Poems & Parodies

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <div class="align-None container titlepage"> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="x-large">POEMS &amp; PARODIES</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">BY <br/>T. M. KETTLE</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">DUBLIN <br/>THE TALBOT PRESS <br/>1916</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> </div> <div class="align-None container verso"> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">Printed by <br/>The Educational Company of Ireland <br/>at <br/>THE TALBOT PRESS <br/>89 Talbot St., Dublin</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> </div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">TOM KETTLE</span></p> <p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">1880-1916</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="pfirst"><span>Two simple words, charged now for some of us with sad and infinite memories. It is not the death of the Professor, nor of the soldier, nor of the politician--nor even of the poet or the essayist--that causes the heart-ache that we feel. It is the loss of that rare, charming, wondrous personality summed up in those two simple words, TOM KETTLE.</span></p> <p class="pnext"><span>A genial cynic, a pleasant pessimist, an earnest trifler, he was made up of contradictions. A fellow of infinite jest--and infinite sadness. His prototypes were Hamlet or the Melancholy Jacques. Among the delightful essays he has left us in that charming little book, </span><em class="italics">The Day's Burden</em><span>, is one entitled "A new way of misunderstanding </span><em class="italics">Hamlet</em><span>." He was himself a veritable Hamlet in this twentieth century Ireland. One may ask, did he quite understand himself? Master of paradox, enunciator of enigma, he was a paradox and an enigma in, and to, himself. Shall we seek now to pluck out the heart of his mystery? The lines are hackneyed beyond hope, but in this instance they apply in truth.</span></p> <p class="pnext"><span>The personality of Kettle had in it something subtle; something essential yet elusive; something not to be defined. He was a great talker in the Johnsonian sense. As a story-teller, it was not so much the point of his tale that counted as his telling of it. The divagations from the text in which he loved to indulge were the delight of his auditors. With truth it may be said that his rich humour, his brilliant, mordant wit, caused his listeners to hang upon his words. And his outlook was so wide, his soul so big, his mind so broad, and a deep love of humanity so permeated him that his talk, or one might more fittingly say, his discourse, was educating and uplifting. But he was a man of moods, descending from heights of Homeric humour to the depths of a divine despair. Those privileged to hear him thus expounding will cherish the memory while they live. We, too, as it were, have "seen Shelley plain." He charmed, he fascinated. This, in truth, describes him for his spell wrought even on those who actually disliked him.</span></p> <p class="pnext"><span>In the numerous notices printed of him since he died much has been written of the promise of his career. More appropriate it would be to write of his performance. He crowded into thirty-six years of life far more than most men achieve in twice that span. Now the orator is silent, the brilliant wit has ceased to sparkle, the skilful pen will ply no more. Tom Kettle knows at last the answer to the riddle that baffled him, the Riddle of the Universe.</span></p> <p class="pnext"><span>Well may we mourn--</span></p> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><em class="italics">For Lycidas is dead;</em></div> <div class="line"><em class="italics">Young Lycidas: dead ere his prime,</em></div> <div class="line"><em class="italics">And hath not left his peer.</em></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>WILLIAM DAWSON.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">CONTENTS</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">PERSONAL</span></p> <p class="noindent pnext"><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#dedication-sonnet-to-my-wife">Dedication Sonnet: To my Wife</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#to-my-daughter-betty-the-gift-of-god">To my daughter Betty, the gift of God</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#on-leaving-ireland">On Leaving Ireland</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#epigram">Epigram</SPAN></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">EARLY POEMS</span></p> <p class="noindent pnext"><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#to-young-ireland">To Young Ireland</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#sowing">Sowing</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#dreams-and-duty">Dreams and Duty</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#a-song-of-vengeance">A Song of Vengeance</SPAN></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">TRANSLATIONS</span></p> <p class="noindent pnext"><span>1At Achensee, Tirol`_ <br/>1The Monks`_</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">MISCELLANEOUS</span></p> <p class="noindent pnext"><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#the-lady-of-life">The Lady of Life</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#when-others-see-us-as-we-see-ourselves">When others see us as we see ourselves</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#ennui">Ennui</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#ballad-autumnal">Ballad Autumnal</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#the-lost-ball">The Lost Ball</SPAN></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">POLITICAL</span></p> <p class="noindent pnext"><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#parnell">Parnell</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#the-house-of-lords-an-epitaph">The House of Lords: An Epitaph</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#reason-in-rhyme">Reason in Rhyme</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#asquith-in-dublin">Asquith in Dublin</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#ulster">Ulster</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#to-ireland">To Ireland</SPAN></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">WAR POEMS</span></p> <p class="noindent pnext"><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#paddy">Paddy</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#sergeant-mike-o-leary">Sergeant Mike O'Leary</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#a-nation-s-freedom">A Nation's Freedom</SPAN><span> <br/></span><SPAN class="reference internal" href="#a-song-of-the-irish-armies">A Song of the Irish Armies</SPAN></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="small">Permission to reprint several of the poems in this Volume has been kindly granted by the proprietors of the </span><em class="italics small">Daily Chronicle, Freeman's Journal, Cork Examiner,</em><span class="small"> Messrs. MAUNSEL &amp; Co., Ltd.. and THE TALBOT PRESS</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="dedication-sonnet-to-my-wife"><span class="large">PERSONAL</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>"Memorial I would have</span></div> <div class="line"><span>... a constant presence</span></div> <div class="line"><span>with those that love me"</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">DEDICATION SONNET</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">TO MY WIFE</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>"Not the sea, only, wrecks the hopes of men,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Look deeper, there is shipwreck everywhere,"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>So mourned the exquisite Roman's rich despair,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Too high in death for that ignoble pen.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Nero, his wrecker, is amply wrecked since then,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And all that Rome's a whiff of charnel air;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But to subdue Petronius' mal-de-mer</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Have we found drugs? I pray you, What? and When?</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Shipwreck, one grieves to say, retains its vogue:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Or let the keel win on in stouter fashion,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And look! your golden lie of Tir-na-n'Og</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Is sunset and waste waters, chill and ashen--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Faith lasts? Nay, since I knew your yielded eyes,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I am content with sight .... of Paradise.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="to-my-daughter-betty-the-gift-of-god"><span class="large">TO MY DAUGHTER BETTY, <br/>THE GIFT OF GOD</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">(ELIZABETH DOROTHY)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown</span></div> <div class="line"><span>To beauty proud as was your mother's prime,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>In that desired, delayed, incredible time,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And the dear heart that was your baby throne,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhyme</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And reason: some will call the thing sublime,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And some decry it in a knowing tone.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And for the secret Scripture of the poor.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>the field, before Guillemont, Somme,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>September 4, 1916.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="on-leaving-ireland"><span class="large">ON LEAVING IRELAND</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">(JULY 14, 1916)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="pfirst"><span class="smaller">The pathos of departure is indubitable.</span></p> <p class="pnext"><span class="smaller">I never felt my own essay "On saying Good-Bye" so profoundly </span><em class="italics smaller">aux tréfonds du coeur</em><span class="smaller">. The sun was a clear globe of blood which we caught hanging over Ben Edar, with a trail of pure blood vibrating to us across the waves. It dropped into darkness before we left the deck. Some lines came to me, suggested by a friend who thought the mood cynical.</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>As the sun died in blood, and hill and sea</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Grew to an altar, red with mystery,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>One came who knew me (it may be over-much)</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Seeking the cynical and staining touch,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But I, against the great sun's burial</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Thought only of bayonet-flash and bugle-call,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And saw him as God's eye upon the deep,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Closed in the dream in which no women weep,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And knew that even I shall fall on sleep.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="epigram"><span class="large">EPIGRAM</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>If grief, like fire, smoked up against our sight,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The Earth were scarfèd in eternal night.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="to-young-ireland"><span class="large">EARLY POEMS</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">TO YOUNG IRELAND</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">(WRITTEN IN 1899)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Dead! art thou dead or sleepest, in this blank, twilight time,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When hearts are sere and pithless? Land of the sword and lyre!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Thy waxen lips are silent, thy brow is bound with rime,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Hast thou late wed with winter, child of earth's primal fire?</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>The sheathèd blade rusts foully, through bitter, barren years,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And harp and pen are bond slaves, thralls to thy children's shame.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We garner cockle harvests, vain words and little fleers.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>From waste lands sown with rancour, search them with proving flame!</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>We droop'd, stark sons of warfare, we blushed and slunk from day,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>While Love and Truth and Honour died in mere fretful fume.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Free brain, free brawn, is given us, then sweep we from our way</span></div> <div class="line"><span>These shamers of our mother, this idle, noisome spume.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>For, lo! an army gathers around a standard clean;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I gird me dinted armour, and press to touch the throng.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Hark! Hark! The minstrels' war-hymn in very strength serene,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>My harp is harsh of utterance, yet take a pupil's song.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Then stout heart join our battle! who hail an eastern sun,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Our toil shall set this people upon earth's purest height.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Then faint heart join our battle! and if our sands be run,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>At least we caoin a swan-lay upon the edge of night.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="sowing"><span class="large">SOWING</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">(WRITTEN IN 1899)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>One mocked: "Thy brain is mad with wine;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The fairies spin the threads of night,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And pour their vials of sour blight</span></div> <div class="line"><span>About the roots of health, yet thine</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And thou, ye garner into verse</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Bright flowers to trick a solemn hearse:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The cowslip, maiden-love of spring,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The burning incense of the rose,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The austere lily, her that blows</span></div> <div class="line"><span>By winter's marge--each gracious thing</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Past or unborn. Weak, trusting fool!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Old Time shall file thee in his school."</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>"I know not Time, his last or first;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>With master hands I despoil all</span></div> <div class="line"><span>His hoarded sweetness and his gall.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I crush the aeons for my thirst,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And so am mad. Pencils of fire</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Limn visions of soul-large desire.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>In Faith I cast on frozen ground</span></div> <div class="line"><span>An obscure life of sweat and tears;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>In the far Autumn of the years</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Men reap full harvests, springing round,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And judge them gifts of kindly chance,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>My deed laughs through each mellow lance."</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="dreams-and-duty"><span class="large">DREAMS AND DUTY</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Life is an inconstant April laughing into May,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Weeping with the aftergust of March storms laid away,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Light o' love! Her mood is gracious, fondling sunbeams stray</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Out across the cloud-smoke purple of her cloud robes gray.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Let us dream among the daisies, troll a roundelay</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Where the gorse gold is lavished, and the lilies pray,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Mary's nuns, whose stainless gift is Heaven's chaliced ray,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Let us twine a wreath of science, let us play our play,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ere we fight the fight of ages, one sweet prelude-day.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span>*      *      *      *      *</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>The stranger heard and mocked us from the usurped throne,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Reeled in his scornful laughter, eater of hearts, blood-blown.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But the Lord God heard and heeded, therefore we do not moan;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For He has whispered to us, 'The secret shuttles fly,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ye know not warp or weaver, yet neither swerve or sigh,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The eater of hearts shall wither, the drinker of blood shall die.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I have set you labour, work it; I will give you increase,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For first is winter-ploughing, after, my guerdon, peace;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ye shall pluck strength from sorrow, ripe when the sorrows cease;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ye shall win strength and wisdom to break the stranger's rule,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But if ye slink and babble ye are but as the fools,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ye are but as the stranger, fit for the thorny schools."</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="a-song-of-vengeance"><span class="large">A SONG OF VENGEANCE</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">FOR COMMANDANT SCHEEPERS <br/>(Murdered January 18, 1902)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>It is done inexpiably; thrust him deep in shameful clay,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Charge his name with every foulness, rule the world's ear as you may--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But the shadow at your banquet that you cannot put away!</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Weak you thought him, sickness-vanquished, given to your eager hate.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>So you played him and you slew him with your feline shows of state,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Weak--and lo! the sanctifying touch of death has made him great.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>As a seed that broadening splits the rock on which a palace stands,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>As a trickling breach that godlike parts one land in hostile lands,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Is the memory of Scheepers and his slaying at your hands.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Hill and plain and stream shall guard it, town and fireside, phrase and song;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Young men's unsubdued aspiring, old men's striving wise and strong;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And though Hope die, Hatred may not for remembrance of his wrong.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Murdered leader--may God fold you in the mercy of His temple,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Sleep as sleep our unborn children, bravest hero and example--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Float the flag or sink for ever, your red eric shall be ample.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="at-achensee-tirol"><span class="large">TRANSLATIONS</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">AT ACHENSEE, TIROL</span></p> <p class="center pnext"><span class="smaller">(From the German of A. Pickler.--Died, 1893)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>The old path up, the wood's ranked gloomy legions,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The lap and the rustle of the lake behind,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And, roused by these, from Death's more timely regions</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The old thoughts fluttering in a lonely mind;</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>About my way the pine-stems thick and thicker</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Huddle, the mossed stone drips abundantly,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And, thro' the screen of woven branches, flicker</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The bright and heaving waves of Achensee.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Pinewood and primrose scents, the air has mixt them;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Poised butterflies, a shining sun-bathed fleet,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Sky's blue, gaunt granite jags, and buoyed betwixt them,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The cloud-fleece flushing with the day's defeat.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>The spell is on me, nor can aught deliver;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Slowly my spirit fails from life and light,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And Past and Future like a pauseless river,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Slide darkly down into a darker night.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>The red glow wans, the blackbird's trill and quaver</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Dies in the sudden gloom, the broad world sleeps;</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And, mixed with moon-fire flakes, the billows waver,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>As though dead hands tossed vainly in their deeps.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>I think of the high dead, and that all-daring</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>First bard whom Orcus' self might not withstand,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>I think of his vast love, and fruitless faring,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>To pluck one rose from Proserpine's hand.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>The Past is an ill riddle, over-subtle,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The Thing-to-Be a rumour of a cloud,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Would know the last weft of Fate's whirring shuttle?</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>You </span><em class="italics">shall</em><span> know, when they wind you in your shroud.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Innsbruck, 18th July, 1904.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="the-monks"><span class="large">THE MONKS</span></p> <p class="center pnext"><span class="smaller">A translation from EMILE VERHAEREN. <br/>Dedicated to Father Benedict, 1905.</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>I do invoke you here, Monks Apostolical,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Fountains of dawn, torches of faith, wrought candlesticks;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Stars shedding day across the ages mystical;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Builders whose walls for scutcheon bear the Crucifix.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Hermits who sat on white, high mountains for a throne;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Hewn marble quick with will, and strength, and angry truth;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Preachers with arms uplift and long sleeves loosely blown</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Over bowed heads, and hearts gnawn of the sateless tooth.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Windows athrob with dawn, rich with all Eastern dyes;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Vases of chastity whose fulness might not cease;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Mirrors whose depths enfold, as lakes the dreaming skies,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Hills where our dreams have breath, fair valleys brimmed with peace.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Seers whose souls, foreknowing death's enfranchisement,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Walked secretly where walks the mere flesh of no feet;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Titans whose breath was more than squadroned argument;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Kings strange to Rome set up in Rome's imperial seat.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Swords hung above the pride of kings and emperors;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Lords of a prouder crown and a more grievious loss;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Warriors whose flag was spread in more tremendous wars,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Slayers of heresy with great blows of the Cross.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Arches and aqueducts of Christian sanctity,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Pillars of silver, channels pouring from the East</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Rivers of grace at which the peoples thirstily</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Have drunk, and quaffed desire for the unending Feast.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Tocsins with war and wounds in your most sombre roll;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Clarions whose proud, full throats salute the captain Christ;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Towers of the sun, whose crosses wear an aureole</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Litten of that far Sun Who was the Sacrificed.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="the-lady-of-life"><span class="large">MISCELLANEOUS</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">THE LADY OF LIFE</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>I sat with her, and spoke right goldenly</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Of love and beauty, and because her hair</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Brushed me, I plucked down Sirius like a pear,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>To braid it, and had laughter for my fee;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Yea, suing her to heavier slavery.</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Had all but plucked the fruitage of her lips,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When, lo! inked clouds and absolute eclipse,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Courteous, but unmistakable ennui.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Then did I mind me of the sorrow wailed</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Thro' poets' books, and how the streaming torch</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Of suns greater than Sirius has failed,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And as I shambled out the menial's door</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>I heard new feet sound in the statued porch</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And salutations I had heard before.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="when-others-see-us-as-we-see-ourselves"><span class="large">WHEN OTHERS SEE US AS WE SEE OURSELVES!</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Day, with his blotting trumpet, overthrew</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>My city of dream, and, with his marshalled spears,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>My thought that had the unperforming years</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Amended and laid the base of heaven true;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But pitying, signed me priest with chrismal dew,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>And I went telling of expatriate tears,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Of Hate cast out with all his sworded peers,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And tower-tops spiring to the gods anew.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>One gibed, one wept, one with his drowséd air</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Chilled me to very stone, but no man hearkened;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>So to my love I went--ah! once love darkened</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Her eyes, and in that darkness I could hide--</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Why should they couch them? In her alien stare</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>I knew she knew all Christs I had denied.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="ennui"><span class="large">ENNUI</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>I saw the loath moon rise,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The sun go sweatily down;</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>There was famine of sleep in his eyes;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>She was a floating frown.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>They nodded heavily</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Over an ancient roof,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>With a pout o' the shoulders, she,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>He with a grind o' the hoof.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And the moon said to the sun:</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>"Another day to irk us!"</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>The sun to the touzled moon,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>"Imagine it a circus."</span></div> </div></div> </div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="ballad-autumnal"><span class="large">BALLAD AUTUMNAL</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="pfirst"><span class="small">(In which Any Old Fool of an idealistic turn, explains--probably without the palest colour of truth--to Any Other, infected with the same disease, the failure of their lives, labours, and dreams, and the triumph of the wise of this world.)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Hair greying, ashen eyes, uncomely ridges,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Autumn of things ill-done, and things undone:</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>How all that water, slipped beneath the bridges,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Chills the adieux of our defeated sun!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>What paltry, unresisted jettison</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Of dear hopes held, and there the graveyard West,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>With mud, miasma, mastless hulks, and midges!--</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>We have not lived as wisely as the rest.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>That wasteful trick of yours, that gust prodigious</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Of dreams too great for their comparison,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Blew stars ablaze, but drowned us in the ditches.</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Sad, generous, valiant, tired ephemeron!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Had we but coined the vision when it shone</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>We, too, had ruled, and mocked the dispossessed.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Well! we have rags, the prudent have the riches--</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>We have not lived as wisely as the rest.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>They squeezed us, and forgot: your Je m'en fiche's</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Struck in too bloodily to pass for fun.</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Our bread was nibbled by the water-witches,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>All that we have is given, and is gone.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Some penny, wheedled for a currant bun,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Some shirtless, soapless starveling, uncaressed,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Still thanks us for, but not our fed ambitious--</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>We have not lived as wisely as the rest.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>ENVOI</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Prince, lift your heart up out of Acheron,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Death bows us gravely to that cleaner test.</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Yea! when all books are closed, all races run,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>We may have lived as wisely as the rest.</span></div> </div></div> </div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="the-lost-ball"><span class="large">THE LOST BALL</span></p> <p class="center pnext"><span class="small">(A golfing rhapsody suggested by "The Lost Chord.")</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Playing one day at the seaside, I was topping my balls on the tees,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And the sand and the bent were littered with fragments of double D's;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Piffle supreme I was playing, and varying "slice" with "pull,"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But I hit one ball a wallop like a kick of a Spanish bull.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>It whistled its way towards Heaven in a rocket's magic flight;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It cancelled the crimson sunset like the shroud of a moonless night;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It knocked the paint off a rainbow and scattered the stars like bees;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And sped thro' the stellar spaces as tho' it would never cease.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>It looped the loop like Pégoud in parabolic curves;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It was salve to my wounded feelings and balm to my ruffled nerves;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It clove my opponent's gizzard like the stab of a Lascar's knife;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And produced the hardest swearing I have ever heard in my life.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>I have sought in the bent and the bushes that one magnificent ball;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It may be Antartic crystals were broken by its fall;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It may be that Death as Caddy may light on the spot it fell;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I may have holed out in Heaven or find myself trapped in Hell.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="parnell"><span class="large">POLITICAL</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">PARNELL</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">(For the unveiling, 1st October, 1911)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Tears will betray all pride, but when ye mourn him,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Be it in soldier wise;</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>As for a captain who hath gently borne him,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>And in the midnight dies.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Fewness of words is best; he was too great</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>For ours or any phrase.</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Love could not guess, nor the slipped hound of hate</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Track that soul's secret ways.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Signed with a sign, unbroken, unrevealed,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>His Calvary he trod;</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>So let him keep, where all world-wounds are healed</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The silences of God.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Yet is he Ireland's too: a flaming coal</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Lit at the stars, and sent</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>To burn the sin of patience from her soul,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>The scandal of content.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>A name to be a trumpet of attack;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>And, in the evil stress,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>For England's iron No! to fling her back</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>A grim granatic Yes.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>He taught us more, this best as it was last:</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>When comrades go apart</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>They shall go greatly, cancelling the past,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Slaying the kindlier heart.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Friendship and love, all clean things and unclean,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Shall be as drifted leaves,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Spurned by our Ireland's feet, that queenliest Queen</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Who gives not but receives.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>So freedom comes, and comes no other wise;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>He gave--"The Chief"--gave well;</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Limned in his blood across your clearing skies</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Look up and read; Parnell!</span></div> </div></div> </div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="the-house-of-lords-an-epitaph"><span class="large">THE HOUSE OF LORDS: AN EPITAPH</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>So you proscribe, and you forbid</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Peace, and the trooping ghosts of hate</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Enfranchise of the coffin-lid--</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Your lordships' lordship speaks too late.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>That word had held when yours, for you,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Thieving and reaving smote us first:</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>If souls were crooked, swords were true;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>They took and kept because they durst.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Still, though the pride of naked swords</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Passed to a meaner, stouter hand,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>You said, and it was done, my lords,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Yours was the law, and yours the land.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>You clove the priest, you robbed the shrine,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>With spoil of Paul and Peter fat,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Brimmed altar-cups with altar-wine</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>To toast your new Magnificat.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>The poor, who are the lords of death,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>To you were mud in foundered ways;</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Your sun was red Elizabeth,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Your noon, the Dutchman's Penal days.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Hunger and halters, grey despair,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Marah of exile, coastless seas,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Baal for master-minister--</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>You gave, my lords, and took your ease.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>And then, in Paris, patience broke;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>"Who is this thing that should oppress?"</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Men asked: "And shall we bear his yoke.</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>This idle whiff of nothingness?"</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>That was your lordships' epitaph;</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Still might you sell a nation's soul,</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Spit on its tomb, and yawn and laugh,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>But, thief to thief, the judgment stole.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>This Ireland whom my lords despised--</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Languid behind inverted thumbs--</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>She who believed and agonised</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Leads on the loud, victorious drums.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> </div> <div class="line"><span>Wave huddled wave, and now the last</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Havocs your castle, built of sand--</span></div> </div> <div class="line"><span>We take the future, you the past,</span></div> <div class="inner line-block"> <div class="line"><span>Ours is the State, the Flag, the Land.</span></div> </div></div> </div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="reason-in-rhyme"><span class="large">REASON IN RHYME</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Will Watson, of the still unanchored art;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>What random gust, what overwhelming sea</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Has riven you apart</span></div> <div class="line"><span>From us, and from the flagship of the free?</span></div> <div class="line"><span>You whose rich phrase, and vibrant, wont to be</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Trumpet and drum of onset and attack;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Who, when of Abdul's ways you stooped to sing,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Would give us just the dire, full-throated thing;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Now, when that much-damned man has got the sack,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>You change your tune, and make to pipe us back</span></div> <div class="line"><span>From honour, and the task of Liberty!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Why argue, though? The plain position is</span></div> <div class="line"><span>You are mistaken in your premises.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>You blind your sight with hot, emotional mists,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Your way of thought is greatly too morose</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And moist and lachrymose,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For us, a muddled State's last realists.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We Irish, to be brief,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Are nowise grievers for the sake of grief.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I pray you, dry those sympathetic tears,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>They rust the will; and, Will, your nation's sin</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Is no dead shame, meet to be covered in,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But a live fact that sears.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Cancel the past? Soothly when it befalls</span></div> <div class="line"><span>That ye amend the present, and are just,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Go knock your head on Dublin Castle walls:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Are they irrelevant, historic dust,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Or a hard present-tense?</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Search through the large print of the Statute Book</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For your much-valued Lords' benevolence,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And swept in vision westward, snatch a look</span></div> <div class="line"><span>At that dim land, where hunger claims to be</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The honoured guest in every family;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And the slain sun writes, in a scribble of shame,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The word of utter Hell, Clanricarde's name.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Go South and North;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Weep, if you will, along the dismal quays,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Watching the unreturning ships go forth</span></div> <div class="line"><span>To fling our seed of strength and hope and worth</span></div> <div class="line"><span>In far, untributary ways.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And then the soul is something--at least in verse.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ours, poet, is to be a thing of straw,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>A stained, numb thing, that sits without the law</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Of yours, great master of the universe?</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Most nobly planned! But, Watson, there's a text--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Done in stout English in King James's reign--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Which says that souls are not to be annexed,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Not for the whole world's gain.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Cancel the past! Why, yes! We, too, have thought</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Of conflict crowned and drowned in olives of peace;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But when Cuchullin and Ferdiadh fought</span></div> <div class="line"><span>There lacked no pride of warrior courtesies,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And so must this fight end.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Bond, from the toil of hate we may not cease:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Free, we are free to be your friend.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And when you make your banquet, and we come,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Soldier with equal soldier must we sit,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Closing a battle, not forgetting it.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>With not a name to hide,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>This mate and mother of valiant "rebels" dead</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Must come with all her history on her head.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We keep the past for pride:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>No deepest peace shall strike our poets dumb:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>No rawest squad of all Death's volunteers,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>No rudest man who died</span></div> <div class="line"><span>To tear your flag down in the bitter years,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But shall have praise, and three times thrice again,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When at that table men shall drink with men.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="asquith-in-dublin"><span class="large">ASQUITH IN DUBLIN</span></p> <p class="center pnext"><span class="small">(AUGUST, 1912)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>You stepped your steps, and the music marched, and the torches tossed</span></div> <div class="line"><span>As you filled your streets with your comic Pentecost,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And the little English went by and the lights grew dim;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We, dumb in the shouting crowd, we thought of Him.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Of Him, too great for our souls and ways,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Too great for laughter or love, praise or dispraise,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Of Him, and the wintry swords, and the closing gloom--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Of Him going forth alone to His lonely doom.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>No shouts, my Dublin then! Not a light nor a cry--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>You kept them all till now, when the little English go by!</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="ulster"><span class="large">ULSTER</span></p> <p class="center pnext"><span class="small">(A REPLY TO RUDYARD KIPLING)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>The red, redeeming dawn</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Kindled in Easter skies,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Falls like God's judgment on</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Lawyers, and lords, and lies.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>What care these evil things,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Though menaced and perplexed,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>While Kipling's banjo strings</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Blaspheme a sacred text?</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Never did freemen stand,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Never were captains met,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>From Dargai to the Rand,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>From Parnell to De Wet,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Never, on native sod,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Weak Justice fared the worst,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But Kipling's Cockney "Gawd"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Most impotently cursed.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>So now, when Lenten years</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Burgeon, at last, to bless</span></div> <div class="line"><span>This land of Faith and Tears</span></div> <div class="line"><span>With fruitful nobleness,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The poet, for a coin,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Hands to the gabbling rout</span></div> <div class="line"><span>A bucketful of Boyne</span></div> <div class="line"><span>To put the sunrise out.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>"Ulster" is ours, not yours,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Is ours to have and hold,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Our hills and lakes and moors</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Have shaped her in our mould.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Derry to Limerick Walls</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Fused us in battle flame;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Limerick to Derry calls</span></div> <div class="line"><span>One strong-shared Irish name.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>We keep the elder faith,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Not slain by Cromwell's sword;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Nor bribed to subtler death</span></div> <div class="line"><span>By William's broken word.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Free from those chains, and free</span></div> <div class="line"><span>From hate for hate endured,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We share the liberty</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Our lavish blood assured.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>One place, one dream, one doom,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>One task and toil assigned,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Union of plough and loom</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Have bound us and shall bind.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The wounds of labour healed,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Life rescued and made fair--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>There lies the battlefield</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Of Ulster's holy war.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="to-ireland"><span class="large">TO IRELAND</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Men so worthy</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Suffered for Thee,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Men so poor can die;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Then come gather</span></div> <div class="line"><span>All, or rather</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Those who ask not why.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="paddy"><span class="large">WAR POEMS</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"></div> <p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">PADDY</span></p> <p class="center pnext"><span class="small">(After Mr. Kipling)</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>I went into the talkin' shop to see about the Bill;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The Premier 'e ups and says: "We're waitin' ... waitin' still!"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The Tories grinned, and Balfour strung our gamble Haman-high,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I outs into the street again, and to meself sez I:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>O, it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, an' "A cattle-driven crew!"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But 'twas "Murphy o' the Munsters!" when the trump of battle blew.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When the wind of battle blew, my boys, when the blast of battle blew,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It was Burke, and Shea and Kelly when we marched to Waterloo.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>I looked into a newspaper to see about the land</span></div> <div class="line"><span>That bred the man who broke the sin that Bonaparte planned;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>They'd room for cricket scores, and tips, and trash of every kind,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But when I asked of Ireland's cause, it seemed to be behind.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, and "Don't annoy us, please!"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But it's "Irish Rifles forward--Fast!" when the bullets talk like bees,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When the bullets yawn like bees, my boys, when the bullets yawn like bees,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It's "Connaught blood is good enough" when they're chanting R.I.P's.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Yes! Sneerin' round at Irishmen, and Irish speech and ways</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Is cheaper--much--than snatchin' guns from battle's red amaze:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And when the damned Death's-Head-Dragoons roll up the ruddy tide</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> won't spare a Smith to tell how Dan O'Connell died.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, and "The Fifth'll prate and prance!"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But it's "Corks and Inniskillings--Front!" when Hell is loose in France,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When Clare and Kerry take the call that crowns the shrapnel dance,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>O, it's "Find the Dublin Fusiliers!" when Hell is loose in France.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>We ain't no saints or scholars much, but fightin' men and clean,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We've paid the price, and three times thrice for Wearin' o' the Green.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We held our hand out frank and fair, and half forgot Parnell,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For Ireland's hope and England's too--and it's yours to save or sell.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>For it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, "Who'll stop the Uhlan blade?"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But Tommy Fitz from Malahide, and Monaghan's McGlade,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When the ranks are set for judgment, lads, and the roses droop and fade,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It's "Ireland in the firin' line!" when the price of God is paid.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="sergeant-mike-o-leary"><span class="large">SERGEANT MIKE O'LEARY</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>It was Sergeant Mike O'Leary who broke the barricade,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Who took the chance, and won the Cross that crowns the bayonet trade;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>'Twas "M'anam do Dhia," and "How's your heart," and "How could we forget?"</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But Michael from Inchigeela will fill a ballad yet.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Oh! a fair and pleasant land is Cork for wit and courtesy,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ballyvourney East and Baile Dubh and Kilworth to the sea:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And when they light the turf to-night, spit, stamp, swear as of yore,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It's the Sergeant Mike O'Leary's ghosts that ward the southern shore.</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="a-nation-s-freedom"><span class="large">A NATION'S FREEDOM</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>Word of the Tsar! and the drowse malign is broken;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The stone is rolled from the tomb and Poland free,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>This is the strong evangel. The guns have spoken;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And the scribble of flame of the guns is Liberty.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Have you not met her, my lords, a-walk in the garden,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Ranging the dawn, even she, the three times dead?</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Nay! But in bondage, sundered from light and pardon--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>But now the water is wine, and the marriage read.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Word of the Tsar! My lords, I think of another</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Crowned with dolour, forbidden the sun abased,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Bloodied, unbroken, abiding--Ah! Queen, my Mother,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>I have prayed the feet of the Judgment of God to haste.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Count me the price in blood that we have not squandered,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Spendthrifts of blood from our cradle, wastefully true,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Name me the sinister fields where the Wild Geese wandered,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Lille and Cremona and Landen and Waterloo.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>When the white steel-foam swept on the tidal onset,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When the last wave lapsed, and the sea turned back to its sleep,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We were there in the waste and the wreckage, Queen of the Sunset!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Paying the price of the dreams that cannot sleep.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>The altar is set; we uplift again the chalice;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The priest is in purple; the bell booms to the sacrifice.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The trumpets summon to death, and Ireland rallies--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Tool or free? We have paid, and over-paid, the price.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Word of the Tsar! And Russia rises to vision,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Poland and Ireland--thus, my lords, was an augured fate.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The days draw in, and the ways narrow down to decision--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Will they chaffer, and cheapen, and ruin, or yield to be great?</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="small">Written in Belgium, August, 1914</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"></div> <p class="center pfirst" id="a-song-of-the-irish-armies"><span class="large">A SONG OF THE IRISH ARMIES</span></p> <div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"></div> <!-- --> <blockquote> <div> <div class="line-block outermost"> <div class="line"><span>A wind blew out of the Prussian plain;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>It scourged Liege, and it broke Louvain,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And Belgium shook with the tramp of Cain,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>That a Kaiser might be mad.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>"Iron is God!"--and they served him well--</span></div> <div class="line"><span>"Honour a mark for shot and shell."</span></div> <div class="line"><span>So they loosed the devils out of Hell</span></div> <div class="line"><span>From Birr to Allahabad.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>THE OLD SOLDIERS SING:</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>But we took them from Mons to the banks of the Marne,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And helped them back on their red return;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We can swim the Rhine if the bridges burn,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And Mike O'Leary's the lad!</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Not for this did our fathers fall;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>That truth, and pity, and love, and all</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Should break in dust at a trumpet call,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Yea! all things clean and old.</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Not to this had we sacrificed:</span></div> <div class="line"><span>To sit at the last where the slayers diced,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>With blood-hot hands for the robes of Christ,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And snatch at the Devil's gold.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>THE NEW SOLDIERS SING:</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>To Odin's challenge we cried Amen!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>We stayed the plough, and laid by the pen,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And we shouldered our guns like gentlemen,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>That the wiser weak should hold.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Blood on the land, and blood on the sea?</span></div> <div class="line"><span>So it stands as ordained to be,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Stamp, and signet, and guarantee</span></div> <div class="line"><span>Of the better ways we knew.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Time for the plough when the sword has won;</span></div> <div class="line"><span>The loom will wait on the crashing gun,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And the hands of peace drop benison</span></div> <div class="line"><span>When the task of death is through.</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>OLD AND NEW SOLDIERS SING:</span></div> <div class="line"> </div> <div class="line"><span>Then lift the flag of the Last Crusade!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And fill the ranks of the Last Brigade!</span></div> <div class="line"><span>March on to the fields where the world's re-made,</span></div> <div class="line"><span>And the Ancient Dreams come true!</span></div> </div></div> </blockquote> <div class="vspace" style="height: 6em"></div> <!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> <div class="backmatter"></div> <SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />