John Boyle O'Reilly Poems

Life is a certainty,
Death is a doubt;
Men may be dead
While they’re walking about.
...

THERE once was a time when, as old songs prove it,
The earth was not round, but an endless plain;
The sea was as wide as the heavens above it—
Just millions of miles, and begin again.
...

LOVE was true to me,
True and tender;
I who ought to be
Love's defender,
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I'D rather live in Bohemia than in any other land;
For only there are the values true,
And the laurels gathered in all men's view.
The prizes of traffic and state are won
...

LOVE found them sitting in a woodland place,
His amorous hand amid her golden tresses;
And Love looked smiling on her glowing face
And moistened eyes upturned to his caresses.
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THERE is a shadow on the sunny wall,
Dark and forbidding, like a bode of ill;
Go, drive it thence. Alas, such shadows fall
From real things, nor may be moved at will.
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AY, smile as you will, with your saintly face!
But I know the line
Of your guard is as weak as a maze of lace:
You may give no sign—
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THUNDER our thanks to her—guns, hearts and lips!
Cheer from the ranks to her,
Shout from the banks to her—
Mayflower! Foremost and best of our ships
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WE were down in the Indian Ocean, after sperm, and three years out;
The last six months in the tropics, and looking in vain for a spout,—
Five men up on the royal yards, weary of straining their sight;
And every day like its brother,—just morning and noon and night—
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THERE is an old tradition sacred held in Wexford town,
That says: 'Upon St. Martin's Eve no net shall be let down;
No fishermen of Wexford shall, upon that holy day,
Set sail or cast a line within the scope of Wexford Bay.'
...