A STORY AND A PRAYER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 202, 16 February 1877, Page 5

A STORY AND A PRAYER.

[from the irishman.] Conor O'Devant, aged and hoar, The sainted Bishop of Down, was meek And very feeble, for full four score Troublous years had rolled them o'er His being, and smitten his brow and cheek, When the English seized him in the year Of Christ eleven and sixteen hundred, And decreed — for of God feared they never a fear — That hanged by the neck he should be, and ere His body in death's embrace had slumbered, To quarters it should be torn and sundered. At the time whereat the virtue-mailed Heart of the bishop bowed before His doom, a priest, who away had sailed With the exiled earls — whom the nation wailed — To the brave dear France's glittering shore, And journeyed back to the olden land, Though persecution's storm thundered, By a dying peasant seen to stand, The Amor Amorum* in his hand, Was seized — while the angels before God wondered — And sentenced to hanged be and quarter sundered! The prelate had often been the guest Of the mighty Hugh in green Tyrone; Oft in the robes of his office dress' d Reaxi the holy Mass in his house, and blessed That " kingly king " without a throne j Mayhap, had counselled the chieftain brave, And spent long hours of the evening time Planning with him how the land to save, And when he had fled from it o'er the wave Mourned him ; this was the prelate's crime. (Death ! how I chafe as I make the rhyme !) And Patrick O'Loughrane, the priest, Who, as I say had sailed to Gaul, Came back to the Island with love increased By her sorrows, and never ceased To pray for her freedom, the tyrant's fall, And carried the chalice through and through The darkened land in his woe sublime, Shrove the quick and dying. When this they knew, What should my loved English do But seize brave Patrick for his crime. (How bumeth my heart as I write the rhyme !) The Bishop asked that the Priest should be Sent to his death before himself. Lest the horror of his, and the agony His watching eyes should upon him see, Should weaken his courage, or glint of wealth Corrupt him. But forth in the crowded street Spake the priest when the confessor's words had ended — " Go on before to the Judgment Seat, I shall follow ; it is not meet High Bishop as thou should be unattended, Let our blood be mingled here and blended !" And so by the necks they hanged the men (While angels at Gob's great patience wondered !) And the frightened people, who came forth when The executions were over, then Marked by the blood where their frames were sundered ! And dipped their handkerchiefs in the gore And kept them as relics. (Oh, brothers, where Are those dead banners ? Hang they o'er The paths of your lives ? Do they float before Your eyes each day in the whispering air That breathes in the village and city fair ?) Oh, friends, whom I tell the dread tale to, You may ask — " Oh, man is it right and good And truly loving, then, for you And treading in spirit the dark path through, To tell us a tale of wrong and blood ?" Yes, it is good ! for in my heart I hear the loud shouts of my fierce desire, And why should you not to the city mart Or country cottage doorway start, To gaze on the skies for the blaze of fire, Though those nights spying for it mine own eves tire ? #### * ' # O God of my fathers ? Thy great name Hath oft been confessed in this olden land — Confessed was by men in the face of shame, 'Mid the lurid light of their roof-beam's flame Till swept from their lips by the bloody brand ! O Father, look on the land tliese days, Create in the Island from shore to shore Hearts with such bright love lit always Of Thee and dear Ireland as erst did blaze In these of that priest and high Bishop hoar ! Hark ! ! Oh, no ! oh, woe ! 'tis but thunder's roar. Dublin, November, 1876. P. O'C. MacL • St. Bemud calls the Holy Euoharist "Love fcoves 1 "