Built by the proudest of a kingly line,
Over my head the centuries fly fast;
The secrets of the mighty dead are mine;
I hold the key of a forgotten past.
Yet, ever hushed into a rapturous dream,
I see again that night. A halo mild
Shone from the liquid moon. Beneath her beam
Traveled a tired young Mother and the Child.
Within mine arms she slumbered, and alone
I watched the Infant. At my feet her guide
Lay stretched o'er-wearied. On my breast of stone
Rested the Crucified.
ANDROMEDA
By James Jeffrey Roche
They chained her fair young body to the cold and cruel stone;
The beast begot of sea and slime had marked her for his own;
The callous world beheld the wrong, and left her there alone.
Base caitiffs who belied her, false kinsmen who denied her,
Ye left her there alone!
My Beautiful, they left thee in thy peril and thy pain;
The night that hath no morrow was brooding on the main:
But, lo! a light is breaking of hope for thee again;
'T is Perseus's sword a-flaming, thy dawn of day proclaiming
Across the western main.
O Ireland! O my country! he comes to break thy chain!
