An Irish Crazy-Quilt: Smiles and tears, woven into song and story — A Closer Reading

in strange lands to seek my bread, But I left my heart behind in Ballymore!

I am proud of our cathedrals--they are emblems of our love To an ever-mighty Benefactor shown; And when wealth and art and beauty have been given from above, The devil should not have them as his own! Their splendor has inspired me--but amidst it all I prayed God to grant me, when life’s weary work is o’er, Sweet rest beside my mother in the dear embracing shade Of the little whitewashed church of Ballymore!

Embroidered with shamrocks and spangled with daisies, Tall foxgloves like sentinels guarding the way, The squirrel and hare played bo-peep in its mazes, The green hedgerows wooed it with odorous spray; The thrush and the linnet piped overtures in it, The sun’s golden rays bathed its bosom of green. Bright scenes, fairest skies, pall to-day on my eyes, For I opened them first on an Irish boreen!

It flung o’er my boyhood its beauty and gladness, Rich homage of perfume and color it paid; It laughed with my joy--in my moments of sadness What solace I found in its pitying shade. When Love, to my rapture, rejoiced in my capture, My fetters the curls of a brown-haired colleen, What draught from his chalice, in mansion or palace, So sweet as I quaffed in the dear old boreen?

But green fields were blighted and fair skies beclouded, Stern frost and harsh rain mocked the poor peasant’s toil, Ere they burst into blossom the buds were enshrouded, The seed ere its birth crushed in merciless soil; Wild tempests struck blindly, the landlord, less kindly, Aimed straight at our hearts with a “death sentence” keen; The blast spared our sheeling, which he, more unfeeling, Left roofless and bare to affright the boreen.

A dirge of farewell through the hawthorn was pealing, The wind seemed to stir branch and leaf with a sigh, As, down on a tear-bedewed shamrock sod kneeling, I kissed the old boreen a weeping good-by; And vowed that should ever my patient endeavor The grains of success from life’s harvest-field glean, Where’er fortune found me, whatever ties bound me, My eyes should be closed in the dear old boreen.

Ah! Fate has been cruel, in toil’s endless duel With sickness and want I have earned only scars; Life’s twilight is nearing--its day disappearing-- My weary soul sighs to escape through its bars; But ere fields elysian shall dazzle its vision, Grant, Heaven, that its flight may be winged through the scene Of streamlet and wild-wood, the home of my childhood, The grave of my kin, and the dear old boreen!

AN IRISH SCHOOLHOUSE.

Upon the rugged ladder rungs--whose pinnacle is Fame-- How often have ambitious pens deep graven Harvard’s name; The gates of glory Cambridge men o’er all the world assail, And rulers in the realm of thought look back with pride to Yale. To no such Alma Mater can my Muse in triumph raise Its Irish voice in canticles of gratitude and praise; Yet still I hold in shrine of gold, and until death I will, The little schoolhouse, thatched with straw, that lay behind the hill.

When in the balmy morning, racing down the green boreen Toward its portal, ivy-framed, our curly heads were seen, We felt no shame for ragged coats, nor blushed for shoeless feet, But bubbled o’er with laughter dear old master’s smile to meet; Yet saw beneath his homespun garb an awe-inspiring store Of learning’s fearful mysteries and academic lore. No monarch wielded sceptre half so potent as his quill In that old schoolhouse, thatched with straw, that lay behind the hill.

Perhaps--and yet ’tis hard to think--our boastful modern school Might feel contempt for master, for his methods and his rule; Would scorn his simple ways--and in the rapid march of mind His patient face and thin gray locks would lag far, far behind. No matter; he was all to us, our guide and mentor then; He taught us how to face life’s fight with all the grit of men; To honor truth, and love the right, and in the future fill Our places in the world as he had done behind the hill.

He taught us, too, of Ireland’s past; her glories and her wrongs-- Our lessons being varied with the most seditious songs: We were quite a nest of rebels, and with boyish fervor flung Our hearts into the chorus of rebellion when we sung. In truth, this was the lesson, above all, we conned so well That some pursued the study in the English prison cell, And others had to cross the seas in curious haste, but still All living love to-day, as then, the school behind the hill.

The wind blows through the thatchless roof in stormy gusts to-day; Around its walls young foxes now, in place of children, play; The hush of desolation broods o’er all the country-side; The pupils and their kith and kin are scattered far and wide. But wheresoe’er one scholar on the face of earth may roam, When in a gush of tears comes back the memory of home, He finds the brightest picture limned by Fancy’s magic skill, The little schoolhouse, thatched with straw, that lay behind the hill.

[In one of the debates on the Irish land question, Chief Secretary Forster endeavored to attribute much of the poverty in Ireland to the early and imprudent marriages of the peasantry, and elicited roars of laughter by a comic but cruel description of one Pat Murphy, who had only two cows, but was the happy father of no less than eleven children.]

In a vale in Tipperary, where the silvery Anner flows, There’s a farm of but two acres where Pat Murphy ploughs and sows; From rosy morn till ruddy eve he toils with sinews strong, With hope alone for dinner, and for lunch an Irish song. He’s a rood laid out for cabbage, and another rood for corn, And another sweet half-acre pratie blossoms will adorn; While down there in the meadow, fat and sleek and healthy, browse Pat’s mine of wealth, his fortune sole--a pair of Kerry cows.

Ah, black were the disaster if poor Pat should ever lose The cows whose milk and butter buy eleven young Murphys shoes, Which keep their shirts upon their backs, the quilt upon the bed, And help to thatch the dear old roof that shelters overhead. And even then the blessings that they bring are scarcely spent, For they help brave Murphy often in his troubles with the rent; In bitterest hours their friendly low his spirits can arouse; He don’t mind eleven young Murphys while he’s got that pair of cows.

And when the day is over, and the cows are in the byre, Pat Murphy sits contented with his dhudeen by the fire; His children swarm around him, and they hang about his chair-- The twins perched on his shoulders with their fingers in his hair, Till Bridget, cosey woman, takes the youngest one to rest, Lays four to sleep beneath the stairs, a couple in the chest; And happy Phaudrig Murphy in his big heart utters vows Ere that eleven should be ten he’d sell the pair of cows.

Then in the morning early, ere Pat, whistling, ventures out, How they cluster all around him there with joyous laugh and shout! A kiss for one, a kiss for all, ’tis quite a morning’s task, And the twins demand an extra share, and must have what they ask. What if a gloomy thought his spirit’s brightness should obscure, As he feels age creeping on him with soft footsteps, slow but sure, He’s hardly o’er the threshold when the shadow leaves his brow, For his eldest girl and Bridget each is milking a fine cow.

Let us greet the name of cruel Buckshot Forster with a groan-- He hadn’t got the decency to leave those cows alone; He thought maternal virtue only fitting for a sneer, And made Pat Murphy’s little ones the subject of a jeer. Well, the people have more feeling than the knaves who make their laws, And when the people laugh ’tis for a somewhat better cause: They hate the whining coward who beneath life’s burden bows, But they honor men like Murphy, with his pair of Kerry cows.

A LAND LEAGUE REMINISCENCE.

Hair white as innocence, that crowned A gentle face which never frowned; Brow smooth, spite years of care and stress; Lips framed to counsel and to bless; Deep, thoughtful, tender, pitying eyes, A reflex of our native skies, Through which now tears, now sunshine shone-- There you have Father Tom Malone.

He bade the infant at its birth _Cead mille failthe_ to the earth; With friendly hand he guided youth Along the thorny track of truth; The dying felt, yet knew not why, Nearer to Heaven when he was by-- For, sure, the angels at God’s throne Were friends of Father Tom Malone.

For us, poor simple sons of toil Who wrestled with a stubborn soil, Our one ambition, sole content, Not to be backward with the rent; Our one absorbing, constant fear, The agent’s visits twice a year; We had, our hardships to atone, The love of Father Tom Malone.

One season failed. The dull earth slept. Despite of ceaseless vigil kept For sign of crop, day after day, To coax it from the sullen clay, Nor oats, nor rye, nor barley came; The tubers rotted--then, oh, shame! We--’twas the last time ever known-- Lost faith in Father Tom Malone.

We had, from fruitful years before, Garnered with care a frugal store; ’Twould pay one gale, but when ’twas gone What were our babes to live upon? We had no seed for coming spring, Nor faintest hope to which to cling; We would have starved without a moan, When out spoke Father Tom Malone.

His voice, so flute-like in the past, Now thrilled us like a bugle blast, His eyes, so dove-like in their gaze, Took a new hue, and seemed to blaze! “God’s wondrous love doth not intend Hundreds to starve that one may spend; Pay ye no rent, but hold your own.” _That_ from mild Father Tom Malone.

And when the landlord with a force Of English soldiers, foot and horse, Came down and direst vengeance swore, Who met him at the cabin door? Who reasoned first and then defied The thief in all his power and pride? Who won the poor man’s fight alone? Why, fearless Father Tom Malone.

So, when you point to heroes’ scars, And boast their prowess in the wars, Give one small meed of praise, at least, To this poor modest Irish priest. No laurel wreath was twined for him, But pulses throb and eyelids dim When toil-worn peasants pray, “Mavrone, God bless you, Father Tom Malone!”

There are grottos in Wicklow, and groves in Kildare, And the loveliest glens robed with shamrock in Clare, And in fairy Killarney ’tis easy to find Sweet retreats where a swain can unburden his mind; But of all the dear spots in our emerald isle, Where verdure and sunshine crown life with a smile, There’s one boreen I love, for ’twas there I confess I first met my fate,--what it was you can guess.

It was under the shade of its bordering trees, One day I grew suddenly weak at the knees At the thought of what seemed quite a terrible task, And yet it was but a short question to ask. ’Twas over, and since, night and morning, I bless The boreen that heard the soft whisper of “yes.” And the breezes that toyed with each clustering tress; And the question was this--but I’m sure you can guess.

Only a cabin, thatched and gray, Only a rose-twined door, Only a barefooted child at play On only an earthern floor. Only a little brain--not wise For even a head so small, And that is the reason he bitterly cries For leaving his home--that’s all.

Only the thought of her girlhood there, And her happier days as wife, In the shelter poor of its walls so bare, Have endeared them to her for life; What is the weeping woman’s cause? Why are her accents gall? What does she know of our intricate laws? It was only a hut--that’s all.

He’s only a peasant in blood and birth, That man with the eyelids dim, And there’s room enough on the wide, wide earth For sinewy serfs like him. Why had this pitiful, narrow farm, For his heart such a wondrous thrall? Why each tree and flower such a mystic charm? He was born in the place--that’s all.

The years have gone, and the worn-out pair Sleep under the stranger’s clay, And the weeping child with the curly hair Is a brave, strong man to-day; Yet still he thinks of the olden land, And prays for her tyrant’s fall, And longs to be one of some chosen band, With only a chance--that’s all.

Where the Austral river rushes Through feathery heath and bushes, Through its gurgles and its gushes You may hear, To your wonder and surprise, Sweet melodies arise You have heard ’neath other skies Low and clear. Yes! within the gold land, Strange to you and cold land, Voices from the old land Swell upon the gale-- Lyrics of the story, Lit with flames of glory, Dimmed with pages gory, Songs of Innisfail!

Where Mississippi leaping O’er cliffs and crags, or creeping Through valleys fair, is sweeping To the sea, From the fields of nodding grain On some mountain path or plain Rings a stirring old refrain Fresh and free. Yes! where’er we wander Irish hearts will ponder O’er our land, and fonder Throb with ev’ry tale Of the home that bore us, Till the new skies o’er us Echo with our chorus Songs of Innisfail.

Exiles o’er the spray-foam, Whereso’er we may roam, Thoughts of far-away home Linger still, And in dreams we see again Babbling stream and silent glen, Forest green and lonely fen, Vale and hill. Yes! our hearts’ devotion Flies across the ocean, While with deep emotion Sternest features pale, As around us stealing, Softened by sad feeling, Through the air are pealing Songs of Innisfail!

We were standing together on the platform of the King’s Bridge terminus, Dublin,--five of us--a gallant quintette in the noble army of drummers.

There was Austin Burke, slim, prim, and demure, as befitted the representative of a vast dry-goods establishment whose business lay amongst modistes and milliners; Paul Ryan, tall, dark, and dignified, who travelled for the great ironmongery firm of Locke & Brassey; Tim Malone, smart, chatty, and well-informed, the agent of a flourishing stationery house; dashing Jack Hickey, who was solicitor for a distillery, and rattling, rakish, as packed with funny ideas and comical jokes as a Western newspaper, and as full of mischief as a frolicsome kitten; and lastly, myself. We were waiting for the 11.30 A.M. train south, and indulging in somewhat personal witticisms upon the appearance of various personages in the surrounding crowd, when our attention was attracted by the bustling advent upon the platform of a fussy, florid individual, with a face like an inflamed tomato, and the generally irascible and angry air of an infuriated rooster.

“Know that fellow?” queried Burke. “That’s Major Boomerang, the newly-appointed Resident Magistrate for some part of Cork; all the way from Bengal, to teach the wild Irish Hindoo civilization. He thinks we’re all Thugs and Dacoits, and by the ‘jumping Harry,’ as he would ejaculate, he’s going to sit on us. What do you say, boys, if we have a little lark with him? Let us all get into the same carriage and draw him out. I’ll introduce you, F. (to me), as my friend Captain Neville, of the Galway militia. I won’t know you other fellows, but you can take whatever characters you like, just as the conversation turns. Let me see. You, Ryan, get out at Portarlington, and you, Malone, at Limerick Junction. Jack Hickey goes on with us to Mallow. Now, I know this Boomerang will be launching out into fiery denunciation of Parnell and Biggar and all the rest before we’re aboard ten minutes, and I want each of you fellows to take the role of whoever he pitches into the worst, and challenge him in that character. D’ye see? F., as Capt. Neville, will offer to do the amiable for the major, and persuade him that he must fight. He’s an awful fire-eater in conversation, but I’ll stake my sample case we’ll put him into the bluest of funks before we part. What do you say, boys?”

Of course, we agreed. Whoever heard of a drummer refusing to take a hand in any deviltry afoot that promised a laugh at the end? We watched the major into a first-class carriage, and quietly followed him. He seemed rather inclined to resent our intrusion, for we just crowded the compartment, but he graciously recognized Burke, who had stayed in Dublin at the same hotel, and he was “delighted, sir, by the jumping Harry,--delighted to meet a brother officer” (that was your humble servant).

At first he was somewhat reticent about Irish matters. He told us all manner of thrilling stories of his Indian adventures. He had polished off a few hundred tigers with all sorts of weapons, transfixed them to the trunks of trees with the native spear, riddled them with buckshot, swan-shot and bullets, and on one occasion, when his stock of lead had pegged out, and a Royal Bengal tiger, twelve feet, sir, from his snout to the tip of his tail, was crouched ready to spring on poor Joe Boomerang, why, Joe whipped out a loose double tooth, rammed it home, and sent it crashing through the brute’s frontal ossicles.

He wanted to keep that tooth as a memento, but, by the jumping Harry! the Maharajah of Jubbulpore would take no denial, and that tooth is now the brightest jewel in the dusky prince’s coronet.

He had killed a panther with his naked hands--with one naked hand, in fact. It had leaped upon him with its mouth wide open, and in desperation he had thrust his arm down its throat, intending to tear its tongue out by the roots. But such was the momentum of the panther’s spring and his own thrust, that his arm went in up to the shoulder, and he found his strong right hand groping around the beast’s interior recesses. He tore its heart out, sir,--its heart,--and an assortment of lungs and ribs and other things.

He used to think no more of waking up with a deadly cobra-di-capello crawling up his leg, or a boa constrictor playfully entwining around his waist, than he did of taking his rice pillau or his customary curry. He never lost his presence of mind, by the jumping Harry, not he.

At last, as we were passing through the pleasant pasturage of Kildare, and rapidly nearing Portarlington, where we should part with Ryan, we managed to turn the conversation upon the unsettled state of affairs in Ireland.

“Ah!” said the blusterous Boomerang, “I’m going to change all that--down in Cork, anyhow. I’ll have the murderous scoundrels like mice in a fortnight. By the jumping Harry, I’ll settle ’em! I’ve quelled twenty-seven mutinies and blown four hundred tawny rascals to pulverized atoms in Bengal, and if I don’t make these marauding peasants here sing dumb, my name’s not Boomerang--Joe Boomerang, the terror of Janpore.”

“I don’t,” observed Burke, with a wink at Ryan, “I don’t blame the peasantry so much as those who are leading them astray. There’s Davitt, for instance.”

“I wish,” growled the major, “that I had that rapscallion within reach of my horsewhip, sir, for five minutes. I’d flay him,--flay him alive, sir. If he ever is fool enough to come in my direction, he’ll remember Joe Boomerang--fighting Joe--as long as he lives. Green snakes and wild elephants! I would annihilate the released convict, the pardoned thief, the--the--by the jumping Harry, sir, I would exterminate the wretch!”