RESURGAM.
O sorrowful fair land! shall we not love
thee.
Whom thou hast cradled on thy bounteous
breast!
Though all unstarred and dark the clouds
above thee,
Thy children shall arise and call thee blest.
Never our lips can name thee, Mother, coldly,
Nor our ears hear thy sweet, sad name
unmoved.
And if from deeper pain our arms might
fold thee.
Were it not well with us, O best beloved!
Yet when we hymn thy praise, what words
come thronging?—
Not the sweet cadences thy lips have
taught,
Accents are these to alien lands belonging,
Gifts from another shrine thine own have
brought.
For, ah! our memory, in the darkened years
Of thy long pain, hath waxen dim and
faint,
And we’ve forgot for weariness and tears
Our grand old tongue of poet and of saint.
Most like a little child with meek surrender,
Learning its lesson at the mother’s knees,
Come we to hear our own tongue, soft and
tender.
As wordless bird-songs in unnumbered
trees.
And now it shall not die; through all the ages
Thy sons shall hold it still, for love of thee,
This strong sweet tongue of warriors and
sages.
Who served thee much, yet loved not
more than we.
Katherine Tynan.