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Self-Reliance

Author: Thomas Osborne Davis

File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof corrections by Beatrix Färber, Juliette Maffet

1. First draft, revised and corrected.

Extent of text: 860 words

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Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
Text ID Number: E850004-020

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Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.

Sources

Source
1. First published in the Nation.

Other writings by Thomas Davis
1. Thomas Davis, Essays Literary and Historical, ed. by D. J. O'Donoghue, Dundalk 1914.
2. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy (ed.), Thomas Davis, the memoirs of an Irish patriot, 1840-1846. 1890. [Reprinted entitled 'Thomas Davis' with an introduction of Brendan Clifford. Millstreet, Aubane Historical Society, 2000.]
3. Thomas Davis: selections from his prose and poetry. [Edited] with an introduction by T. W. Rolleston. London and Leipzig: T. Fisher Unwin (Every Irishman's Library). 1910. [Published in Dublin by the Talbot press, 1914.]
4. Thomas Osborne Davis, Literary and historical essays 1846. Reprinted 1998, Washington, DC: Woodstock Books.
5. Essays of Thomas Davis. New York, Lemma Pub. Corp. 1974, 1914 [Reprint of the 1914 ed. published by W. Tempest, Dundalk, Ireland, under the title 'Essays literary and historical'.]
6. Thomas Davis: essays and poems, with a centenary memoir, 1845-1945. Dublin, M.H. Gill and Son, 1945. [Foreword by an Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera.]
7. Angela Clifford, Godless colleges and mixed education in Ireland: extracts from speeches and writings of Thomas Wyse, Daniel O'Connell, Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy, Frank Hugh O'Donnell and others. Belfast: Athol, 1992.

Encoding

Project Description

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

Editorial Declaration

Correction

Text has been proof-read twice and parsed.

Normalization

The electronic text represents the edited text.

Quotation

There is no direct speech.

Hyphenation

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Interpretation

Names of persons, places or organisations are not tagged.

Profile Description

Created: by Thomas Davis (1840s)

Use of language

Language: [EN] The text is in English.

Revision History

• (2012-01-31)

  Beatrix Färber (ed.)

• File proofed (2), file parsed; SGML and HTML files created.
• (2012-01-16)

  Juliette Maffet (ed.)

• File proofed (1); header created; structural and content markup applied.
• (1996)

  Audrey Murphy (ed.)

• Text captured by scanning.

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E850004-020

Self-Reliance: Author: Thomas Osborne Davis

p.336

1. THOUGH savage force and subtle schemes,
   And alien rule, through ages lasting,
   Have swept your land like lava streams,
   Its wealth and name and nature blasting;
   Rot not, therefore, in dull despair,
   Nor moan at destiny in far lands!
   Face not your foe with bosom bare,
   Nor hide your chains in pleasure's garlands.
   The wise man arms to combat wrong,
   The brave man clears a den of lions,
   The true man spurns the Helot's song;
   The freeman's friend is Self-Reliance!
2. Though France that gave your exiles bread,
   Your priests a home, your hopes a station,
   Or that young land where first was spread
   The starry flag of Liberation,—
   Should heed your wrongs some future day,
   And send you voice or sword to plead 'em,
   With helpful love their help repay,
   But trust not even to them for Freedom.
   A Nation freed by foreign aid
   Is but a corpse by wanton science
   Convulsed like life, then flung to fade—
   The life itself is Self-Reliance!
3. Oh! see your quailing tyrant run
   To courteous lies, and Roman agents,
   His terror, lest Dungannon's sun
   Should rise again with riper radiance.

   ---

   p.337

   Oh! hark the Freeman's welcome cheer,
   And hark your brother sufferers sobbing;
   Oh! mark the universe grow clear,
   Oh! mark your spirit's royal throbbing—
   'Tis Freedom's God that sends such signs,
   As pledges of his blest alliance;
   He gives bright hopes to brave designs,
   And lends his bolts to Self-Reliance!
4. Then, flung alone, or hand in hand,
   In mirthful hour, or spirit solemn;
   In lowly toil, or high command,
   In social hall, or charging column:
   In tempting wealth, and trying woe,
   In struggling with a mob's dictation;
   In bearing back a foreign foe,
   In training up a troubled nation:
   Still hold to Truth, abound in Love,
   Refusing every base compliance—
   Your Praise within, your Prize above,
   And live and die in SELF-RELIANCE!