Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/158

Ever the same—from boyhood up to death:
His race was crushed—his people were defamed;
He found the spark, and fanned it with his breath,
And fed the fire, till all the nation flamed!

He roused the farms—he made the serf a yeoman;
He drilled his millions and he faced the foe;
But not with lead or steel he struck the foeman:
Reason the sword—and human right the blow.

He fought for home—but no land-limit bounded
O'Connell's faith, nor curbed his sympathies;
All wrong to liberty must be confounded.
Till men were chainless as the winds and seas.

He fought for faith—but with no narrow spirit;
With ceaseless hand the bigot laws he smote;
One chart, he said, all mankind should inherit—
The right to worship and the right to vote.