Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Padraic Colum (1881–1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922.

116. Lament for Thomas Davis

I WALKED through Ballinderry in the spring-time,

When the bud was on the tree;

And I said, in every fresh-ploughed field beholding

The sowers striding free,

Scattering broadside forth the corn in golden plenty

On the quick seed-clasping soil,

“Even such this day, among the fresh-stirred hearts of Erin.

Thomas Davis, is thy toil.”

I Sat by Ballyshannon in the summer,

And saw the salmon leap;

And I said, as I beheld the gallant creatures

Spring glittering from the deep,

Through the spray, and through the prone heaps striving onward

To the calm, clear streams above,

“So seekest thou thy native founts of freedom, Thomas Davis,

In thy brightness of strength and love.”

I stood in Derrybawn in the autumn,

And I heard the eagle call,

With a clangorous cry of wrath and lamentation

That filled the wide mountain hall,

O’er the bare, deserted place of his plundered eyrie;

And I said, as he screamed and soared,

“So callest thou, thou wrathful, soaring Thomas Davis,

For a nation’s rights restored!”

And, alas! to think but now, and thou art lying,

Dear Davis, dead at thy mother’s knee;

And I, no mother near, on my own sick-bed,

That face on earth shall never see;

I may lie and try to feel that I am dreaming,

I may lie and try to say, “Thy will be done,”

But a hundred such as I will never comfort Erin

For the loss of the noble son!

Young husbandman of Erin’s fruitful seed-time,

In the fresh track of danger’s plough!

Who will walk the heavy, toilsome, perilous furrow,

Girt with freedom’s seed-sheets, now?

Who will banish with the wholesome crop of knowledge

The daunting weed and the bitter thorn,

Now that thou thyself art but a seed for hopeful planting

Against the Resurrection morn?

Young salmon of the flood-tide of freedom

That swells round Erin’s shore!

Thou wilt leap against their loud oppressive torrent

Of bigotry and hate no more;

Drawn downward by their prone material instinct,

Let them thunder on their rocks and foam—

Thou hast leapt, aspiring soul, to founts beyond their raging,

Where troubled waters never come!

But I grieve not, Eagle of the empty eyrie,

That thy wrathful cry is still;

And that the songs alone of peaceful mourners

Are heard to-day on Earth’s hill;

Better far, if brothers’ war be destined for us

(God avert that horrid day I pray),

That ere our hands be stained with slaughter fratricidal,

Thy warm heart should be cold in clay.

But my trust is strong in God, Who made us brothers,

That He will not suffer their right hands,

Which thou hast joined in holier rites than wedlock

To draw opposing brands.

Oh, many a tuneful tongue that thou madest vocal

Would lie cold and silent then;

And songless long once more, should often-widowed Erin

Mourn the loss of her brave young men.

Oh, brave young men, my love, my pride, my promise,

’Tis on you my hopes are set,

In manliness, in kindliness, in justice,

To make Erin a nation yet;

Self-respecting, self-relying, self-advancing—

In union or in severance, free and strong—

And if God grant this, then, under God, to Thomas Davis

Let the greater praise belong.