Lady Jane Wilde Poems

Ark! the onward heavy tread
Hark! the voices rude
’Tis the famished cry for Bread
From a wildered multitude.
...

Mine eye is dull, my hair is white,
This arm is powerless for the fight,
Alas! alas! the battle’s van
Suits not a weak and aged man.
Thine eye is bright, thine arm is strong—
’Tis Youth must right our country’s wrong.
Arise, my son, and proudly bear
This sword that I was wont to wear;
Firm grasp the hilt, fling down the sheath
A thousand years vears their wrongs bequeath
...

My country, wounded to the heart,
Could I but flash along thy soul
Electric power to rive apart
The thunder‐clouds that round thee roll,
And, by my burning words, uplift
Thy life from out Death’s icy drift,
Till the full splendours of our age
Shone round thee for thy heritage
As Miriam’s, by the Red Sea strand
Clashing proud cymbals, so my hand
Would strike thy harp,
Loved Ireland!
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The sin of our race is upon us,
The pitiless, cruel disdain
Of brother for brother, tho’ coiling
Round both is the one fatal chain;
And aimless and reckless and useless
Our lives pass along to the grave
In tumults of words that bewilder,
And the conflicts of slave with slave.
...

And Erick roamed in distant lands,
But cannot fly his weary fate;
Before him in the lonely night,
Before him in the noonday bright,
...

A form stood by her in the night,
A human presence near her
Spoke one low word of pitying grace,
A name once uttered face to face,
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Crowned with a liberated people’s love,
Crowned by the Nations with eternal fame,
His great heart burning still with patriot‐fire,
Tho’ Death’s pale shadow rested on his brow,
...

When the gloom the light appalleth
When no tear‐dew ever falleth
Downward silently
When the tired heart, from languor
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It was the lark—not the nightingale
Poured forth her notes of warning;
Upwards she flew from the sun‐lit vale,
Awoke by the light of the morning.
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There were stately nuptials in France,
In the royal town of Paris:
Who is it leads the dance?
The lovely Lady Beatriz.
...