Poems (Greenwood)/Voices from the old world: the famine of 1847

by Grace Greenwood

VOICES FROM THE OLD WORLD: THE FAMINE OF 1847.

A voice from out the Highlands,
 Old Scotia's mountain homes!
From wild burn-side, and darksome glen,
 And towering steep, it comes!
Is it the shout of huntsmen bold,
 Who chase the antlered stag,
Who sound the horn and cheer the hound,
 And leap from crag to crag?
Is it the call of rising clans,
 The cry of gathering men?
Pours Freedom's rocky fortress forth
 Its Gaelic hordes again?
Throng round the Scottish chieftains
 Such hosts as, long ago,
In mountain storms of valor
 Swept down upon the foe?
When hoarse and deep, like thunder,
 Their shouts of vengeful wrath,
And the lightning of drawn claymores
 Flashed out upon their path?

Far other are the fearful sounds
 Borne o'er the wintry wave,—
The cry of mortal agony,
 The death-groans of the brave!
For once a foe invincible
 The kilted Gael hath found;
At length one field beholds him yield,—
 Starvation's battle-ground!

Thus, thus come forth the mountaineers,—
 Pale, gaunt, and ghastly bands,
Who westward turn their frenzied eyes,
 And stretch their shrivelled hands!
And like the shriek of madness comes
 Their wild, beseeching cry,—
"Bread, bread! we faint, we waste, we starve!
 Bread, bread! O God, we die!"

And shall they perish thus, whose sires,
 Stout warrior-men and stern,
With Wallace battled side by side,
 And bled at Bannockburn?

Where Freedom's new-world realms expand
 Where western sunsets glow,
A nation with one mighty Voice
 Gives back the answer,—No!
'T is ours, 't is ours, the godlike power
 To bid doomed thousands live!
Then let us on the waters cast
 The bread of our reprieve.
Give, give!—when Scotia's proud sons beg,
 O Heaven, who would not give?

And forms of womanhood are there,—
 The matron and the maid,—
Strange, haggard, famine-wasted shapes,
 In tattered garbs arrayed.
And these are they whose beauties rare
 Are famed in song and story!
And these are they whose mothers' names
 Are linked with Scotland's glory!

Ah, they too gaze, with dim, sad eyes,
 Out o'er the western main!—
While there are beating woman-hearts
 They shall not gaze in vain!
We rest not till we minister
 To their despairing need;
Give, give!—O Heaven, who would not give
 When Scotia's daughters plead?

A voice from Erin's storied isle
 Comes sweeping o'er the main!
Ha! calls she on her sons to strike
 For freedom once again?
Or rises from her heart of fire
 The pealing voice of song,
Or rolls the tide of eloquence
 The burdened air along?
Or, ringeth out some lay of love,
 By blue-eyed maidens sung,
Or, sweeter, dearer music yet,
 The laughter of the young?

Far other is that fearful voice,
 A sound of woe and dread!
'T is Erin mourning for her sons,
 The dying and the dead!
They perish in the open fields,
 They fall beside the way,
Or lie within their hovel-homes,
 Their bed the damp, cold clay,
And watch the sluggish tide of life
 Ebb slowly day by day!
They sink as sinks the mariner
 When wrecked upon the wave,
"Unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown,"
 No winding-sheet,—no grave!

To us her cry. Be our reply,
 Bread-laden argosies!
Let love's divine armada meet
 Her fearful enemies!
Give, give! and feel the smile of God
 Upon thy spirit lie;
Draw back, and let thy poor soul hear
 Its angel's parting sigh.
Give, give!—O Heaven, who would not give
 When Erin's brave sons die?

O sisters, there are famishing
 The old, with silver hair,
And dead, unburied babes are left
 To waste upon the air,
And mothers wan and fever-worn
 Beside their hearths are sinking,
And maiden forms, while yet in life,
 To skeletons are shrinking!

Ho, freight the good ship to the wale,—
 Pile high the golden grain!
A nation's life-boat spreads her sail,—
 God speed her o'er the main!
His peace shall calm the stormy skies,
 And rest upon the waters.
Give, give!—O Heaven, who would not give
 When perish Erin's daughters?