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We Must not Fail

Author: Thomas Osborne Davis

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Electronic edition compiled by Beatrix Färber

Proof corrections by Beatrix Färber

1. First draft, revised and corrected.

Extent of text: 765 words

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Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
Text ID Number: E850004-034

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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.

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CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

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Profile Description

Created: by Thomas Davis (1840s)

Use of language

Language: [EN] The text is in English.

Revision History

• (2012-05-14)

  Beatrix Färber (ed.)

• Header created; file proofed (1, 2), structural markup applied, file parsed; SGML and HTML files created.
• (1996)

  Audrey Murphy (ed.)

• Text captured by scanning.

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E850004-034

We Must not Fail: Author: Thomas Osborne Davis

p.340

1. We must not fail, we must not fail,
   However fraud or force assail;
   By honour, pride, and policy,
   By Heaven itself!—we must be free.
2. Time had already thinned our chain,
   Time would have dulled our sense of pain;
   By service long, and suppliance vile,
   We might have won our owner's smile.

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p.341

3. We spurned the thought, our prison burst,
   And dared the despot to the worst;
   Renewed the strife of centuries,
   And flung our banner to the breeze.
4. We called the ends of earth to view
   The gallant deeds we swore to do;
   They knew us wronged, they knew us brave,
   And all we asked they freely gave.
5. We took the starving peasant's might
   To aid in winning back his right,
   We took the priceless trust of youth;
   Their freedom must redeem our truth.
6. We promised loud, and boasted high,
   "To break our country's chains, or die;"
   And, should we quail, that country's name
   Will be the synonym of shame.
7. Earth is not deep enough to hide
   The coward slave who shrinks aside;
   Hell is not hot enough to scathe
   The ruffian wretch who breaks his faith.
8. But—calm, my soul!—we promised true
   Her destined work our land shall do;
   Thought, courage, patience will prevail!
   We shall not fail—we shall not fail!