John Boyle O'Reilly

A cabinet card portrait of John Boyle O'Reilly from around 1885 by Holland, 10 Temple Place, Boston.

O'Reilly was an Irish born poet and novelist who was sentenced to deportation to Western Australia for his part in the Fenian Rising of 1867. He subsequently managed to escape from captivity and made his way to America where he settled in Boston. He found work with a Boston newspaper, The Pilot, later becoming editor and part owner. He died in August 1890, possibly from an overdose of sleeping medicine.

 

 

 

The Cry of the Dreamer

by John Boyle O'Reilly

 

I am tired of planning and toiling

In the crowded hives of men;

Heart-weary of building and spoiling,

And spoiling and building again.

And I long for the dear old river,

Where I dreamed my youth away;

For a dreamer lives forever,

And a toiler dies in a day.

 

I am sick of the showy seeming

Of a life that is half a lie;

Of the faces lined with scheming

In the throng that hurries by.

From the sleepless thoughts' endeavour,

I would go where the children play;

For a dreamer lives forever,

And a thinker dies in a day.

 

I can feel no pride, but pity

For the burdens the rich endure;

There is nothing sweet in the city

But the patient lives of the poor.

Oh, the little hands too skillful,

And the child-mind choked with weeds!

The daughter's heart grown willful,

And the father's heart that bleeds!

 

No, no! from the street's rude bustle,

From the trophies of mart and stage,

I would fly to the woods' low rustle

And the meadows' kindly page.

Let me dream as of old by the river,

And be loved for the dream alway;

For a dreamer lives forever,

And a toiler dies in a day.

Done