by the waters of babylon
TRANSCRIPT
Irish Jesuit Province
By the Waters of BabylonAuthor(s): John HannonSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 27, No. 315 (Sep., 1899), pp. 464-465Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20499486 .
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464 The Irsh MonthlMs.
morning. He was buried in the common pit prepared for paupers m
the neighbouring burying ground of Shoo Lane Workhouse. " Alas !
poor Chatterton." A life of disappointment and unhappines and a
death solitary and without hope.
I have not offered, and do not intend to offer, any criticism of
Chatterton's works or to discuss the place he fills, or, if he had lived, -might have filled in English literature. I have attempted only to bring
before you the sal'ient points of a career of such singular fascination,
interest, and, I thinLk, instruction. I have done so with the view,
as I have said, of illustrating from life the first state of the soul in
the Palace of Art. I have u-sed him to show to what sad and dreary.
ending a soul may come to who, - however richly dowered with all
intellectual gifts, does not, from time to time, throw "her royal
robes away " for humble prayer. I will dismiss him now with the
w.ords in which Marlowe makes the Chorus lament the death of
Faustus: Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burn0d is Apollo's laurel bough.
R. P. CARTON.
(To be concluded next month.)
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.
(Written during the evening of a Bank-foliday, in a Thames-8ide village
near London).
ARE these thy daughters, Erin, mother mine, 'These, that with arms upwaved and tresses bare
Are flaunting by the tavern in the squaare
These girl-bacchantes with the streaming hair,
Say, weeping mother, dost thou call them thine ?
A song is sung thy proud lips never knew: I hear loud laughter in the evil street,
They trip the lilting tune with flying feet,
And English revellers watch the " Irish crew."
O grey-blue eyes that innocent should be,
Wildly ye rove, or gaze in vacant bliss;
Young lips, empoisoned with the tankard's kiss,
Why breathe,ye not pure Erin's majesty ?
Sc X $
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fly the Waters of Babylon. 465
An old man passes with averted eyes (Which he who saw beheld o'erbrimmed with tears) " The priest I the priest! " cries one of tender years
The riot lulls, soon, soon again to rise.
Yes, they are thine, though never have they seen
Thy holy hills, thy glens and pastures fair,
Nor ever yet have breathed the fragrant air Thy happier daughters breathe in valleys green.
Hollow-cheeked Runger in the night arose, Alnd drove each wailing mother from thy shore:
Foul London whelmed the later brood she bore If these be reckless, hard their lot, God knows.
If, girt about with plenty in the land, Thou couldst break bread for all who exiled roam,
These things-alas! thou dost not rule thy home, And, if thou strovest, men would stay thy hand.
Dear Christ, are we as they who once were Thine, Doomed evermore to wander o'er the earth?
When will thou re-endow our mother's dearth ?
When shall we turn us to our Palestine ?
Not yet, not yet, His work is still to do
God's gain, my brothers, grows from out our loss:
Sisters, stand very near beneath our cross, Weak were our strife, brave sisters, but for you.
Athwart an empire's world-enclasping belt, From torrid south to realm of northmost ice,
Where'er Columbia's kindred sway is felt,
By western canon as 'mid rolling veldt,
In cities new and old, the toiling Celt
Must, near the cross, prepare the Sacrifice * . *
Erin, when da-wns the day, withhold thy curse, Nay, but with blessing, take to thy breast again
Weak truants that have shamed thee even worse Than the poor colleens of a gloomier verse:
E'en these revere thee; list! vwith might and main
The carol God Save Ireland in refain.
JoHrN HANNON.
VOL. xxvii. No. 316 34
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