SEARC'S WEB GUIDE - Richard D'Alton Williams (1822-1862)

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19th Century Ireland - Richard D'Alton Williams (1822-1862)

Richard D'Alton Williams was born in Dublin. He was educated at Carlow Academy and studied medicine at Saint Vincent's Hospital, Dublin. D'Alton Williams was a member of the Young Ireland movement and contributed poetry to The Nation under the pseudonym 'Shamrock'. In 1848 he was tried for Treason for articles he published in the Irish Tribune but he was successfully defended by lawyer and fellow poet Samuel Ferguson. D'Alton Williams completed his medical studies in Scotland and emigrated to America in 1851. He later held the Chair of Belles-Lettres at Spring Hill College, Alabama and taught at the Jesuit College in Thibideaux, Louisana. D'Alton Williams' Poems were published posthumously in 1901.©

The Extermination
When tyranny pampered and purple-clad minions
Drive forth the lone widow and orphan to die,
Shall no angel of vengeance unfurl his red pinions,
And, grasping sharp thunderbolts, rush from on high?

'Pity! oh, pity! - a little while spare me:
My baby is sick - I am feeble and poor;
In the cold Winter blast, from the hut if you tear me.
My Lord, we must die on the desolate moor!'

'Tis vain - for the despot replies but with laughter,
While rudely his serfs thrust her forth on the wold:
Her cabin is blazing from the threshold to rafter,
And she crawls o'er the mountain, sick, weeping, and cold.

Her thinly-clad child on the stormy hill shivers-
The thunders are pealing dread anthems around-
Loud roar in their anger the tempest-lashed rivers-
And the loosened rocks down with the wild torrents bound.

Vainly she tries in her bosom to cherish
Her sick infant boy, 'mid the horrors around,
Till, faint and despairing, she sees her babe perish-
Then lifeless she sinks on the snow-covered ground.

Though the children of Ammon, with trumpets and psalters,
To devils poured torrents of innocents' gore,
Let them blush from deep hell at the far redder altars,
Where the death-dealing tyrants of Ireland adore!

But, for Erin's life-current, thro' long ages flowing,
Dark demons that pierce her, you yet shall atone;
Even now the volcano beneath you is glowing,
And the Moloch of tyranny reels on the throne.

© Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008

19th Century Ireland
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