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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students

To Ireland

Percy Bysshe Shelley·1792–1822
Lines:28Movement:Romanticism
Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isleSees summer on its verdant pastures smile,Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweepThe billowy surface of thy circling deep!Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gavePeace, wealth and beauty, to its friendly wave, its blossoms fade,And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade;Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit,Whose chillness struck a canker to its root. I could standUpon thy shores, O Erin, and could countThe billows that, in their unceasing swell,Dash on thy beach, and every wave might seemAn instrument in Time the giant's grasp,To burst the barriers of Eternity.Proceed, thou giant, conquering and to conquer;March on thy lonely way! The nations fallBeneath thy noiseless footstep; pyramidsThat for millenniums have defied the blast,And laughed at lightnings, thou dost crush to nought.Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp,Is but the fungus of a winter dayThat thy light footstep presses into dust.Thou art a conqueror, Time; all things give wayBefore thee but the 'fixed and virtuous will';The sacred sympathy of soul which wasWhen thou wert not, which shall be when thou perishest. ...