 60 |
| And when we see this gambling host, | |
| That ’mongst us practice this and that trick, | |
| One knows not which would serve us most, | |
| The Goddess Justice or Saint Patrick! | |
| |
