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SONGS, LEGENDS, AND BALLADS.
Thrice a thousand years upon them — shaming all our later art—
Warning fingers raised to tell us we must build with rev'rent heart.
Ah, we call thee Mother Erin! Mother thou in right of years;
Mother in the large fruition—mother in the joys and tears.
All thy life has been a symbol—we can only read a part:
God will flood thee yet with sunshine for the woes that drench thy heart.
All thy life has been symbolic of a human mother's life:
Youth's sweet hopes and dreams have vanished, and the travail and the strife
Are upon thee in the present; but thy work until to-day-
Still has been for truth and manhood—and it shall not pass away:
