Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/131

O, God bless you, Priests of Ireland! You were waiting with a will,
You were waiting with a purpose when you bade your flocks be still;
And you preached from off your altars not alone the Word Sublime,
But your silence preached to Irishmen—"Be patient: bide your time!"
And they heard you, and obeyed, as well as outraged men could do:—
Only some, who loved poor Ireland, but who erred in doubting you.
Doubting you, who could not tell them why you spake the strange behest—
You, who saw the day was coming when the moral strength was best—
You, whose hearts were sore with looking on your country's quick decay—
You, whose chapel seats were empty and your people fled away—
You, who marked amid the fields where once the peasant's cabin stood—