Ban and Arriere Ban: A Rally of Fugitive Rhymes
Cruel and angry face, Hateful and heavy with wine, Where are the gladness, the grace, The beauty, the mirth that were thine?

Ah, my Prince, it were well,—  Hadst thou to the gods been dear,— To have fallen where Keppoch fell, With the war-pipe loud in thine ear! To have died with never a stain On the fair White Rose of Renown, To have fallen, fighting in vain, For thy father, thy faith, and thy crown! More than thy marble pile, With its women weeping for thee, Were to dream in thine ancient isle, To the endless dirge of the sea! But the Fates deemed otherwise, Far thou sleepest from home, From the tears of the Northern skies, In the secular dust of Rome.

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p. 13A city of death and the dead, But thither a pilgrim came, Wearing on weary head The crowns of years and fame: Little the Lucrine lake Or Tivoli said to him, Scarce did the memories wake Of the far-off years and dim. For he stood by Avernus’ shore, But he dreamed of a Northern glen And he murmured, over and o’er,  ‘For Charlie and his men:’ And his feet, to death that went, Crept forth to St. Peter’s shrine, And the latest Minstrel bent O’er the last of the Stuart line.

p. 13

p. 14FROM OMAR KHAYYAM

p. 14

RHYMED FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY M‘CARTHY

RHYMED FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF

MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY M‘CARTHY

The Paradise they bid us fast to win Hath Wine and Women; is it then a sin To live as we shall live in Paradise, And make a Heaven of Earth, ere Heaven begin?

The

The wise may search the world from end to end, From dusty nook to dusty nook, my friend, And nothing better find than girls and wine, Of all the things they neither make nor mend.

Nay, listen thou who, walking on Life’s way, Hast seen no lovelock of thy love’s grow grey Listen, and love thy life, and let the Wheel Of Heaven go spinning its own wilful way.


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