Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,
Throbbing for the May -
Throbbing for the seaside billows,
Or the water-wooing willows;
Where in laughing and in sobbing
Glide the streams away.
Ah! my heart my heart is trobbing,
Throbbing for the May.

Waiting sad, dejected, weary,
Waiting for the May.
Spring goes by with wasted warnings -
Moonlight evenings, sunbright mornings -
Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
Life still ebbs away-
Man is ever weary weary,
Waiting for the May.

The pillar towers of Ireland, how wondrously they stand
By the lakes and rushing rivers through the valleys of our land;
In mystic file, through the isle, they lift their heads sublime,
These gray old pillar temples, these conquerors of time!

Beside these gray old pillars, how perishing and weak
The Roman’s arch of triumph, and the temple of the Greek,
And the gold domes of Byzantium, and the pointed Gothic spires,
All are gone, one by one, but the temples of our sires!

The column, with its capital, is level with the dust,
And the proud halls of the mighty and the calm homes of the just;
For the proudest works of man, as certainly, but slower,
Pass like the grass at the sharp scythe of the mower!

But the grass grows again when in majesty and mirth,
On the wing of the spring, comes the Goddess of the Earth;
But for man in this world no springtide e’er returns
To the labours of his hands or the ashes of his urns!

Two favourites hath Time - the pyramids of Nile,
And the old mystic temples of our own dear isle;
As the breeze o’er the seas, where the halcyon has its nest,
Thus Time o’er Egypt’s tombs and the temples of the West!

The names of their founders have vanished in the gloom,
Like the dry branch in the fire or the body in the tomb;
But to-day, in the ray, their shadows still they cast -
These temples of forgotten gods - these relics of the past!

Around these walls have wandered the Briton and the Dane -
The captives of Armorica, the cavaliers of Spain -
Phœnician and Milesian, and the plundering Norman Peers -
And the swordsmen of brave Brian, and the chiefs of later years!

How many different rites have these gray old temples known!
To the mind what dreams are written in these chronicles of stone!
What terror and what error, what gleams of love and truth,
Have flashed from these walls since the world was in its youth?

Here blazed the sacred fire, and, when the sun was gone,
As a star from afar to the traveller it shone;
And the warm blood of the victim have these gray old temples drunk,
And the death-song of the druid and the matin of the monk.

Here was placed the holy chalice that held the sacred wine,
And the gold cross from the altar, and the relics from the shrine,
And the mitre shining brighter with its diamonds than the East,
And the crosier of the pontiff and the vestments of the priest.

Where blazed the sacred fire, rung out the vesper bell,
Where the fugitive found shelter, became the hermit’s cell;
And hope hung out its symbol to the innocent and good,
For the cross o’er the moss of the pointed summit stood.

There may it stand for ever, while that symbol doth impart
To the mind one glorious vision, or one proud throb to the heart;
While the breast needeth rest may these gray old temples last,
Bright prophets of the future, as preachers of the past!

Oh! thou whom sacred duty hither calls,
Some glorious hours in freedom’s cause to dwell,
Read the mute lesson on thy prison walls,
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well.” [1]

If haply thou art one of genius vast,
Of generous heart, of mind sublime and grand,
Who all the spring-time of thy life has pass’d
Battling with tyrants for thy native land,
If thou hast spent thy summer as thy prime,
The serpent brood of bigotry to quell,
Repent, repent thee of thy hideous crime,
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well!”

If thy great heart beat warmly in the cause
Of outraged man, whate’er his race might be,
If thou hast preached the Christian’s equal laws,
And stayed the lash beyond the Indian sea!
If at thy call a nation rose sublime,
If at thy voice seven million fetters fell, -
Repent, repent thee of thy hideous crime,
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well!”

If thou hast seen thy country’s quick decay,
And, like the prophet, raised thy saving hand,
And pointed out the only certain way
To stop the plague that ravaged o’er the land!
If thou hast summoned from an alien clime
Her banished senate here at home to dwell:
Repent, repent thee of thy hideous crime,
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well!”

Or if, perchance, a younger man thou art,
Whose ardent soul in throbbings doth aspire,
Come weal, come woe, to play the patriot’s part
In the bright footsteps of thy glorious sire

If all the pleasures of life’s youthful time
Thou hast abandoned for the martyr’s cell,
Do thou repent thee of thy hideous crime,
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well!”

Or art thou one whom early science led
To walk with Newton through the immense of heaven,
Who soared with Milton, and with Mina bled,
And all thou hadst in freedom’s cause hast given?
Oh! fond enthusiast - in the after time
Our children’s children of thy worth shall tell -
England proclaims thy honesty a crime,
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well!”

Or art thou one whose strong and fearless pen
Roused the Young Isle, and bade it dry its tears,
And gathered round thee ardent, gifted men,
The hope of Ireland in the coming years?
Who dares in prose and heart-awakening rhyme,
Bright hopes to breathe and bitter truths to tell?
Oh! dangerous criminal, repent thy crime,
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well!”

“Cease to do evil" - ay! ye madmen, cease!”
Cease to love Ireland - cease to serve her well;
Make with her foes a foul and fatal peace,
And quick will ope your darkest, dreariest cell.
“Learn to do well” - ay! learn to betray,
Learn to revile the land in which you dwell
England will bless you on your altered way
“Cease to do evil - learn to do well!”

Note. This inscription is on the front of Richmond Penitentiary, Dublin, in which O’Connell and the other political prisoners were confined in the year 1844.

The awful shadow of a great man’s death
Falls on this land, so sad and dark before -
Dark with the famine and the fever breath,
And mad dissensions knawing at its core.
Oh! let us hush foul discord’s maniac roar,
And make a mournful truce, however brief,
Like hostile armies when the day is o’er!
And thus devote the night-time of our grief
To tears and prayers for him, the great departed chief.

In “Genoa the Superb” O’Connell dies -
That city of Columbus by the sea,
Beneath the canopy of azure skies,
As high and cloudless as his fame must be.
Is it mere chance or higher destiny
That brings these names together? One, the bold
Wanderer in ways that none had trod but he -
The other, too, exploring paths untold;
One a new world would seek, and one would save the old!

With childlike incredulity we cry,
It cannot be that great career is run,
It cannot be but in the eastern sky
Again will blaze that mighty world-watch’d sun!
Ah! fond deceit, the east is dark and dun,
Death’s black, impervious cloud is on the skies;
Toll the deep bell, and fire the evening gun,
Let honest sorrow moisten manly eyes:
A glorious sun has set that never more shall rise!

Brothers, who struggle yet in Freedom’s van,
Where’er your forces o’er the world are spread,
The last great champion of the rights of man -
The last great Tribune of the world is dead!
Join in our grief, and let our tears be shed

Without reserve or coldness on his bier;
Look on his life as on a map outspread -
His fight for freedom - freedom far and near -
And if a speck should rise, oh! hide it with a tear!

To speak his praises little need have we
To tell the wonders wrought within these waves
Enough, so well he taught us to be free,
That even to him we could not kneel as slaves.
Oh! let our tears be fast-destroying graves,
Where doubt and difference may for ever lie,
Buried and hid as in sepulchral caves;
And let love’s fond and reverential eye
Alone behold the star new risen in the sky!

But can it be, that well-known form is stark?
Can it be true, that burning heart is chill?
Oh! can it be that twinkling eye is dark?
And that great thunder voice is hush’d and still?
Never again upon the famous hill
Will he preside as monarch of the land,
With myriad myriads subject to his will;
Never again shall raise that powerful hand,
To rouse, to warm, to check, to kindle, and command!

The twinkling eye, so full of changeful light,
Is dimmed and darkened in a dread eclipse;
The withering scowl, the smile so sunny bright,
Alike have faded from his voiceless lips.
The words of power, the mirthful, merry quips,
The mighty onslaught, and the quick reply,
The biting taunts that cut like stinging whips,
The homely truth, the lessons grave and high,
All, all are with the past, but cannot, shall not die!

My native Bay, for many a year
I’ve lov’d thee with a trembling fear,
Lest thou, though dear and very dear,
And beauteous as a vision,
Shouldst have some rival far away,
Some matchless wonder of a bay,
Whose sparkling waters ever play
’Neath azure skies elysian.

‘tis Love, methought, blind Love that pours
The rippling magic round these shores,
For whatsoever Love adores
Becomes what Love desireth:
‘tis ignorance of aught beside
That throws enchantment o’er the tide,
And makes my heart respond with pride
To what mine eye admireth,

And thus, unto our mutual loss,
Whene’er I paced the sloping moss
Of green Killiney, or across
The intervening waters,
Up Howth’s brown sides my feet would wend,
To see thy sinuous bosom bend,
Or view thine outstretch’d arms extend
To clasp thine islet daughters;

Then would this spectre of my fear
Beside me stand--How calm and clear
Slept underneath, the green waves, near
The tide-worn rocks’ recesses;

Or when they woke, and leapt from land,
Like startled sea-nymphs, hand-in-hand,
Seeking the southern silver strand
With floating emerald tresses:

It lay o’er all, a moral mist,
Even on the hills, when evening kissed
The granite peaks to amethyst,
I felt its fatal shadow:
It darkened o’er the brightest rills,
It lowered upon the sunniest hills,
And hid the wingèd song that fills
The moorland and the meadow.

But now that I have been to view
All even Nature’s self can do,
And from Gaeta’s arch of blue
Borne many a fond memento;
And from each fair and famous scene,
Where Beauty is, and Power hath been,
Along the golden shores between
Misenum and Sorrento:

I can look proudly in thy face,
Fair daughter of a hardier race,
And feel thy winning well-known grace,
Without my old misgiving;
And as I kneel upon thy strand,
And kiss thy once unvalued hand,
Proclaim earth holds no lovelier land.

In deep dejection, but with affection,
I often think of those pleasant times,
In the days of Fraser, ere I touched a razor,
How I read and revell’d in thy racy rhymes;
When in wine and wassail, we to thee were vassal,
Of Watergrass-hill, O renowned P.P.!
             May the bells of Shandon
             Toll blithe and bland on
       The pleasant waters of thy memory!

Full many a ditty, both wise and witty,
In this social city have I heard since then
(With the glass before me, how the dream comes o’er me,
Of those Attic suppers, and those vanished men).
But no song hath woken, whether sung or spoken,
Or hath left a token of such joy in me
             As “The Bells of Shandon
             That sound so grand on
       The pleasant waters of the river Lee.”

The songs melodious, which - a new Harmodius -
“Young Ireland” wreathed round its rebel sword,
With their deep vibrations and aspirations,
Fling a glorious madness o’er the festive board!
But to me seems sweeter, with a tone completer,
The melodious metre that we owe to thee -
             Of the bells of Shandon
             That sound so grand on
       The pleasant waters of the river Lee.

There’s a grave that rises o’er thy sward, Devizes,
Where Moore lies sleeping from his land afar,
And a white stone flashes over Goldsmith’s ashes
In quiet cloisters by Temple Bar;
So where’er thou sleepest, with a love that’s deepest,
Shall thy land remember thy sweet song and thee,
             While the Bells of Shandon
             Shall sound so grand on
       The pleasant waters of the river Lee.