Thomas Davis

Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4.33

Thomas Davis Poems

Thrice, at the huts of Fontenoy, the English column failed,
And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed;
For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery,
And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary.
...

Bright red is the sun on the waves of Lough Sheelin,
A cool, gentle breeze from the mountain is stealing,
While fair round its islets the small ripples play,
But fairer than all is the Flower of Finae.
...

Full often when our fathers saw the Red above the Green,
They rose in rude but fierce array, with sabre, pike and scian,
And over many a noble town, and many a field of dead,
They proudly set the Irish Green above the English Red.
...

Shall they bury me in the deep,
Where wind-forgetting waters sleep?
Shall they dig a grave for me,
Under the green-wood tree?
Or on the wild heath,
Where the wilder breath
Of the storm doth blow?
Oh, no! oh, no!
...

She is a rich and rare land;
Oh! she's a fresh and fair land;
She is a dear and rare land
This native land of mine.
...

'Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill? '
'Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel.'
'May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow!
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh! '
...

When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
THREE HUNDRED MEN AND THREE MEN.[52]
...

The Geraldines! The Geraldines! - 'tis full a thousand years
Since, 'mid the Tuscan vineyards, bright flashed their battle-spears;
When Capet seized the crown of France, their iron shields were known,
And their sabre dint struck terror on the banks of the Garonne;
...

The tribune's tongue and poet's pen
May sow the seed in prostrate men;
But 'tis the soldier's sword alone
Can reap the crop so bravely sown!
...

We hate the Saxon and the Dane,
We hate the Norman men-
We cursed their greed for blood and gain,
We curse them now again.
...

Chisel the likeness of The Chief,
Not in gaiety, nor grief;
Change not by your art to stone,
Ireland's laugh, or Ireland's moan.
Dark her tale, and none can tell
Its fearful chronicle so well.
Her frame is bent-her wounds are deep
Who, like him, her woes can weep?
...

The mess-tent is full, and the glasses are set,
And the gallant Count Thomond is president yet;
The veteran stands, like an uplifted lance,
Crying-'Comrades, a health to the monarch of France! '
With bumpers and cheers they have done as he bade,
For King Louis is loved by the Irish Brigade.
...

A Nation's voice, a nation's voice
It is a solemn thing!
It bids the bondage-sick rejoice
'Tis stronger than a king.
...

There flows from her spirit such love and delight,
That the face of Blind Mary is radiant with light
As the gleam from a homestead through darkness will show
Or the moon glimmer soft through the fast falling snow.
...

'Tis pretty to see the girl of Dunbwy
Stepping the mountain statelily
Though ragged her gown, and naked her feet,
No lady in Ireland to match her is meet.
...

When, on Ramillies' bloody field,
The baffled French were forced to yield,
The victor Saxon backward reeled
Before the charge of Clare's Dragoons.
...

Let the coward shrink aside,
We'll have our own again;
Let the brawling slave deride
Here's for our own again!
...

Ireland! rejoice, and England! deplore
Faction and feud are passing away.
'Twas a low voice, but 'tis a loud roar,
'Orange and Green will carry the day.'
Orange! Orange!
Green and Orange!
Pitted together in many a fray
Lions in fight!
And linked in their might,
Orange and Green will carry the day.
Orange! Orange!
Green and Orange!
Wave them together o'er mountain and bay.
Orange and Green!
Our King and our Queen!
'Orange and Green will carry the day!'
...

Tall are the towers of O'Ceinneidigh
Broad are the lands of MacCarrthaigh
Desmond feeds five hundred men a-day;
Yet, here's to O'Briain of Ara!
Up from the Castle of Druim-aniar,
Down from the top of Camailte,
Clansman and kinsman are coming here
To give him the CEAD MILE FAILTE.
...

THE CHANT.

'Ululu! ululu! high on the wind,
There's a home for the slave where no fetters can bind.
Woe, woe to his slayers! '-comes wildly along,
...

Thomas Davis Biography

Thomas Davis was born in the town of Mallow in the county of Cork, the son of a Welsh father, a surgeon in the Royal Artillery, and an Irish mother. His father died one month after his birth and his mother moved to Warrington Place near Mount Street bridge in Dublin. In 1830, they moved to 67 Lower Baggot Street. He attended school in Lower Mount Street before studying in Trinity College, Dublin. He graduated in Law and received an Arts degree in 1836, precursory to his being called to the Irish Bar in 1838. Writings He established The Nation newspaper with Charles Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon. He dedicated his life to Irish nationalism. He wrote some stirring nationalistic ballads, originally contributed to The Nation, and afterwards republished as Spirit of the Nation, as well as a memoir of Curran, the Irish lawyer and orator, prefixed to an edition of his speeches, and a history of King James II's parliament of 1689; and he had formed many literary plans which were brought to naught by his death, from tuberculosis, in 1845 at the age of 30. He is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin. He himself was a Protestant, but preached unity between Catholics and Protestants. To Davis, it was not blood that made a person Irish, but the willingness to be part of the Irish nation. Although the Saxon and Dane were, Davis asserted, objects of unpopularity, their descendants would be Irish if they simply allowed themselves to be. He was to the fore of Irish nationalist thinking and it has been noted by later nationalist heroes, such as Padraig Pearse, that while Wolfe Tone laid out the basic premise that Ireland as a nation must be free, Davis was the one who built this idea up promoting the Irish identity. He is the author of the famous Irish rebel song A Nation Once Again. He also wrote the Lament for Owen Roe O'Neill.)

The Best Poem Of Thomas Davis

Fontenoy

Thrice, at the huts of Fontenoy, the English column failed,
And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed;
For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery,
And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary.
As vainly, through De Barri's wood, the British soldiers burst,
The French artillery drove them back, diminished, and dispersed.
The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye,
And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance to try,
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride!
And mustering come his chosen troops, like clouds at eventide.

Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread;
Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head;
Steady they step a-down the slope-steady they climb the hill;
Steady they load-steady they fire, moving right onward still,
Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast,
Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets showering fast;
And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course,
With ready fire and grim resolve, that mocked at hostile force:
Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grew their ranks-
They break, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean banks.

More idly than the summer flies, French tirailleurs rush round;
As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons strew the ground;
Bomb-shell and grape and round-shot tore, still on they marched and fired-
Fast from each volley grenadier and voltigeur retired.
'Push on, my household cavalry! ' King Louis madly cried:
To death they rush, but rude their shock-not unavenged they died.
On through the camp the column trod-King Louis turns his rein:
'Not yet, my liege,' Saxe interposed, 'the Irish troops remain.'
And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo
Were not these exiles ready then, fresh, vehement, and true.

'Lord Clare,' he says, 'you have your wish; there are your Saxon foes! '
The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes!
How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay,
The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day-
The treaty broken, ere the ink wherewith 'twas writ could dry,
Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women's parting cry,
Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country overthrown-
Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere,
Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were.

O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands
'Fix bay'nets! -charge! ' Like mountain storm, rush on these fiery bands!
Thin is the English column now, and faint their volleys grow,
Yet, must'ring all the strength they have, they make a gallant show.
They dress their ranks upon the hill to face that battle-wind-
Their bayonets the breakers' foam; like rocks, the men behind!
One volley crashes from their line, when, through the surging smoke,
With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish broke.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza!
'Revenge, remember Limerick! dash down the Sacsanach! '

Like lions leaping at a fold when mad with hunger's pang,
Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang:
Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns are filled with gore;
Through shattered ranks and severed files the trampled flags they tore;
The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered, fled-
The green hill-side is matted close with dying and with dead.
Across the plain, and far away, passed on that hideous wrack,
While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,
With bloody plumes, the Irish stand-the field is fought and won!

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