the thousand
arms that work the purposes of life. Oh that I had the voice of song, or
skill to translate into tones the harmonies, the symphonies and
oratorios that roll across my soul, when standing sometimes by day and
sometimes by night upon the borders of this verdant sea, I note a world
of promise, and then before one-half the year is gone I view its full
fruition and see its heaped gold await the need of man. Majestic,
fruitful, wondrous plant! Thou greatest among the manifestations of the
wisdom and love of God, that may be seen in all the fields or upon the
hillsides or in the valleys!

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY

MOORE, THE BARD OF ERIN

[Speech of John Boyle O'Reilly at a banquet held in Boston, May 27,
1879, in commemoration of the centenary of Thomas Moore. Mr. O'Reilly,
as chairman of the banquet, sat at the head of the table, with Oliver
Wendell Holmes on his right, and Mayor Frederick O. Prince on his
left. The company numbered more than one hundred, and was a
representative gathering, mostly of Irish-American citizens. The toast
to the memory of Moore, with which Mr. O'Reilly's speech closed, was
drunk by the company standing, the orchestra meanwhile playing "Should
auld acquaintance be forgot?"]

GENTLEMEN:--The honorable distinction you have given me in
seating me at the head of your table involves a duty of weight and
delicacy. At such a board as this, where Genius sits smiling at
Geniality, the President becomes a formality, and the burden of his duty
is to make himself a pleasant nobody, yet natural to the position. Like
the apprentice of the armorer, it is my task only to hold the hot iron
on the anvil while the skilled craftsmen strike out the flexible
sword-blade. There is no need for me to praise or analyze the character
or fame of the great poet whose centennial we celebrate. This will be
done presently by abler hands, in eloquent verse and prose. Tom Moore
was a poet of all lands, and it is fitting that his centenary should be
observed in cosmopolitan fashion. But he was particularly the poet of
Ireland, and on this point I may be allowed to say a word, as one proud
to be an Irishman, and prouder still to be an American.

Not blindly but kindly we lay our wreath of rosemary and immortelles on
the grave of Moore. We do not look to him for the wisdom of the
statesman or the boldness of the popular leader. Neither do we look for
solidity to the rose-bush, nor for strengt