The Tears of Scotland
by Tobias Smollett ((1721-1771)

Mourn, hapless Caledonia! mourn
Thy banish’d peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valour long renown’d,
Lie slaughter’d on their native ground;
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.

The wretched owner sees afar
His all become the prey of war;
Bethinks him of his babes and wife,
Then smites his breast, and curses life.
Thy swains are famish’d on the rocks,
Where once they fed their wanton flocks:
Thy ravish’d virgins shriek in vain;
Thy infants perish on the plain.

What boots it, then, in every clime,
Thro’ the wide-spreading waste of Time,
Thy martial glory, crown’d with praise,
Still shone with undiminish’d blaze?
Thy towering spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke.
What foreign arms could never quell,
By civil rage and rancour fell.

The rural pipe and merry lay
No more shall cheer the happy day:
No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night.
No strains but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard but sounds of woe,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o’er the silent plain.

Oh! baneful cause, oh! fatal morn,
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their father stood,
The parent shed his children’s blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor’s soul was not appeased:
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames, and murd’ring steel!

The pious mother, doom’d to death,
Forsaken wanders o’er the heath,
The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread;
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend,
And, stretch’d beneath th’ inclement skies,
Weeps o’er her tender babes, and dies.

While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpair’d remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country’s fate,
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow:
‛Mourn, hapless Caledonia! mourn
‛Thy banish’d peace, thy laurels torn!’

Views: 39

Salut
by Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)

Rien, cette écume, vierge vers
A ne désigner que la coupe;
telle loin se noie une troupe
De sirènes mainte à l’envers.

Nous navigons, ô mes divers
Amis, moi déjà sur la poupe
Vous l’avant fastueux qui coupe
Le flot de foudres et d’hivers;

Une ivresse belle m’engage
Sans craindre même son tangage
De porter debout ce salut

Solitude, récif, étoile
A n’importe ce qui valut
Le blanc souci de notre toile.

Views: 40

A Soldier’s Song
by Peadar Kearney (1883-1942)

We’ll sing a song, a soldier’s song,
With cheering rousing chorus,
As round our blazing fires we throng,
The starry heavens o’er us;
Impatient for the coming fight,
And as we wait the morning’s light,
Here in the silence of the night,
We’ll chant a soldier’s song.

Chorus:
Soldiers are we , whose lives are pledged to Ireland;
Some have come from a land beyond the wave.
Sworn to be free, No more our ancient sire land
Shall shelter the despot or the slave.
Tonight we man the gap of danger
In Erin’s cause, come woe or weal
’Mid cannons’ roar and rifles peal,
We’ll chant a soldier’s song.

In valley green, on towering crag,
Our fathers fought before us,
And conquered ’neath the same old flag
That’s proudly floating o’er us.
We’re children of a fighting race,
That never yet has known disgrace,
And as we march, the foe to face,
We’ll chant a soldier’s song.

Chorus

Sons of the Gael! Men of the Pale!
The long watched day is breaking;
The serried ranks of Inisfail
Shall set the Tyrant quaking.
Our camp fires now are burning low;
See in the east a silv’ry glow,
Out yonder waits the Saxon foe,
So chant a soldier’s song.

Views: 35

Homo Sum
by René François Armand (“Sully”) Prudhomme (1839-1907)

Durant que je vivais, ainsi qu’en plein désert,
Dans le rêve, insultant la race qui travaille,
Comme un lâche ouvrier ne faisant rien qui vaille
S’enivre et ne sait plus à quoi l’outil lui sert,

Un soupir, né du mal autour de moi souffert,
M’est venu des cités et des champs de bataille,
Poussé par l’orphelin, le pauvre sur la paille,
Et le soldat tombé qui sent son cœur ouvert.

Ah! parmi les douleurs, qui dresse en paix sa tente,
D’un bonheur sans rayons jouit et se contente,
Stoïque impitoyable en sa sérénité?

Je ne puis: ce soupir m’obsède comme un blâme,
Quelque chose de l’homme a traversé mon âme,
Et j’ai tous les soucis de la fraternité.

Views: 64

Anthony’s Funeral Oration
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones:
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honorable men,—
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once,—not without cause:
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?—
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!—Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Views: 46

Ode
by Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

We are the music makers,
   And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
   And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
   On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
   Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
   And out of a fabulous story
   We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
   Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
   Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying
   In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
   And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
   To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
   Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
   A wondrous thing of our dreaming
   Unearthly, impossible seeming—
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
   Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
   And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
   They had no divine foreshowing
   Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man’s soul it hath broken,
   A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
   Wrought flame in another man’s heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day’s late fulfilling;
   And the multitudes are enlisted
   In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
   Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
   The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
   Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
   Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
   O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
   A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
   And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
   Intrepid you hear us cry—
How, spite of your human scorning,
   Once more God’s future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
   That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers
   From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
   And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song’s new numbers,
   And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
   And a singer who sings no more.

Views: 31

Reunited
by Gilbert Parker (1862-1932)

When you and I have play’d the little hour,
   Have seen the tall subaltern Life to Death
   Yield up his sword; and, smiling, draw the breath,
The first long breath of freedom; when the flower
Of Recompense hath flutter’d to our feet,
   As to an actor’s; and, the curtain down,
   We turn to face each other all alone—
Alone, we two, who never yet did meet,
Alone, and absolute, and free: O then,
   O then, most dear, how shall be told the tale?
Clasp’d hands, press’d lips, and so clasp’d hands again;
   No words. But as the proud wind fills the sail,
      My love to yours shall reach, then one deep moan
      Of joy, and then our infinite. Alone.

Views: 35

Auld Robin Gray
by Anne Lindsay (1750-1825)

When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye a’ at hame,
When a’ the weary world to sleep are gane,
The waes o’ my heart fa’ in showers frae my e’e,
While my gudeman lies sound by me.

Young Jamie lo’ed me weel, and sought me for his bride;
But saving a crown he had naething else beside.
To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea;
And the crown and the pound, they were baith for me!

He hadna been awa’ a week but only twa,
When my mither she fell sick, and the cow was stown awa;
My father brak his arm—my Jamie at the sea—
And Auld Robin Gray came a-courting me.

My father couldna work—my mither couldna spin;
I toil’d day and night, but their bread I couldna win;
Auld Rob maintain’d them baith, and, wi’ tears in his e’e,
Said, “Jenny, for their sakes, will you marry me?”

My heart it said na, and I look’d for Jamie back;
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack:
His ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jenny dee?
And wherefore was I spar’d to cry, Wae is me!

My father argued sair—my mither didna speak,
But she look’d in my face till my heart was like to break;
They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea;
And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been his wife, a week but only four,
When mournfu’ as I sat on the stane at the door,
I saw my Jamie’s ghaist—I couldna think it he,
Till he said, “I’m come hame, my love, to marry thee!”

O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle did we say:
Ae kiss we took—nae mair—I bad him gang away.
I wish that I were dead, but I’m no like to dee;
And why do I live to say, Wae is me!

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;
I darena think o’ Jamie, for that wad be a sin.
But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be,
For Auld Robin Gray, he is kind to me.

Views: 34

Madrigale
by Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)

Qual rugiada o qual pianto,
   quai lagrime eran quelle
   che sparger vidi dal notturno manto
   e dal candido volto de le stelle?
E perché seminò la bianca luna
   di cristalline stille un puro nembo
   a l’erba fresca in grembo?
   Perché ne l’aria bruna
   s’udian, quasi dolendo, intorno intorno
   gir l’aure insino al giorno?
Fur segni forse de la tua partita,
   vita de la mia vita?

Views: 35

The Fair Hills of Ireland
(from the Irish)
by Samuel Ferguson (1820-1886)

A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer,
            Uileacan dubh O!*
Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley ear;
            Uileacan dubh O!
There is honey in the trees where her misty vales expand,
And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fann’d,
There is dew at high noontide there, and springs i’ the yellow sand,
      On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

Curl’d he is and ringleted, and plaited to the knee—
            Uileacan dubh O!
Each captain who comes sailing across the Irish Sea;
            Uileacan dubh O!
And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,
Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,
And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command,
      For the fair hills of holy Ireland.

Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground,
            Uileacan dubh O!
The butter and the cream do wondrously abound;
            Uileacan dubh O!
The cresses on the water and the sorrels are at hand,
And the cuckoo’s calling daily his note of music bland,
And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song i’ the forests grand,
      On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

* Uileacan Dubh O!” literally means a black-haired head of a round shape,or form;and we have frequently heard it so applied by the Munster peasantry, with whom it is a favourite phrase, when speaking of the head, particularly that of a female. Some writers are of opinion that “Uileacan Dubh O!”allegorically means Ireland; but we cannot concur in this opinion,for it is evidently a love expression.

Views: 41