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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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SIJGGESTED BY MOORE ' S LIFE OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD . Thou didst fall ere thy time , —but thou lay'st like a warrior , With the colours of Liberty fast folded round thee ; And 'twas fitter for thee so to leap the dread barrier , Than to wait for the fate which the traitors had found thee .
For the vengeance of Hate by her own hand was baffled , And Tyranny " grinn'd her most horrible smile , " When her victim , by dying , escap'd from the scaffold , And the torch was crush'd out at the foot of the pile .
Had she come but in time the dark pyre to have kindled , How her basilisk eyes would have sparkled with joy ! Like ours at the thought how that joy must have dwindled , When , for torture too late , she could only destroy .
Yet why of that doom do we think with abhorrence , Which Wallace , Riego , and Emmet have known ? O ' er the blood , streaming down from the scaffold in torrents , Has not Fame ' s proudest Iris redeemingly shone ? Unstain'd as the stream from its lone Alpine fountain ,
The libation to Freedom thence poured by the free 5 And high as the spring , and secure as the mountain , Their darings have been , and their glory shall be .
Yet be Feeling forgiven , if a moment she falter , When the hangman concludes the last act of the brave , If the amaranth of fame round the patriot ' s halter Hides it less , than the gold hides the chains of the slave .
And for this we rejoice , young and gallant Fitzgerald , That thy last sands did not ignominiously run , Since thou wert not to die like the old Grecian herald , Gasping , red from the battle , — " Rejoice , we have won . "
There are those who may think all thou didst unavailing , A bright cloud that pass'd without one drop of rain ; But let r ; ot true glory be darken'd by failing—Uncrown not the brows of Thermopylae ' s slain !
No ~ -use not success for the touchstone of merit , For 'twill raise the vile dross , and depress the fine gold ; But still let desert its fair honours inherit , And over the dead be the . solemn truth told .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 678, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/26/
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