GREAT men grow greater by the lapse of time: | |
| We know those least whom we have seen the latest; | |
| And they, ’mongst those whose names have grown sublime, | |
| Who worked for Human Liberty, are greatest. | |
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| And now for one who allied will to work, | 5 |
| And thought to act, and burning speech to thought; | |
| Who gained the prizes that were seen by Burke— | |
| Burke felt the wrong—O’Connell felt, and fought. | |
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| Ever the same—from boyhood up to death: | |
| His race was crushed—his people were defamed; | 10 |
| He found the spark, and fanned it with his breath, | |
| And fed the fire, till all the nation flamed! | |
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| He roused the farms—he made the serf a yeoman; | |
| He drilled his millions and he faced the foe; | |
| But not with lead or steel he struck the foeman: | 15 |
| Reason the sword—and human right the blow. | |
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| He fought for home—but no land-limit bounded | |
| O’Connell’s faith, nor curbed his sympathies; | |
| All wrong to liberty must be confounded, | |
| Till men were chainless as the winds and seas. | 20 |
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| He fought for faith—but with no narrow spirit; | |
| With ceaseless hand the bigot laws he smote; | |
| One chart, he said, all mankind should inherit,— | |
| The right to worship and the right to vote. | |
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| Always the same—but yet a glinting prism: | 25 |
| In wit, law, statecraft, still a master-hand; | |
| An “uncrowned king,” whose people’s love was chrism; | |
| His title—Liberator of his Land! | |
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| “His heart’s in Rome, his spirit is in heaven”— | |
| So runs the old song that his people sing; | 30 |
| A tall Round Tower they builded in Glasnevin— | |
| Fit Irish headstone for an Irish king! | |
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