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HIS LIFE, POEMS AND SPEECHES.
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debase nor prosperity destroy his manly independence. He remained throughout all his life a brave, honorable, Christian gentleman, a loyal friend, a generous foe, a lover of God and of his fellow-men.
It is not easy to write the last word of a lost friend so dear as this. Let the simple tribute of "a child, to John Boyle O'Reilly," written after his death, speak the love and grief of the many who hold his name in grateful memory:
You saw my leaf and praised it,
Until it grew a tree.
You saw my heart and raised it
To love and grow—for thee.
I bring, dear poet, all I have,—
My tree's leaf and my heart's love.
