13 MARCH 1886, Page 19

POETRY.

SONNET: A CRY FROM IRELAND.

I HEARD a voice come moaning over sea,

"England and ye who fain would legislate, Heart-cankering woe and immemorial hate Are not the servants of a law's decree : Cleave us asunder ! we are bond, not free.

League-makers tyrannise, the priests dictate, Give us the land ! yet Famine will not bate Her stern demands of all she holds in fee, Our bodies' breath and marrow : we are slaves, Slaves to tradition's wrong and tribal scorn, And though our acres, bog and moor and fen, From dragon's teeth may yield its armed men, Pale Hunger stands above our shallow graves, And wringing empty hands cries out for corn."

H. D. IL