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Poems
Sonnet: After Reading J. T. Gilbert's "The History Of Dublin."
By Denis Florence MacCarthy
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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.[107]
March 11th, 1856.
107. 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.
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