ODE FOR THE TERCENTENARY FESTIVAL

I. 1. The hallowed Light the Druid bore Through darkness to our lonely Isle. Locked in his heart his cryptic lore Beneath the ruined altar-pile Was quenched in dust. ’Mid Uladh’s hills5 A clearer ray the Herdsman-Slave Allured, as by the limpid rills He mused above the Pagan’s grave, Or, standing on the mountain-scaur, Beheld the Angel of his Dream10 Through sunlit flying storms afar Fade into heaven, a phantom gleam. His holier fire with sleepless hand, By shadowed lake, in sheltering woods, The Saints, while blood embathed their land,15 Preserved amid its solitudes; Or often from their silence rose, And, strong in selfless ardour, sought The Saxon heaths, the Alpine snows, To preach the gentle rede the Celtic Herdsman taught.20 I. 2. The rugged Chief in richer cell The cresset hung by field or foam, Where hermit pure in peace might dwell, The exiled sage forget his home. On islets of the inland seas,25 On stormy cape, in valley lone, Or folded deep in verdant leas, The scattered haunts of Learning shone. But ev’n the Norman’s victor palm, By carven arch or soaring spire,30 Could ill secure the cloistral calm, And feebly guard the living fire. What larger flame De Bicknor fed The royal Edwards fanned in vain. The lamp in Drogheda’s dimness dead35 Not Sidney’s touch revived again. And nowhere towered the sovereign shrine, The central altar’s temple wide, Till Loftus waved a wand divine, And here by Edar’s Firth it rose in radiant pride.40 I. 3. In the Earth’s exultant hour, When the age-long twilight, shifting, Showed, beneath its fringes lifting, Rosy seas and realms of endless flower; When high on new-found isle or continent45 The roving seaman-warrior travel-spent First the cross of Europe planted; When in rapt expectancy Men amid a world enchanted Seemed to wander fancy-free,50 Along our life’s horizon-bound So bright a promise broke from underground; In that delicious dawn Here to her lasting home was Wisdom drawn, Here her island-shrine was wrought,55 Whence evermore, with armèd Night contending,— In act, in labouring thought One brilliance,—we our toil with hers unending Might mingle; with her calm advance, The conquests of her widening reign,60 Her heavenward aims and ceaseless operance, We too might drink the hope and reap the gain; Might feel the vast elation, share The peril of her conflict and the care, The triumph and the dole,65 All that doth exalt the human soul; Arrayed in Learning’s panoply, Refreshed from Truth’s pellucid springs, Beneath her wide imperial wings Might prosper with her boundless destiny,70 Life and heavenly Freedom bearing Where her might and dauntless daring Strike the heart of Tyranny tame, Or over Grossness steals the glamour of her name. II. 1. He who with heart unmoved can tread75 The peaceful Squares, the pictured Halls, Where first within his soul was shed The Light that heals where’er it falls, Where first he felt the sacred glow Of young ambition fire his breast,80 And watched a broadening Future grow More gorgeous than the burning west— The vision (ah, too soon to fade!) Of splendours,—honour, virtue, truth,— That o’er his life its magic laid,85 And godlike purpose waked in youth; He who with languid pulse can view The scenes where first he quaffed the springs Of Hope and Knowledge, whence he drew The strength to soar with fearless wings,90 Is void as night, is cold as clay, Is dead in spirit, shrunk and sear ... Hail, hail, ye walls and portals grey With holiest memories wound,—we love you and revere! II. 2. Behold, the men are with us still95 Who here have reaped immortal fame; Their words, their varying fancies, thrill Our hearts, their deeds our zeal inflame. Yes, Ussher’s voice is in our ear, It whispers from our waving trees;100 And hark! blithe Congreve’s laughter clear Is mingling with our harmonies; And Farquhar’s jests around us fly, Mementos of a merrier time; And Swift is near, with piercing eye105 And mouth of gall, who stung with rhyme And crushed with iron clubs of prose; And Berkeley, with his angel brow; And Burke, who high as eagle rose; And gentlest Goldsmith, jovial now110 As when he lipped his flute in France; And he who sang of Erin’s wrong In lays that listening Time entrance; Poet, priest, warrior, wit, smile on our jubilant throng. II. 3. Mother, since the lion-Queen115 Set thy name in jewelled story, How the beam of Learning’s glory Still has rested on our Island green, O, fair as are the ruddy morns that rise O’er her wild hills, and flush her stormy skies!120 How thy sons, thy faiths upholding, Victors, firm in peace or strife, Toil, thy gifts of Truth unfolding, Weave the web of human life! Here in these shades, with straining sight125 Through many a fretful day and weary night Bent o’er the baffling page, How have they won the wealth of seer and sage Wrung from gloom with Titan-power, Thou to the labouring mind thy lustres lending,130 Till, armed with all thy dower, From the lone chamber to the loud world wending, They’ve ploughed the homely field and sown The seed that bears a deathless grain; Afar o’er belts of blustering ocean blown,135 In lands of scathing sun and ruthless rain, Have held the dusky hordes at bay, And tempered empire with a softer ray; Or, strong in battle, borne Britain’s streaming banner pierced and torn140 But trampled not by any foe; Or, dauntless in a direr war, Have wrested spoil from earth and star; Till now, three centuries past of joy and woe, We, our hope and youth renewing,145 Here, the votive chaplet strewing, At thy feet our homage lay, Beneath a later Queen of happier, milder sway! III. 1. Guardian of Light, with pomp to-day We celebrate thy splendour’s birth.150 Lo, doomed in distant paths to stray, And whirled about the chequered earth, Back to thy peaceful fane we wend, We bear thee gifts of love and praise, Beneath thy sovereign brows we bend,155 And high our echoing anthems raise. From east and west, where’er the fire Of Science, fenced by faithful hands, Abides, and hearts of men aspire, We greet the learned of other lands160 Who seek across the alien seas Our Island bright’ning ’mid her showers, And come to spread before thy knees Their garlands intertwined with ours; While, close with these, a blithesome crowd,165 Thy young-eyed votaries move along, Breathe on the wind their raptures loud, And mix their strains of joy with Age’s sombrer song. III. 2. Aurora of the conquering Sun Of Knowledge, scarer of the Night,170 How nobly has thy race been run, How fair the pageant of thy flight! From every cloudy trammel freed, With dreams of boundless venture fraught, Billowing the shadows in thy speed,175 Thou risest, robed in gleaming Thought. The steeds of empyrean strain The wafture of thy hand obey, As, scattering fire from hoof and mane, They flash o’er peak and field and spray.180 Thick as the northern meteors sweep Adown the clear autumnal skies, Through airy dews o’er plain and steep Thy florets fall in rainbow-dyes, And where they rest take root and spread,185 Till all the barren ways are sweet, And all the desert-breezes shed Their honeyed blossom-breath around the wanderer’s feet. III. 3. Ever young and strong to dare, Darkness to thy will subduing,190 Thou, thy lustrous path pursuing, Onward movest, girt with all things rare,— Radiant in victory, from thine orient gate Issuing with front to heaven and heart elate, And in gorgeous triumph guiding195 Through the deeps, a lucid throng, Round the car Phœbœan gliding, Forms ethereal. Art; and Song; And mild Religion hand-in-hand With fearless Reason,—loveliest of the band;200 And, linked in circling train, She who delights to roam the starry main, Breaks the flesh’s narrowing bond, And tracks the whirling suns amid their courses; And She with potent wand205 Who tames to kindlier use Earth’s deathful forces; And She who cleaves the crust and solves The secrets shut from mortal view; And the witch Maid whose magic hand evolves From Nature’s essence nature ever new;210 And that all gentle Ministress Who wars on pain and waits on weariness; And She whose wreathen shell Rings of Latian lawn or Dorian dell; And the strong Spirit whose subtle skill215 Controls the night of storms and takes The lightning prisoner, or breaks The cliff, or spans the flood, or moves the hill,— Where the effulgent wheels are glancing, O’er the shrunken mists advancing,220 Follow in thy kindling way Thee heavenward heralding the clear-eyed golden Day. IV. 1. Our triumph is the victory Of Thought, the Mind’s high festival. Ah, cold and bleak at times will be225 The mists of Doubt that round us fall; And keen the wounds of him who wars With Ignorance, the eyeless foe That balks us with his girdling bars. Our task is great, our labour slow;230 And Truth is oft a maddening gleam That mocks the eye in mazy flight; And where the rays of promise teem Earth’s Shadow moves across their light. The ways are rough, the night is near,235 The winds are loud in field and sky; And Death awaits with levelled spear; And wrecks of lives around us lie; But blue-eyed Hope with bosom warm Beside us stands serenely fair,240 Lifts to the hills her snowy arm, And bids us upward scale and still the Vast to dare. IV. 2. Yes, frail of hand and faint of eye, Our lives the glimmer of a wing That glistens in the summer sky,245 Shines and is gone,—in vain we cling To Time, in vain we grasp the veil That hides the mystic Source of All. We strive; the founts of being fail; The terrors of the Deeps appal;250 Amid the dim uncertain shows And symbols of the things that are We falter; blinding vapour grows About our paths; the pilot-star Of Faith is folded from our sight;255 Yet, still be ours the purpose pure, For us to seek the larger Light, To cope with Darkness and endure. Arise, and following Her, whose face Is radiant with the roseate day,260 Explore the trackless realms of Space; Hark to her rallying-cry, and fearlessly obey. IV. 3. Forward! Let the venturous Mind, Still its spectral foes assailing, Ridge on ridge of danger scaling,265 Front its battle! What though, faint and blind, We stumble through the stifling wilderness, Though failure chill our hearts, though griefs oppress, Rich hath been the Spirit’s treasure Won by those whose story told270 Makes the music of our pleasure Ringing through these cloisters old. Shall we not fight as they have fought, And work as they with tireless brain have wrought? O, follow still the fleet275 Faint glint of Truth where’er it leads your feet; Gather in with reverent toil The sheaves of Knowledge wheresoever scattered O’er whatsoe’er soil; And dare the loneliest peak with tempest shattered280 For any gladdening glimpse it yields Of any unknown gulf or shore, Purge the fair world of Ill through all its fields; Uplift the Race in wisdom more and more; With breast undaunted boldly range285 The ever-widening ways of ceaseless Change; Thwart not the powers that roll Freedom’s chariot thundering to the goal; Nor fly the Spirit’s pain; nor crave The crutch of creeds foredone; nor fear290 The New upon the Old to rear; But Nature’s nobler life from bondage save; Till, to flawless beauty moulded, All her wealth of good unfolded ’Mid the beams of Liberty,295 Earth into Eden break and bloom from sea to sea!