Poor splendid Poet of the burning eyes <br />And withered hair and godly pallid brow, <br />Low-voiced and shrinking and apart wert thou, <br />And little men thy dreaming could despise. <br />How vain, how vain the laughter of the wise! <br />Before thy Folly's throne their children bow-- <br />For lo! thy deathless spirit triumphs now, <br />And mortal wrongs and envious Time defies. <br /> <br />And all their prate of frailty : thou didst stand <br />The barren virtue of their lives above, <br />And above lures of fame ;-- though to thy hand <br />All strings of music throbbed, thy single love <br />Was, in high trust, to hymn thy Gaelic land <br />And passionate proud woes of Roisin Dubh.<br /><br />Thomas MacDonagh<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-james-clarence-mangan/
