The Messenger. — November 23, 1867E
WITH bated breath and trembling lips, we gathered round him there—
Tall, sinewy men with faces bronzed, and maidens young and fair;
We questioned him with eager eyes—we had not power to speak,
For a nameless dread was in each heart, and whitened every cheek!
Twice, thrice his lips moved silently, his tongue refused its task,
We spoke not, but he knew right well the question we would ask;
And thrice he strove to answer it, but thrice he strove in vain,
While down his cheeks the tear-drops fell in blinding showers like rain!
And by his grief at last we knew the news he could not tell,
And over every hope a black and blighting shadow fell;
A sickening weight seemed pressing, oh! so heavy on each heart,
That it stayed our bitter wailings, and forbade our tears to start!
And stalwart men, whose fiery wrath and fierce, resistless might
Had turned the ebbing tide of war in many a bloody fight;
Whose whirlwind charge and wild hurrah made Southern foemen reel,
Whose breasts had pressed unshrinkingly ’gainst triple lines of steel—
Aye, men like these, true scions of our fearless Celtic race,
Who fear not death, but meet it with a smile upon the face—
Now stood so still, so motionless, so silent in their woe,
It seemed as if they’d fallen, too, beneath the crushing blow!
Oh! who shall say what mournful tears that bitter night were shed,
And who shall count the curses heaped upon the murderer’s head;
What heartfelt prayers ascended to the throne of the Divine,
For the heroes who had fallen on their suff’ring country’s shrine!
He,F boy in years but man in heart, who, pale and fearless, trod
The scaffold’s path as proudly as if ’twere his native sod;
Who stood upon the grave’s dark brink with heart that never failed,
With lips that never quivered, and with eyes that never quailed!
And he,G the dark-eyed soldier, who, unhurt, untouched, had pass’d
Through many a hard-fought battle-field, now fronted death at last;
And such a death—the felon’s death—the death that villains die—
He met it with a smiling face, and with a flashing eye!
And, last of all, the father,H who that day would leave behind
Poor helpless children to a world, harsh, pitiless, unkind:
No wonder if he faltered—’twas, oh God! a fearful test;
Yet he met his fate as bravely and as proudly as the rest.
And these are murderers, they say—are cowards, base and vile:
These gallant ones who perished for their distant native isle—
Cowards and murderers, they say; oh, grant us patience, God!
Oh, grant us patience yet to bear the tyrant’s heavy rod.