John Boyle O'Reilly Poems

A MAN is not the slave of circumstance,
Or need not be, but builder and dictator;
He makes his own events, not time nor chance;
Their logic his: not creature, but creator.
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THERE once was a pirate, greedy and bold,
Who ravaged for gain, and saved the spoils;
Till his coffers were bursting with bloodstained gold,
And millions of captives bore his toils.
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A SOFT-BREASTED bird from the sea
Fell in love with the light-house flame;
And it wheeled round the tower on its airiest wing,
And floated and cried like a lovelorn thing;
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JOYS have three stages, Hoping, Having, and Had:
The hands of Hope are empty, and the heart of Having is sad;
For the joy we take, in the taking dies; and the joy we Had is its ghost.
Now, which is the better—the joy unknown or the joy we have clasped and lost?
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Trapper died—our hero—and we grieved;
In every heart in camp the sorrow stirred.
'His soul was red!' the Indian cried, bereaved;
'A white man, he!' the grim old Yankee's word.
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NOR War nor Peace, forever, old and young,
But Strength my theme, whose song is yet unsung,
The People's Strength, the deep alluring dream
Of truths that seethe below the truths that seem
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WHERE shall we seek for a hero, and where shall we find a story?
Our laurels are wreathed for conquest, our songs for completed glory.
But we honor a shrine unfinished, a column uncapped with pride,
If we sing the deed that was sown like seed when Crispus Attucks died
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I do not know the meaning of the sign,
But bend before its power, as a reed bends
When the black tornado fills the valley to the lips.
Three times in twenty years its shape has come
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NOT on the word alone
Let love depend;
Neither by actions done
Choose ye the friend.
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IT is sweet to rejoice for a day,—
For a day that is reached at last!
It is well for wanderers in new lands,
Slow climbers toward a lofty mountain pass
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