O'Reilly: A wild fire message burns

When the New York World newspaper attained a circulation of 250,000 subscribers, it wanted to celebrate. The editors chose to commission a poem from John Boyle O'Reilly, an Irish-born poet living in Boston known for writing occasional pieces. His poem "The Press Evangel" ran in the May 10, 1887 issue:

God's order, "light!" when all was void and dark
Brought mornless noon, a flame without a spark.
A gift unearned, that none may hold or hide,
An outer glory, not an inner guide;
But flamed no star in heaven to light the soul
And lead the wayward thought toward Freedom's goal.

O wasted ages! Whither have ye led
The breeding masses for their daily bread?
Engendered serfs, across a world of gloom,
The wavelike generations reach the tomb.
Masters and lords, they feared a lord's decree,
Nor freedom knew nor truth to make them free.

But hark! A sound has reached the servile herd!
Strong brows are raised to catch the passing word;
From mouth to mouth a common whisper flies;
A wild fire message burns on lips and eyes;
Far-off and near the kindred tidings throng—
How hopes come true, how heroes challenge wrong;
How men have rights above all law's decrees;
How weak ones rise and sweep the thrones like seas!
Behold! The people listen—question! Then
The inner light has come—the boors are men!

What read ye here—a dreamer's idle rule?
A swelling pedant's lesson for a school?
Nay, here no dreaming, no delusive charts;
But common interests for common hearts;
A truth, a Principle—beneath the sun
One vibrant throb—men's rights and wrongs are one.
One heart's small keyboard touches all the notes;
One weak one's cry distends the million throats;
Nor race nor nation bounds the human kind—
White, yellow, black—one conscience and one mind!

How spread the doctrine? See the teachers fly—
The printed messages across the sky;
From land to land, as never birds could wing;
With songs of promise birds could never sing;
With mighty meanings clearing here and there;
With nations' greetings kings could never share;
With new communions whispering near and far;
With gathering armies bent on peace, not war;
With kindly judges reading righteous laws;
With strength and cheer for every struggling cause.

Roll on, O cylinders of light, and teach
The helpless myriads tongue can never reach.
Make men, not masses: pulp and mud unite—
The single grain of sand reflects the light.
True freedom makes the individual free;
And common law for all makes Liberty!

O'Reilly: Boston chastened by fire

The flames began in the early evening of Saturday, November 9, 1872, before raging out of control. Slightly delayed by a lack of horses, the fire brigades of Boston were slow to put out the fire, which soon became one of the greatest conflagrations of the century. The Great Boston Fire, as it came to be known, came only a year after a similar one in Chicago. The event laid to waste 65 acres with nearly 800 buildings destroyed, and an estimate $150 million in damage.

Boston emigrant John Boyle O'Reilly was particularly moved by the devastation. He wrote a poem simply titled "Boston" (he had already written a poem about Chicago and, even earlier, about the tragic flood in western Massachusetts), questioning the role God has played in using fire to teach Bostonians a lesson:

O Broad-breasted Queen among Nations!
     O Mother, so strong in thy youth!
Has the Lord looked upon thee in ire,
And willed thou be chastened by fire,
     Without any ruth?

Has the Merciful tired of His mercy.
     And turned from thy sinning in wrath,
That the world with raised hand sees and pities
Thy desolate daughters, thy cities,
     Despoiled on their path?

One year since thy youngest was stricken:
     Thy eldest lies stricken to-day.
Ah! God, was Thy wrath without pity,
To tear the strong heart from our city,
     And cast it away?

O Father! forgive us our doubting;
     The stain from our weak souls efface;
Thou rebukest, we know, but to chasten,
Thy hand has but fallen to hasten
     Return to Thy grace.

Let us rise purified from our ashes
     As sinners have risen who grieved;
Let us show that twice-sent desolation
On every true heart in the nation
     Has conquest achieved.

The peaceful valley has waked and stirred

When a reservoir dam burst open in Williamsburg in western Massachusetts on May 16, 1874, a wall of water crashed down on the surrounding town and flooded for miles. Homes were destroyed, and many died. One local farmer, however, jumped on his horse and rode to warn neighbors of the danger. The actions of Collins Graves earned him a medal for heroism and a dedicatory poem by John Boyle O'Reilly titled "The Ride of Collins Graves":

No song of a soldier riding down
To the raging fight from Winchester town;
No song of a time that shook the earth
With the nations' throe at a nation's birth;
But the song of a brave man, free from fear
As Sheridan's self or Paul Revere;
Who risked what they risked, free from strife,
And its promise of glorious pay—his life!

The peaceful valley has waked and stirred,
And the answering echoes of life are heard:
The dew still clings to the trees and grass,
And the early toilers smiling pass,
As they glance aside at the white-walled homes,
Or up the valley, where merrily comes
The brook that sparkles in diamond rills
As the sun comes over the Hampshire hills.

What was it, that passed like an ominous breath—
Like a shiver of fear, or a touch of death?
What was it? The valley is peaceful still,
And the leaves are afire on top of the hill.
It was not a sound—nor a thing of sense—
But a pain, like the pang of the short suspense
That thrills the being of those who see
At their feet the gulf of Eternity!

The air of the valley has felt the chill:
The workers pause at the door of the mill;
The housewife, keen to the shivering air,
Arrests her foot on the cottage stair,
Instinctive taught by the mother-love,
And thinks of the sleeping ones above.

Why start the listeners? Why does the course
Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a horse—
Hark to the sound of his hoofs, they say—
That gallops so wildly Williamsburg way!

God! what was that, like a human shriek
From the winding valley? Will nobody speak?
Will nobody answer those women who cry
As the awful warnings thunder by?

Whence come they? Listen! And now they hear
The sound of the galloping horsehoofs near;
They watch the trend of the vale, and see
The rider who thunders so menacingly,
With waving arms and warning scream
To the home-filled banks of the valley stream.

He draws no rein, but he shakes the street
With a shout and the ring of the galloping feet;
And this the cry he flings to the wind:
"To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!"

He cries and is gone; but they know the worst—
The breast of the Williamsburg dam has burst!
The basin that nourished their happy homes
Is changed to a demon—It comes! it comes!

A monster in aspect, with shaggy front
Of shattered dwellings, to take the brunt
Of the homes they shatter—white-maned and hoarse,
The merciless Terror fills the course
Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves,
With death on the first of its hissing waves,
Till cottage and street and crowded mill
Are crumbled and crushed...

Graves was credited with saving some 300 lives. Incidentally, O'Reilly had written a poem about the Great Chicago Fire only three years earlier. The more devastating Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania would not be for another 15 years.

O'Reilly and Riley: Beyond wonderment

After the death of Irish-born poet John Boyle O'Reilly (pictured), the "Hoosier Poet" James Whitcomb Riley was moved to write a memorial poem. The poem was dated three days after O'Reilly's death, August 13, 1890 (the day of his funeral, which Riley may have attended):

DEAD? this peerless man of men—
Patriot, Poet, Citizen!—
   Dead? and ye weep where he lies
      Mute, with folded eyes!

Courage! All his tears are done;
Mark him, dauntless, face the sun!
   He hath led you.—Still, as true,
      He is leading you.

Folded eyes and folded hands
Typify divine commands
   He is hearkening to, intent
      Beyond wonderment.

'Tis promotion that has come
Thus upon him. Stricken dumb
   Be your moanings dolorous!
      God knows what He does.

Rather, as your chief, aspire!—
Rise and seize his toppling lyre,
   And sing Freedom, Home and Love,
      And the rights thereof!

Ere in selfish grief ye sink,
Come! catch rapturous breath and think—
   Think what sweep of wing hath he,
      Loosed in endless liberty.

Years earlier, O'Reilly, who was editor of the Boston Pilot, had helped Riley break into the the literary scene of that city. At a time when he most needed it, O'Reilly offered high praise: "He has a rare quality as a writer," he wrote, and predicted his reputation would soon burst outside of his native Indiana. "Hoozierdom cannot hold his reputation locally. He will grow to be an American poet, or we know nothing of the signs of genius."

Grant: O stern-faced Chief

Only a few months before his death, General (and President) Ulysses S. Grant signed a contract to publish his memoir with a publishing house founded by Mark Twain. It became one of the highest-selling books of the century, but he only barely finished it before his death on July 23, 1885 (he is pictured at right in the process of writing that book).

The Irish-born political activist/poet/editor John Boyle O'Reilly offered this poetic tribute, simply titled "Grant—1885":

        Blessed are Pain, the smiter,
        And Sorrow, the uniter!
        For one afflicted lies—
        A symboled sacrifice—
        And all our rancor dies!

No North, no South! O stern-faced Chief,
One weeping ours, one cowled Grief—
Thy Country—bowed in prayer and tear—
For North and South—above thy bier!

For North and South! O Soldier grim,
The broken ones to weep for him
Who broke them! He whose terrors blazed
In smoking harvests, cities razed;
Whose Fate-like glance sent fear and chill;
Whose wordless lips spake deathless will—
Till all was shattered, all was lost—
All hands dropped down—all War's red cost
Laid there in ashes—Hope and Hate
And Shame and Glory!
                                     Death and Fate
Fall back! Another touch is thine;
He drank not of thy poisoned wine,
Nor blindly met thy blind-thrown lance,
Nor died for sightless time or chance—
But waited, suffered, bowed and tried,
Till all the dross was purified;
Till every well of hate was dried;
And North and South in sorrow vied,
And then—at God's own calling—died!

Blackened and bleeding in Chicago

The Great Chicago Fire burned for three days beginning on October 8, 1871. As with many other national tragedies, several poets were inspired to memorialize the event and its unfortunate victims lyrically. Bret Harte, for example, wrote "Chicago" a description of the horrific devastation left behind: "Blackened and bleeding, helpless, panting, prone / On the charred fragments of her shattered throne."

On the other hand, John Greenleaf Whittier noted how Americans were unified in the need to stay hopeful in his own poem, also named "Chicago":

From East, from West, from South and North,
The messages of hope shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world, full-handed reached to save.

John Boyle O'Reilly personified Chicago as a woman "who was once so fair," but now "charred and rent are her garments." Like Whittier, O'Reilly notes that she is "rich in her treasures" because she has friends who will assist her. The country, after all, is striving for Chicago's rebirth:

Silent she stands on the prairie,
Wrapped in her fire-scathed sheet:
Around her, thank God, is the Nation,
Weeping for her desolation,
Pouring its gold at her feet...

It is estimated that as many as 400 people died in the Great Chicago Fire. The rumor persisted for years that the fire which destroyed four square miles was started by the family cow owned by the O'Leary family.

O'Reilly: Best of our ships!

On September 9, 1886, the American yacht Mayflower beat the British challenger Galatea to win the America's Cup. The Irish-born poet John Boyle O'Reilly celebrated the victory with a poem named after the winning yacht:

Thunder our thanks to her — guns, hearts, and lips!
Cheer from the ranks to her,
Shout from the banks to her, —
Mayflower! Foremost and best of our ships.
 Mayflower! Twice in the national story
Thy dear name in letters of gold —
Woven in texture that never grows old —
Winning a home and winning glory!
Sailing the years to us, welcomed for aye;
Cherished for centuries, dearest to-day.
Every heart throbs for her, every flag dips —
Mayflower! First and last — best of our ships!

White as a seagull she swept the long passage.
True as the homing-bird flies with its message.
Love her? O, richer than silk every sail of her,
Trust her? more precious than gold every nail of her,
Write we down faithfully every man's part in her;
Greet we all gratefully every true heart in her.
More than a name to us, sailing the fleetest,
Symbol of that which is purest and sweetest.
More than a keel to us, steering the straightest:
Emblem of that which is freest and greatest.
More than a dove-bosomed sail to the windward:
Flame passing on while the night-clouds fly hind ward.
Kiss every plank of her! None shall take rank of her;
Frontward or weatherward, none can eclipse.
Thunder our thanks to her! Cheer from the banks to her!
Mayflower! Foremost and best of our ships!

O'Reilly published his first book of poems in 1873 at the age of 29. Many of his poems seem relatively tame compared to his more radical early life as an advocate for Irish independence. He was, at one point, convicted as a criminal and sent to a penal colony in Australia. His poetry made him popular enough that, at his death, a monument was erected in his honor in Boston. Western Massachusetts named an Irish cultural center after O'Reilly as well.