disillusion
TRANSCRIPT
Irish Jesuit Province
DisillusionAuthor(s): John CunninghamSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 47, No. 558 (Dec., 1919), p. 673Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20505428 .
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ziN ANGLO-IRISH READING PROGRAMME. 673
century, Anglo-Irish authors drew from a deeper well. But before the 18-hundreds ended, the English language was wielded by one writer who was inispired by something of the peculiar realities of Irish life. In Wolfe Tone's writ ings the profounder emotions of Ireland found expression, and behind the patriotic note there throbbed the chords of humanism and idealism in which Irish sympathy re echoed the sentiments of unhappy humanity. Patriotism, reaching out to world-problems, was to make 19th century Irish literature more vital, more original, more characteris tic, and more intense.
DISILLUSION.
Oft have I wat.ched the hills with strange delight While Evening lingered on their golden tips, Or, on their breast sat smiling, till eclipse, Sudden and dark, had ravished her from sight.
The hills that late, in vivid green and gold, And stately purple glittering, charmed the eye, Now, indistinct against the shadowy sky Rose lone and sombre, cheerless to behold.
The sun had set, and all the bright array Precipitate had vanished in his train, And from the stage, where solitude amain Repulsive frowned, I turned me sad away.
And such, methought, is every earthly show, In Fancy's light how brilliant e'er it seems: Life's fairest smile is but a parting gleam, And all its glory but an evening glow.
JOHTN CUNNINGHAM, P.P.
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