The straining eye could scarce discern
The chapel of the good St. Mark.
And there, when bitter word or fare
The service of the youth repaid,
By stealth, before that holy shrine,
For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed.
The steed stamped at the castle gate,
The boar-hunt sounded on the hill;
Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
With looks so stern, and words so ill?
“Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn,
By scath of fire and strain of cord,
How ill they speed who give dead saints
The homage due their living lord!”
They bound him on the fearful rack,
When, through the dungeon’s vaulted dark,
He saw the light of shining robes,
And knew the face of good St. Mark.
Then sank the iron rack apart,
The cords released their cruel clasp,
The pincers, with their teeth of fire,
Fell broken from the torturer’s grasp.
And lo! before the Youth and Saint,
Barred door and wall of stone gave way;
And up from bondage and the night
They passed to freedom and the day!
O dreaming monk! thy tale is true;
O painter! true thy pencil’s art;
In tones of hope and prophecy,
Ye whisper to my listening heart!
Unheard no burdened heart’s appeal
Moans up to God’s inclining ear;
Unheeded by his tender eye,
Falls to the earth no sufferer’s tear.
For still the Lord alone is God!
The pomp and power of tyrant man
Are scattered at his lightest breath,
Like chaff before the winnower’s fan.
Not always shall the slave uplift
His heavy hands to Heaven in vain.
God’s angel, like the good St. Mark,
Comes shining down to break his chain!
O weary ones! ye may not see
Your helpers in their downward flight;
Nor hear the sound of silver wings
Slow beating through the hush of night!
But not the less gray Dothan shone,
With sunbright watchers bending low,
That Fear’s dim eye beheld alone
The spear-heads of the Syrian foe.
There are, who, like the Seer of old,
Can see the helpers God has sent,
And how life’s rugged mountain-side
Is white with many an angel tent!
They hear the heralds whom our Lord
Sends down his pathway to prepare;
And light, from others hidden, shines
On their high place of faith and prayer.
Let such, for earth’s despairing ones,
Hopeless, yet longing to be free,
Breathe once again the Prophet’s prayer:
“Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see!”
KATHLEEN
This ballad was originally published in my prose work, Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal, as the song of a wandering Milesian schoolmaster. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Political offenders and criminals were transported by the British government to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent in the seaports of the United Kingdom.
O Norah, lay your basket down,
And rest your weary hand,
And come and hear me sing a song
Of our old Ireland.
There was a lord of Galaway,
A mighty lord was he;
And he did wed a second wife,
A maid of low degree.
But he was old, and she was young,
And so, in evil spite,
She baked the black bread for his kin,
And fed her own with white.
