AN GAODHAL.
183
Non sum dignus Domine!
What, are we to ask Thy blessing ?
Grant us on Thy Judgment Day,
Crown and palm Thy love confessing;
Naught of love on earth we know,
Our close companion is our woe,
Yet we welcome any grave,
If Thou will hear us, Lord, and save!
Hark ! across the midnight air
The savage soldiers' shout came ringing,
With guns and sabres flashing bare,
Death and ruin with them bringing;
Kyrie eleison! How they blaze,
Flames of fire, through midnight haze;
While the people, awe-struck, gaze,
In those awful Penal days!
Crashed their guns through lurid smoke,
Death and terror round them flinging,
While the mountain echoes woke,
And the angel hosts were singing;
England's hate her minions sent
To fight great God's arbitrament ;
It shot the poor, defenceless men,
And made the martyrs in that glen!
It shot the Priest at midnight Mass,
While he made his last thanksgiving;
It shot his people in that pass:
Though they died, the Faith is living;
At mid of night they went to pray,
At morning's hour where were they?
Stiff, and slain, and saved, they lay,
As we shall see on the Judgment Day!
Blest be Mass, and cross, and beads,
Blest be God's sublime ordaining;
The winds that wayed the shaken reeds
Still left the roots, intact, remaining;
Still the Faith and people stand
Here within this honored land,
Defying with their martyrs gore,
Tyrants demons evermore!
Ah ! venerated Motherland !
Hapless, happy land of Erin —
Hapless in the slavery's brand —
Happy in thy true God-fearing;
In thine hours of sorest loss
Thou didst cling unto the Cross,
There was strength, and life, and light,
There was Calvary in thy sight!
Calvary, with thy Saviour there,
Grasping thee with arms bleeding,
Holding thee within His care
Safest of His interceding;
Erin, mother, lift thine eyes,
Fix them firm on God's great skies,
There thy hope or refuge lies,
There at last will be thy gain
For thy martyred sons and slain!
On the last great Judgment Day,
Sons of thine the Lord confessing,
Myriad-voiced shall sing and say:
God! to Thee be endless blessing;
We were slain, but we are saved;
In the Book our names are graved,
'Twas thy Will, and thus we bore it,
'Twas thy Mercy — we adore it!
Still faithful we remain to God,
Still we kneel, His grace imploring,
Here, up from the shamrock sod,
Our prayers before His throne are soaring.
Priests and people, here are we,
Branded still with slavery;
Yet, Lord, Thou'lt make us free;
For ever thus we cry to Thee!
Years of black and bitter loss,
Years of direst desolation,
While we clung unto Thy cross,
Have not slain this Martyr-Nation;
Thou wilt raise us up at length,
Thou wilt build us in Thy strength —
Slaves no more in lip or knee —
Thou, O Lord, wilt make us free !
I look out through our darkest night
And see the land in ruin blazing;
And straight before my started sight,
Steadfast there before my gazing,
Stands the priest, with cross in hand —
Foremost man in all the land —
God's sole anointed man of power,
With Host and Chalice for his dower!
Still he stands, and there he pleads
For evermore in all our story:
With holiest Mass, and cross, and beads,
In days of foulest, fellest deeds,
His name shines out in lines of glory,
And will until the world is hoary:
Faithful ever to man and God,
Stainless, firm, and true he trod,
Unbought, unawed upon our sod,
His blood was shed like rushing river
To gain our soul to God the Giver :—
Let no man Land and Faith e'er sever,
So be it for ever and ever :
BEDEL'S BIBLE.
We have been reminded by a respected corres¬
pondent of errors in the quotations from Bedel's
Bible in Mr C. M. O'Keeffe's letter in the last num¬
ber: we cannot say whether it is we or Mr O'Keefe
mis-quoted as his copy has been mislaid. In this
connection we must candidly admit that we have
never had Bedel's Bible, tho' we could get it to
the asking of it, and tho' it has been frequently
quoted in Gaelic Controversies lately, and for these
reasons — we do not consider Bedel's Bible as an
authority in Gaelic matters. Because we believe
