Part 5

But there must be a change -- I feel it. To-night not an old picture came; The fire's bright flames only painted One Heart, one Face, and one Name.

Three pictures? No! only one picture; The Face belongs to the Name, And the Name names the Heart that is throbbing Just back of the beautiful flame.

Who said it, I wonder: "All faces Must fade in the light of but one; The soul, like the earth, may have many Horizons, but only one sun?"

Who dreamt it? Did I? If I dreamt it 'Tis true -- every name passes by Save one; the sun wears many cloudlets Of gold, but has only one sky.

And out of the flames have they faded, The hearts and the faces of yore? Have they sunk 'neath the gray of the ashes To rise to my vision no more?

Yes, surely, or else I would see them To-night, just as bright as of old, In the white of the coal's silver flashes, In the red of the restless flames' gold.

Do you say I am fickle and faithless? Else why are the old pictures gone? And why should the visions of many Melt into the vision of one?

Nay! list to the voice of the Heavens, "One Eternal alone reigns above." Is it true? and all else are but idols, So the heart can have only one love?

Only one, all the rest are but idols, That fall from their shrines soon or late, When the Love that is Lord of the temple, Comes with sceptre and crown to the gate.

To be faithless oft means to be faithful, To be false often means to be true; The vale that loves clouds that are golden Forgets them for skies that are blue.

To forget often means to remember What we had forgotten too long; The fragrance is not the bright flower, The echo is not the sweet song.

Am I dreaming? No, there is the firelight, Gaze I ever so long, all the same I only can see in its glowing A Heart, a Face, and a Name.

Farewell! all ye hearts, names, and faces! Only ashes now under the blaze, Ye never again will smile on me, For I'm touching the end of my days.

And the beautiful fading firelight Paints, now, with a pencil of flame, Three pictures -- yet only one picture -- A Heart, a Face, and a Name.

The Old Year and the New

How swift they go, Life's many years, With their winds of woe And their storms of tears, And their darkest of nights whose shadowy slopes Are lit with the flashes of starriest hopes, And their sunshiny days in whose calm heavens loom The clouds of the tempest -- the shadows of the gloom!

And ah! we pray With a grief so drear, That the years may stay When their graves are near; Tho' the brows of To-morrows be radiant and bright, With love and with beauty, with life and with light, The dead hearts of Yesterdays, cold on the bier, To the hearts that survive them, are evermore dear.

For the hearts so true To each Old Year cleaves; Tho' the hand of the New Flowery garlands weaves. But the flowers of the future, tho' fragrant and fair, With the past's withered leaflets may never compare; For dear is each dead leaf -- and dearer each thorn -- In the wreaths which the brows of our past years have worn.

Yea! men will cling With a love to the last, And wildly fling Their arms round their past! As the vine that clings to the oak that falls; As the ivy twines round the crumbled walls; For the dust of the past some hearts higher prize Than the stars that flash out from the future's bright skies.

And why not so? The old, Old Years, They knew and they know All our hopes and fears; We walked by their side, and we told them each grief, And they kissed off our tears while they whispered relief; And the stories of hearts that may not be revealed In the hearts of the dead years are buried and sealed.

Let the New Year sing At the Old Year's grave: Will the New Year bring What the Old Year gave? Ah! the Stranger-Year trips over the snows, And his brow is wreathed with many a rose: But how many thorns do the roses conceal Which the roses, when withered, shall so soon reveal?

Let the New Year smile When the Old Year dies; In how short a while Shall the smiles be sighs? Yea! Stranger-Year, thou hast many a charm, And thy face is fair and thy greeting warm, But, dearer than thou -- in his shroud of snows -- Is the furrowed face of the Year that goes.

Yea! bright New Year, O'er all the earth, With song and cheer, They will hail thy birth; They will trust thy words in a single hour, They will love thy face, they will laud thy power; For the ~New~ has charms which the ~Old~ has not, And the Stranger's face makes the Friend's forgot.

Erin's Flag

Unroll Erin's flag! fling its folds to the breeze! Let it float o'er the land, let it flash o'er the seas! Lift it out of the dust -- let it wave as of yore, When its chiefs with their clans stood around it and swore That never! no, never! while God gave them life, And they had an arm and a sword for the strife, That never! no, never! that banner should yield As long as the heart of a Celt was its shield: While the hand of a Celt had a weapon to wield And his last drop of blood was unshed on the field.

Lift it up! wave it high! 'tis as bright as of old! Not a stain on its green, not a blot on its gold, Tho' the woes and the wrongs of three hundred long years Have drenched Erin's sunburst with blood and with tears! Though the clouds of oppression enshroud it in gloom, And around it the thunders of Tyranny boom. Look aloft! look aloft! lo! the clouds drifting by, There's a gleam through the gloom, there's a light in the sky, 'Tis the sunburst resplendent -- far, flashing on high! Erin's dark night is waning, her day-dawn is nigh!

Lift it up! lift it up! the old Banner of Green! The blood of its sons has but brightened its sheen; What though the tyrant has trampled it down, Are its folds not emblazoned with deeds of renown? What though for ages it droops in the dust, Shall it droop thus forever? No, no! God is just! Take it up! take it up! from the tyrant's foul tread, Let him tear the Green Flag -- we will snatch its last shred, And beneath it we'll bleed as our forefathers bled, And we'll vow by the dust in the graves of our dead, And we'll swear by the blood which the Briton has shed, And we'll vow by the wrecks which through Erin he spread, And we'll swear by the thousands who, famished, unfed, Died down in the ditches, wild-howling for bread; And we'll vow by our heroes, whose spirits have fled, And we'll swear by the bones in each coffinless bed, That we'll battle the Briton through danger and dread; That we'll cling to the cause which we glory to wed, 'Til the gleam of our steel and the shock of our lead Shall prove to our foe that we meant what we said -- That we'll lift up the green, and we'll tear down the red!

Lift up the Green Flag! oh! it wants to go home, Full long has its lot been to wander and roam, It has followed the fate of its sons o'er the world, But its folds, like their hopes, are not faded nor furled; Like a weary-winged bird, to the East and the West, It has flitted and fled -- but it never shall rest, 'Til, pluming its pinions, it sweeps o'er the main, And speeds to the shores of its old home again, Where its fetterless folds o'er each mountain and plain Shall wave with a glory that never shall wane.