It was a time when thoughts and violets bloomed—
When skies were bright, and air was bland and warm,
And Pleasure every fleeting hour assumed
A new and strange Cameleon hue and form.
When, suddenly, that hand-cloud, once beheld
From Carmel by the Tishbite seer of Eld—
Appeared, and foresayed coming storm.

All minds were called away. The slumberers who
Had slept through years of Idleness awoke—
All felt a consciousness of somewhat new,
The lightning prelude to the thunder-stroke.
GOD struck on every heart, and men grew pale—
Their bliss was metamorphosed into bale.
There was no Power they dared evoke!

Even as the dread Simoon of Araby
Sweeps o'er the desert through the pathless air,
So came, 'mid Ireland's joy and revelry,
That cloud of gloom above her visions fair.
The thoughtless wondered, and the thoughtful wept.
And those who through long years had dreamt and slept
Arose—too many to Despair!

Despair? Yes! For a blight fell on the land—
The soil, heaven-blasted, yielded food no more—
The Irish serf became a Being banned—
Life-exiled as none ever was before.
The old man died beside his hovel's hearth,
The young man stretched himself along the earth,
And perished, stricken to the core!

O, GOD! Great GOD! Thou knowest, seest, Thou!
All-blessed be Thy name! This work is Thine—
To Thy decrees, Thy law, Thy will, we bow—
We are but worms, and Thou art THE DIVINE!
But Thou wilt yet in Thine own day redeem
Thy Faithful; and this land's bright sun shall beam
To Earth a Pharos and a Sign!

Ye True, ye Noble, who unblenching stand
Amid the storms and ills of this dark Day,
Still hold your ground! Yourselves, your Fatherland,
Have in the Powers above a surest stay!
Though Famine, Pest, Want, Sickness of the Heart,
Be now your lot—all these shall soon depart—
And Heaven be yet at your command!

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.

But should it be—that dream eternally
Continuing—as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood—should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revelled when the sun was bright
In the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness,—have left my very heart
Inclines of my imaginary—apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen?

'Twas once—and only once—and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass—some power
Or spell had bound me—'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit—or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly—or the stars—howe'er it was
That dream was that that night-wind—let it pass.

I have been happy—though in a dream.
I have been happy—and I love the theme—
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love—and all my own!—
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.