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Title: After Reading J. T. Gilbert's "The History Of Dublin"
Author: Denis Florence MacCarthy [
More Titles by MacCarthy]
Long have I loved the beauty of thy streets,
Fair Dublin: long, with unavailing vows,
Sigh'd to all guardian deities who rouse
The spirits of dead nations to new heats
Of life and triumph:--vain the fond conceits,
Nestling like eaves-warmed doves 'neath patriot brows!
Vain as the "Hope," that from thy Custom-House
Looks o'er the vacant bay in vain for fleets.
Genius alone brings back the days of yore:
Look! look, what life is in these quaint old shops--
The loneliest lanes are rattling with the roar
of coach and chair; fans, feathers, flambeaus, fops,
Flutter and flicker through yon open door,
Where Handel's hand moves the great organ stops.[1]
March 11th, 1856.
FOOTNOTE:
1. It is stated that the "Messiah" was first publicly performed in Dublin. See Gilbert's "History of Dublin," vol. i. p. 75, and Townsend's "Visit of Handel to Dublin," p. 64.
[The end]
Denis Florence MacCarthy's poem: After Reading J. T. Gilbert's "The History Of Dublin"
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