The Feast Of The Gael Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDED FGFG HIJI KLKLLBLMNONNLLLPQLQL RBRLSTSLULV WTWTXFXFTYTY ZXA2XB2XB2X C2XC2| St Patrick s Day | A |
| - | |
| I | - |
| WHAT a onion of hearts is the love of a mother | B |
| When races of men in her name unite | C |
| For love of Old Erin and love of each other | B |
| The boards of the Gael are full to night | C |
| Their millions of men have one toast and one topic | D |
| Their feuds laid aside and their envies removed | E |
| From the pines of the Pole to the palms of the Tropic | D |
| They drink 'The dear Land we have prayed for and loved ' | - |
| They are One by the bond of a time honored fashion | F |
| Though strangers may see but the lights of their feast | G |
| Beneath lies the symbol of faith and of passion | F |
| Alike of the Pagan and Christian priest | G |
| - | |
| - | |
| II | - |
| When native laws by native kings | H |
| At Tara were decreed | I |
| The grand old Gheber worship | J |
| Was the form of Erin's creed | I |
| The Sun Life giver was God on high | - |
| Men worshipped the Power they saw | K |
| And they kept the faith as the ages rolled | L |
| By the solemn Beltane law | K |
| Each year on the Holy Day was quenched | L |
| The household fires of the land | L |
| And the Druid priest at the midnight hour | B |
| Brought forth the flaming brand | L |
| The living spark for the Nation's hearths | M |
| From the Monarch's hand it came | N |
| Whose fire at Tara spread the sign | O |
| And the people were One by the flame | N |
| And Baal was God till Patrick came | N |
| By the Holy Name inspired | L |
| On the Beltane night in great Tara's sight | L |
| His pile at Slane was fired | L |
| And the deed that was death was the Nation's life | P |
| And the doom of the Pagan bane | Q |
| For Erin still keeps Beltane night | L |
| But lights her lamp at Slane | Q |
| Though fourteen centuries pile their dust | L |
| On the mound of the Druid's grave | R |
| To night is The Beltane Bright the fire | B |
| That Holy Patrick gave | R |
| To night is The Beltane Let him heed | L |
| Who studieth creed and race | S |
| Old times and gods are dead and we | T |
| Are far from the ancient place | S |
| The waves of centuries war and waste | L |
| Of famine gallows and goal | U |
| Have swept our land but the world to night | L |
| Sees the Beltane Fire of the Gael | V |
| - | |
| - | |
| III | - |
| O land of sad fate like a desolate queen | W |
| Who remembers in sorrow the crown of her glory | T |
| The love of thy children not strangely is seen | W |
| For humanity weeps at thy heart touching story | T |
| Strong heart in affliction that draweth thy foes | X |
| Till they love thee more dear than thine own generation | F |
| Thy strength is increased as thy life current flows | X |
| What were death to another is Ireland's salvation | F |
| God scatters her sons like the seed on the lea | T |
| And they root where they fall be it mountain or furrow | Y |
| They come to remain and remember and she | T |
| In their growth will rejoice in a blissful to morrow | Y |
| - | |
| They sing in strange lands the sweet songs of their home | Z |
| Their emerald Zion enthroned in the billows | X |
| To work not to weep by the rivers they come | A2 |
| Their harps are not hanged in despair on the willows | X |
| The hope of the mother beats youthful and strong | B2 |
| Responsive and true to her children's pulsations | X |
| No petrified heart has she saved from the wrong | B2 |
| Our Niobe lives for her place 'mong the nations | X |
| - | |
| Then drink all her sons be they Keltic or Danish | C2 |
| Or Norman or Saxon one mantle was o'er us | X |
| Let race lines and creed lines and every line vanish | C2 |
| We drink as the Gael 'To the Mother that bore us ' | - |
John Boyle O'reilly
(1)
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