The Reconciliation Poem by John Banim

[Note: Air--``Sly Patrick;'' Or, ``Has sorrow thy young days shaded?'']

The old man he knelt at the altar,
His enemy's hand to take,
And at first his weak voice did falter,
And his feeble limbs did shake;
For his only brave boy, his glory,
Had been stretch'd at the old man's feet,
A corpse, all so haggard and gory,
By the hand which he now must greet.

And soon the old man stopt speaking,
And rage which had not gone by,
From under his brows came breaking
Up into his enemy's eye--
And now his limbs were not shaking,
But his clench'd hands his bosom cross'd,
And he look'd a fierce wish to be taking
Revenge for the boy he lost!

But the old man he then glanced around him,
And thought of the place he was in,
And thought of the promise which bound him,
And thought that revenge was sin--
And then, crying tears, like a woman,
``Your hand!'' he said--``aye, that hand!
And I do forgive you, foeman,
For the sake of our bleeding land!''