John Boyle O'Reilly Poems

'SHE is dead!' they say; 'she is robed for the grave; O there are lilies upon her breast;
Her mother has kissed her clay-cold lips, and folded her hands to rest;
Her blue eyes show through the waxen lids: they have hidden her hair's gold crown;
Her grave is dug, and its heap of earth is waiting to press her down.'
...

I START! I have slept for a moment;
I have dreamt, sitting here by her chair—
Oh, how lonely! What was it that touched me?
What presence, what heaven-sent air?
...

Do you love me?' she said, when the skies were blue,
And we walked where the stream through the branches glistened;
And I told and retold her my love was true,
While she listened and smiled, and smiled and listened.
...

THERE is no truth in faces, save in children:
They laugh and frown and weep from nature's keys;
But we who meet the world give out false notes,
The true note dying muffled in the heart.
...

HOW did he live, this dead man here,
With the temple above his grave?
He lived as a great one, from cradle to bier
He was nursed in luxury, trained in pride
...

There is one bright star in heaven
Ever shining in my night;
God to me one guide has given
Like the sailor's beacon light,
...

Farewell! Oh how hard and how sad 'tis to speak
That last word of parting—forever to break
The fond ties and affection that cling round the heart
From home and from friends and from country to part.
...

'What is the real good?'
I ask in a musing mood.

'Order,' said the law court;
'Knowledge,' said the school;
...

To toil all day and lie worn-out at night;
To rise for all the years to slave and sleep,
And breed new broods to do no other thing
In toiling, bearing, breeding — life is this
...

THOSE we love truly never die,
Though year by year the sad memorial wreath,
A ring and flowers, types of life and death,
Are laid upon their graves.
...