The Felon's Track eBook

Michael Doheny
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 328 pages of information about The Felon's Track.

The Felon's Track eBook

Michael Doheny
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 328 pages of information about The Felon's Track.

    I too shall be gone, but my name shall be spoken,
    When Erin awakes and her fetters are broken
    Some minstrel shall come in the summer’s eve gleaming,
    When Freedom’s young light on his spirit is beaming,
    And bend o’er my grave with a tear of emotion,
    Where calm Avonbui seeks the kisses of ocean,
    Or plant a wild wreath from the banks of that river,
    O’er the heart and the harp that are sleeping for ever.

We saw at a short distance, the pass which so enraptured us the night before, but we resisted the temptation to revisit it, lest the glare of light might disenchant us of those sublime impressions of beauty it had made on our minds.

We found a most comfortable dinner on our arrival, for which we could not account.  In the course of the evening we learned casually from our host that he had spent several years of his life where it was impossible he should not have seen and known me.  This was a disturbing conviction wherewith to retire to rest, but we trusted to our propitious stars, in which we had begun to feel a superstitious confidence.  We were not disappointed then or afterwards, and next morning we slept in unquestioning security.  We rose late and reluctantly, and left a scene where we enjoyed more undisturbed rest and real comfort than had fallen to our lot for weeks before.  The day became dark and showery.  Crossing the bogs in the recesses of Shehigh, we were overtaken by a storm, from which we took shelter in some hay gathered on the bleak moor, where I wrote the following:—­

      Hurrah for the outlaw’s life! 
      Hurrah for the felon’s doom! 
      Hurrah for the last death-strife! 
      Hurrah for an exile’s tomb! 
    Come life or death, ’tis still the same,
    So we preserve our stainless name
    From losel of the coward’s shame. 
      Hurrah for the mountain side! 
      Hurrah for the bivouac! 
      Hurrah for the heaving tide! 
      If rocking the felon’s track.

      Hurrah for the scanty meal! 
      If served by th’ ungrudging hand,
      Hurrah for the hearts of steel,
      Still true to this fallen land! 
    Still true, though every hazard brings
    Some new disaster on its wings,
    Which o’er her last faint hope it flings. 
        Hurrah, etc.

      Hurrah; though the gibbet loom! 
      Hurrah; though the brave be low! 
      Hurrah; though a villain doom! 
      The true to the headsman’s blow. 
    As long as one life-throb remain,
    We’ll spurn the tyrant’s gyve and chain
    On gallows-tree or bloody plain. 
      Hurrah, etc.

      Hurrah for that smile of light,
      Which like a prophetic star,
      Illumined the long, lone night
      Of the wanderers from afar. 
    Give us for resting-place the rath,
    Give us to brave the foeman’s wrath,

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Felon's Track from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.