Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

The Warning Voice (Author: James Clarence Mangan)

p.96

1. Ye Faithful—ye noble!
   A day is at hand
   Of trial and trouble,
   And woe in the land!
   O'er a once greenest path,
   Now blasted and sterile,
   Its dusk shadows loom—
   It cometh with Wrath,
   With Conflict and Peril,
   With Judgment and Doom!
2. False bands shall be broken,
   Dead systems shall crumble,
   And the haughty shall hear
   Truths never yet spoken,
   Though smouldering like flame
   Through many a lost year

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   p.97

   In the hearts of the Humble;
   For hope will expire
   As the terror draws nigher,
   And, with it, the Shame
   Which so long overawed
   Men's minds by its might—
   And the Powers abroad
   Will be Panic and Blight,
   And phrenetic Sorrow—
   Black Pest all the night,
   And Death on the morrow!
3. Now, therefore, ye True,
   Gird your loins up anew!
   By the good you have wrought?
   By all you have thought,
   And suffered, and done!
   By your souls! I implore you,
   Be leal to your mission—
   Remembering that one
   Of the two paths before you
   Slopes down to Perdition!
   To you have been given,
   Not granaries and gold,
   But the Love that lives long,
   And waxes not cold;
   And the Zeal that has striven
   Against Error and Wrong,
   And in fragments had riven
   The chains of the strong!
   Bide now, by your sternest
   Conceptions of earnest
   Endurance for others,
   Your weaker-souled brothers!

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   p.98

   Your true faith and worth
   Will be History soon,
   And their stature stand forth
   In the unsparing Noon!
4. You have dreamed of an era
   Of Knowledge, and Truth,
   And Peace—the true glory!
   Was this a chimera?
   Not so!—but the childhood and youth
   Of our days will grow hoary,
   Before such a marvel shall burst on their sight!
   On you its beams glow not—
   For you its flowers blow not,
   You cannot rejoice in its light,
   But in darkness and suffering instead,
   You go down to the place of the Dead!
   To this generation
   The sore tribulation,
   The stormy commotion,
   And foam of the Popular Ocean,
   The struggle of class against class;
   The Dearth and the Sadness,
   The Sword and the War-vest;
   To the next, the Repose and the Gladness,
   ‘The Sea of clear glass,’
   And the rich Golden Harvest.
5. Know, then, your true lot,
   Ye faithful, though few!
   Understand your position,
   Remember your mission,
   And vacillate not,
   Whatsoever ensue!
   Alter not! Falter not!

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   p.99

   Palter not now with your own living souls,
   When each moment that rolls
   May see Death lay his hand
   On some new victim's brow!
   Oh! let not your vow
   Have been written in sand!
   Leave cold calculations,
   Of Danger and Plague,
   To the slaves and the traitors
   Who cannot dissemble
   The dastard sensations
   That now make them tremble
   With phantasies vague!—
   The men without ruth—
   The hypocrite haters
   Of Goodness and Truth,
   Who at heart curse the race
   Of the sun through the skies;
   And would look in God's face
   With a lie in their eyes!
   To the last do your duty,
   Still mindful of this—
   That Virtue is Beauty,
   And Wisdom, and Bliss;
   So, howe'er, as frail men, you have erred on
   Your way along Life's throngèd road,
   Shall your consciences prove a sure guerdon
   And tower of defence,
   Until Destiny summon you hence
   To the Better Abode!