Ireland - 1882 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CC DDEE F GG HH IJJKK LL BB MMNN OO PP QR SSTT UU NN TT VV| 'ISLAND of Destiny Innisfail ' they cried when their weary eyes | A |
| First looked on thy beauteous bosom from the amorous ocean rise | A |
| 'Island of Destiny Innisfail ' we cry dear land to thee | B |
| As the sun of thy future rises and reddens the western sea | B |
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| Pregnant as earth with its gold and gems and its metals strong and fine | C |
| Is thy soul with its ardors and fancies and sympathies divine | C |
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| Mustard seed of the nations they scattered thy leaves to the air | D |
| But the ravisher pales at the harvest that flourishes everywhere | D |
| Queen in the right of thy courage manacled scourged defamed | E |
| Thy voice in the teeth of the bayonets the right of a race proclaimed | E |
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| 'Bah ' they sneered from their battlements 'her people cannot unite | F |
| They are sands of the sea that break before the rush of our ordered might ' | - |
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| And wherever the flag of the pirate flew the English slur was heard | G |
| And the shallow of soul re echoed the boast of the taunting word | G |
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| But we O sun that of old was our god we look in thy face to day | H |
| As our Druids who prayed in the ancient time and with them we proudly say | H |
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| 'We have wronged no race we have robbed no land we have never oppressed the weak ' | - |
| And this in the face of Heaven is the nobler thing to speak | I |
| We can never unite thank God for that in such unity as yours | J |
| That strangles the rights of others and only itself endures | J |
| As the guard of a bloodstained spoil and the red eyed watch of the slave | K |
| No need for such robber union to a race free souled and brave | K |
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| The races that band for plunder are the mud of the human stream | L |
| The base and the coward and sordid without an unselfish gleam | L |
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| It is mud that unites but the sand is free ay every grain is free | B |
| And the freedom of individual men is the highest of liberty | B |
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| It is mud that coheres but the sand is free till the lightning smite the shore | M |
| And smelt the grains to a crystal mass to return to sand no more | M |
| And so with the grains of our Irish sand that flash cleareyed to the sun | N |
| Till a noble Purpose smites them and melts them into one | N |
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| While the sands are free O Tyrants like the wind are your steel and speech | O |
| Your brute force crushes a legion but a soul it can never reach | O |
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| Island of Destiny Innisfail for thy faith is the payment near | P |
| The mine of the future is opened and the golden veins appear | P |
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| Thy hands are white and thy page unstained Reach out for the glorious years | Q |
| And take them from Grod as His recompense for thy fortitude and tears | R |
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| Thou canst stand by the way ascending as thy tyrant goes to the base | S |
| The seeds of her death are in her and the signs in her cruel face | S |
| On her darkened path lie the corpses of men with whose blood her feet are red | T |
| And the curses of ruined nations are a cloud above her head | T |
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| O Erin fresh in the latest day like a gem from a Syrian tomb | U |
| The burial clay of the centuries has saved thy light in the gloom | U |
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| Thy hands may stretch to a kindred world there is none that hates but one | N |
| And she but hates as a pretext for the rapine she has done | N |
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| The night of thy grief is closing and the sky in the East is red | T |
| Thy children watch from the mountain tops for the sun to kiss thy head | T |
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| O Mother of men that are fit to be free for their test for freedom borne | V |
| Thy vacant place in the Nations' race awaits but the coming morn | V |
John Boyle O'reilly
(1)
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