I have not a joy but of thy bringing, Like spells, that nought on earth can break, SHALL THE HARP THEN BE SILENT? AIR-Macfarlane's Lamentation. SHALL the Harp then be silent, when he, who first gave To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes? Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave, Where the first-where the last of her Patriots lies? No-faint though the death-song may fall from his lips, Though his Harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost, Yet, yet shall it sound, mid a nation's eclipse, And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost1? It is only these two first verses, that are either fitted or intended to be sung. What a union of all the affections and powers, By which life is exalted, embellish'd, re fined, Was embraced in that spirit whose centre was ours, While its mighty circumference circled man kind. Oh, who that loves Erin-or who that can see, Through the waste of her annals that epoch sublime Like a pyramid, raised in the desert where he And his glory stand out to the eyes of all time! That one lucid interval snatch'd from the gloom And the madness of ages, when, fill'd with his soul, A nation o'erleap'd the dark bounds of her doom, And, for one sacred instant, touch'd Liberty's goal. Who, that ever hath heard him hath drank at the source Of that wonderful eloquence, all Erin's own, In whose high-thoughted daring, the fire, and the force, And the yet untamed spring of her spirit are An eloquence rich wheresoever its wave Wander'd free and triumphant with thoughts that shone through, As clear as the brook's "stone of lustre," and gave, With the flash of the gem, its solidity too. Who, that ever approach'd him, when, free from the crowd, In a home full of love, he delighted to tread, 'Mong the trees which a nation had given, and which bow'd, As if each brought a new civic crown for his head. That home, where-like' him who, as fable hath told2, Put the rays from his brow, that his child might come near— Every glory forgot, the most wise of the old Became all that the simplest and youngest hold dear. Is there one who hath thus through his orbit of life, But at distance observed him-through glory, through blame, In the calm of retreat, in the grandeur of strife Whether shining or clouded, still high and the same Such a union of all that enriches life's hour, As that type of simplicity blended with power, A child with a thunderbolt only pourtrays. 2 Apollo, in his interview with Phaëton, as described by Ovid:" Deposuit radios propriusque accedere jussit. |