Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/143

Rh While slept the right, and reigned the dual wrong,
 * Unchanged, unchecked, for half a thousand years,

In tears of blood we cried, "O Lord, how long?"
 * And even God seemed deaf to Erin's tears.

But when she lay all weak and bruised and broken,
 * Her white limbs seared with cruel chain and thorn—

As bursts the cloud, the lightning word was spoken,
 * God's seed took root—His crop of men was born!

With one deep breath began the land's progression:
 * On every field the seeds of freedom fell:

Burke, Grattan, Flood, and Curran in the session—
 * Fitzgerald, Sheares, and Emmet in the cell!