who succeeded in drawing an original thought from the touching, but well-quoted, demand of Emmet, "Let no man write my epitaph."
Tear down the crape from the column! Let the shaft stand white and fair!
Be silent the wailing music—there is no death in the air!
We come not in plaint or sorrow—no tears may dim our sight:
We dare not weep o'er the epitaph we have not dared to write.
He teaches the secret of manhood—the watchword of those who aspire—
That men must follow freedom though it lead through blood and fire;
That sacrifice is the bitter draught which freemen still must quaff—
That every patriotic life is the patriot's epitaph.
The lesson of Emmet's life, as read by O'Reilly, who much resembled him, was this:
In the summer of this year, the laboring people of America were stirred by a crusade against capital, led by an Irish-American, Dennis Kearney of San Francisco, a noisy agitator, who had more than a kernel of right to his bushel of chaff, but his strength lay in denunciation, his weakness in lack of constructive ability. When he came to Boston to harangue the people, some short-sighted conservatives