Long the clouds so grim and leaden Then a breeze of better feeling From the depths so pure and holy Peace, the giver of great blessing. In their olden accents speak well Past at length the nation's quarrel, Sad was war, but sweet our peace is; Blest is sorrow when it ceases; With our hope our strength increases, And anew our race we run, Northland, Southland, Eastland, Westland, While the Union's heart shall beat. Oh, if peace could but restore us, Nevermore in strife contending, Joyfully they now discover That the white-robed angels hover Nevermore the gallant legions, Let us, then, tread softly, lightly, Let us fit our new condition, Ours the hopes of saints and sages, Thus our gay and gleaming garlands, Thus our deeds to-day are showing E. T. Willet. UNCROWNED AMONG THE NATIONS. She stands uncrowned among the nations! Her sufferings have been unexampled and her patient endurance towers up among the facts that are pyramids in history. After driving the Danish viking into the seas, she has seen the Anglo-Norman robber wave his banner o'er the loveliest spots in her realm. But through treachery and famine, through glory and disgrace, through persecution and death, she remains after a thousand years, the unsullied Queen, upon whose bright escutcheon there is not a stain save the silver dropping of her own tears. She stands uncrowned among the nations, a weeping mother, whose only solace is wandering among the tombs of her children. She rests her wearied limbs beside the sarcophagus of O'Connell-and over Glasnevin cemetery spreads a glorious Irish twilight. Above-the sun retiring after his long journey disrobes on the horizon's edge, and carelessly scatters his garments of crimson, emerald and gold, upon the floor of heaven. The lovely queen of night glides forth upon the scene, and from her ebony sieve shakes whole myriads of stars. Below--the tall shafts of monumental granite throw their long shadows, like a canopy of black spears, over the little mounds at their feet, and the roses, and the lilies, and the blue forget-me-nots in their circling guard of shamrocks, awake from their vesper sleep, re-open their petals, and telephone in odorous voices sweet greetings to their shining sisters blossoming in the infinite meadows of heaven. The soul of the Liberator hovers around the scene, and after paying the tribute of a bended knee to the Lady of his Love with a divine wand, he touches his skeleton body in its marble shroud, and forth from the fleshless lips come the true words he was so wont to use, 66 Hereditary bondmen, know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow." She stands uncrowned among the nations! The summer sunlight falls unheeded upon the curls of her golden hair, and the winter frost, unnoted, scatters his clusters of pearls upon her livery of mourning. But even amid the hail, the rain, and the storm, she finds it ecstasy to sit beside the window of John of Tuam and listen to the soft strains of her own harp as it responds in melodious voice to the touch of the fast withering fingers of the greatest of her living sons. And when the songs of her ancient bards in her own language as an accompaniment fall tremulously from his aged lips, a delirium of memories crowd upon her and she vanishes into the night. She stands uncrowned among the nations! Kneeling on the green sward of Robert Emmet's grave and resting her head upon its unmarked headstone, she clasps her hands around it and in an agony of prayer, cries out, "O, my God, when shall his epitaph be written?" At the early morning she is in Clare listening to Charles Stewart Parnell. She sees at one end of the platform the Irish flag and at the other the American. She is not satisfied-clad in her royal robes, albeit of black, she ascends that platform and taking in one hand her own banner of green, and in the other the "Stars and Stripes," under which her exiled children find so secure a shelter, with her own deft fingers, she irrevocably intertwines them, and upon their dual folds, in letters of living light, she inscribes the prophetic device: "These together shall conquer." She stands uncrowned among the nations! Doffing her queenly garments, and in the attire of a felon, she sits beside Michael Davitt in his lonely prison cell. Twining her arms about his neck with all a |