Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/160

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154
ANNALS OF THE

will he not lift his voice for poor Ireland? She who stands shivering, sinking on the Isthmus, between two worlds, apparently not fit for either. Will he not reach forth a kindly hand, and try to snatch this once interesting and lovely, though now forlorn and forsaken creature, from her fearful position? Must she, shall she die? Will proud England lose so bright a gem as Ireland might have been in her crown? Will she lose her; when the distaff, and the spade, the plow and the fishing net, might again make her mountains and her valleys rejoice!—When the song of the husbandman and the laugh of the milkmaid, might make her green isle the home of thousands, who are now sinking and dying in wasting despair.

"Do you say she is intriguing—she is indolent and treacherous? Try her once more; put instruments of working warfare into her hands; hold up the soul-stirring stimulus of remuneration to her; give her no time for meditating plunder and bloodshed; give her no inducement to be reckless of a life that exists only to suffer. Feed her not in idleness, nor taunt her with her nakedness and poverty, till her wasted, palsied limbs have been washed and clothed—till her empty stomach has been filled, and filled too with food of her own earning, when she shall have strength to do it. Give her a little spot on the loved isle she can call her own, where she can 'sit under her own vine and fig-tree, and none to make her afraid,' and force her not to flee to a distant clime to purchase that bread that would be sweeter on her own native soil. Do you say you cannot feed and