It claims it on the callous Judge, It claims it for his ruined Isle, Her wretched children's grave; Where withered Freedom droops her head, And man exists-a slave. Oh! sacred justice, free this land No retribution should we seek- Nor shall a tyrant's ashes mix, And those who here are laid at rest, Unconsecrated is this ground, No bell here tolls its solemn sound, But here the patriot's tears are shed, LINES BY ROBERT EMMET. Genius of Erin tune thy harp To Freedom, let its sound awake Thy prostrate sons, and nerve their hearts, Oppression's iron bonds to break. Long and strong then strike the lyre, Bid the fire of freedom blaze. Tell them glory waits their efforts, Greatly daring, bid them gain her, But, if her sons, too long opprest, Vainly then you'd call to glory, Check thy hand, and change thy strain. Show her fields with blood ensanguined, With her children's blood bedewed, Show her desolate plains, With their murdered bodies strewed. Mark that hamlet, how it blazes, Hear the shrieks of horror rise, See, the fiends prepare their tortures, Ruin stalks his haggard round, All but tyrants and their slaves Erin's sons, awake!-awake! Ah! where is now my peaceful cot, Far from my country I am driven, A wanderer sent from thee, But, still, my constant prayer to heaven, Shall be to make thee free. R. E. LINES BY ROBERT EMMET. Brothers rise, your country calls, Decked with brightest wreath shall die; Long by 's power opprest, Brothers, march, march on to glory, We swear to conquer or to die. APPENDIX. THE manifesto of the privisional government, drawn up by Robert Emmet, and found at the Depot in Marshalsea-lane, was produced on the trial of Edward Kearney. Lieutenant Coltman, of the 9th Regiment, proved that several bundles of this document were found in the Depot " quite wet from the press." Extracts from the documents have been published, and the entire manifesto that was produced on Kearney's trial is given in Ridgeway's Report, but knowing the unscrupulous conduct of the government agents of that day with respect to such documents, I thought it desirable to give an exact copy of the original paper, the authenticity of which might be depended on. I am indebted to Miss M'Cracken for the copy of that document, and of the proclamation annexed to it, which were found among Russell's papers. "THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT TO THE "You are now called upon to show the world that you are competent to take your place among nations; that you have a right to claim their recogizance of you, as an independent country; by the only satisfactory proof you can furnish of your capability of maintaining your independence, your wresting it from England with your own hands. "In the development of this system, which has been organized within the last eight months; at the close of internal defeat, and without the hope of foreign assistance, which has been conducted with a tranquillity mistaken for obedience, which neither the failure of a similar attempt in England has retarded, nor the renewal of hostilities has accelerated; in the development of this system you will show the people of England, that there is a spirit of perseverance in this country beyond their power to calculate or repress; you will show to them that as long as they think to hold unjust dominion over Ireland, under no change of circumstances can they count on its obedience, under no aspect of affairs can they judge of its intentions; you will show to them that the question which it now behooves them to take into serious consideration, is not whether they will resist a separation, which it is our fixed determination to effect, but whether or not they will drive us beyond separation, whether they will by a sanguinary resistance create a deadly national antipathy between the two countries, or whether they take the only means still left of driving such a sentiment from our minds, by a prompt, manly, and sagacious acquiescence in our just and reasonable determination. If the secrecy with which the present effort has been conducted, shall have led our enemies to suppose that its extent must have been partial, a few days will undeceive them. That confidence which was once lost by trusting to external support, and suffering our own means to be gradually undermined, has been again restored. We have been mutually pledged to each other to look only to our own strength, and that the first introduction of a system of terror, the first attempt to execute an individual in one county, should be the signal of insurrection in all. We have now, without the loss of a man, with our means of communication untouched, brought our plans to the moment when they are ripe for execution, and, in the promptitude with which nineteen counties will come forward at once to execute them, it will be found that neither confidence nor communication are wanting to the people of Ireland. "In calling on our countrymen to come forward, we feel ourselves bound, at the same time, to justify our claim to their confidence by a precise declaration of our views. We therefore solemnly declare that our object is to establish a free and independent republic in Ireland; that the pursuit of this object we will relinquish only with our lives; that we will never, unless at the express call of our country, abandon our posts, until the acknowledgment of its independence is obtained from |
