John Boyle O'Reilly Poems

NO song of a soldier riding down
To the raging fight from Winchester town;
No song of a time that shook the earth
With the nations' throe at a nation's birth;
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ONCE I had a little sweetheart
In the land of the Malay,—
Such a little yellow sweetheart!
Warm and peerless as the day
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“HE is false to the heart!' she said, stern-lipped; 'he is all untruth;
He promises fair as a tree in blossom, and then
The fruit is rotten ere ripe. Tears, prayers and youth,
All withered and wasted! and still—I love this falsest of men!'
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There may be standard weight for precious metal,
But deeper meaning it must ever hold;
Thank God, there are some things no law can settle,
And one of these—the real worth of gold.
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TWO youths from a village set out together
To seek their fortune the wide world through;
One cried, 'Hurra for the autumn weather!'
The other sighed, 'Winter is almost due!'
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MAJESTIC warder by the Nation's gate,
Spike-crowned, flame-armed like Agony or Glory,
Holding the tablets of some unknown law,
With gesture eloquent and mute as Fate,—
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THE kindly words that rise within the heart,
And thrill it with their sympathetic tone,
But die ere spoken, fail to play their part,
And claim a merit that is not their own.
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Well, mate, you’ve asked about a fellow
You met to-day, in a black-and-yellow
Chain-gang suit, with a peddler’s pack,
Or with some such burden, strapped to his back.
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I told her a story, a fairy story,
My little daughter with eyes of blue
And with clear, wide gaze as the splendours brightened,
She always asked me—'Oh, is it true?'
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The Infinite always is silent:
It is only the Finite speaks.
Our words are the idle wave-caps
On the deep that never breaks.
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