The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1891-08-01
A PLEA FOR ERIN.

They've always dwelt In shadows.
Or if the sun in heaven shines,
1t brings to them no blessing;
Their lives are dark with want and toll,
They're slaves to- night. distressing.
And if the flowers in meadows bloom
Is anyone made better?
The children cannot pluck the flowers,
For each one wears fetter,
A fetter which from morn till night
The little lives keeps grinding,
And if the poor life stops to rest
The letters made more binding.
While they are young and should receive
A mothers dear caresses,
The factory, with dark, black walls,
Their little lives congresses.
Or in the sun their.little hands
Are blistered with the wedding,
And little bare feet limp with pain,
And are 80 sore from bleeding.
The children do not all die young,
No, many live benighted,
And womanhood and manhood. too,
Shows lives forever blighted.
For toll imposed by tyrant's hand,
With little compensation.
The whole time thus demands and leaves
No room for education.
And if the time could we'll be spared,
The taxes are SO heavy;
No favors do the tyrants give
Till first the fees they levy.
And thus the children either die.
Or live such lives OF sorrow;
Each day the same hard round Of toll,
No gladness brings the morrow.
In Ignorance and want and woe,
But bondage ever scorning,
The generations still pass on,
Awaiting for the morning.
We hear you ask, where is the land
Where dwell these children dying?
And what's the cause of all this woe.
This sorrow and this signing?
Is there not something we can do
10 stay the plague. blood-chiliing,
Which in that land across the sea
Is all the children killing?
And why do not the people there
Set every nerve to working
TO find the cause of such a curse,
Which in their land is lurking?
Can no physician there be found
To give healing potion
To children dying day by day,
Far off across the ocean?
Have they no money there to buy
The remedy they're needing?
Or shall the children still die on,
And mothers hearts keep bleeding?
All, we'll, if we should tell you where
These troubles are arising,
And why the children die, you'd think
The facts we were Disgusting.
For truth, tits said, and truly, too,
Is stranger far than fiction,
And often when we know the facts
There seems to be confiction.
The land where dwell these children sad,
Is Ireland, bright and sunny.
The cause of all their pain and woe.
Summed briefly up, is money.
Yes money to tyrant paid,
Demands which are unlawful;
The thought of all the suffering
BY this demand is awful.
The Emerald Isle, so green and fair,
With valley, glen and river.
Has blight enough with it's one curse
To make the whole world shiver.
This blight on sunny Erin's Isle
Should rouse up every nation;
All! more than that. a helping hand
Should come from all creation.
OF all fair lands beneath the sun.
There's none should have more gladness
Than bonny Ireland, bright and green,
But ali! none has more sadness.
Yes, nature hath this land endowed
With pretty scenes most cheerful,
But man with haughtiness and pride,
Hath made the glad eye fearful.
The landlord holds, with wicked clutch,
The poor man in his power.
And snatches every year with greed,
His earnings Or his dover.
And thus the poor man is serf,
A slave bound to master
Who has no pity in distress.
But binds the ave the faster.
For when the poor mans crops are scant
And he is sore afflicted,
No mercy doth the master show.
But turns him out, evicted.
This ruthless landlords more than king,
A tyrant, mean and nameless;
All! who that brushes lives of men
Will of crime be blameless?
And think you that crime shall stand
AS unavenged forever?
That Justice will withhold her hand?
All no, believe it never!
For just as sure as Justice sits
Upon her lawful tower,
SO soon or late, with dreadful doom,
She will assert her power.
And Erin shall shine forth one day,
A dormant force lies sleeping
That in the future shall awake
And Danish all the weeping.
Yes, rouse yesstatesmen, haste the day,
Why do We tarry longer?
All! know ye not that each delay
But makes the tyrant stronger?
All! surely ye perceive the wrong,
Ye men of higher station,
Just look abroad and ye must see
The evils of this nation.