The fight in Ireland is 'twixt Man and Brute. A lion with the sea-surge for his mane, Is there hurled back by Man with proud disdain, Although heart-drained with gash from head to foot. Oh, in that Eden of Forbidden Fruit, How Satan, searching for a snake in vain, Fumed forth a monster from his heart and brain— The Lion—as the serpent's substitute! Oh, all ye peoples of the World draw nigh! Stand on the bodies of eight centuries, Struck dead with horror; for, raised thus, one sees In Erin, torn, a soul that cannot die, And that its struggle is Humanity's Against the fiend, who would give God the lie. |