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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-03-03 05:39:08 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-03-03 05:39:08 -0800 |
| commit | 574b79f0ae0a628131da9e22fa552713376cf6ed (patch) | |
| tree | 128ba8728150fafc754282969bf6268eefc54805 /38898-h/38898-h.htm | |
| parent | e21dab84a86e762eebe31ee43cea309aff00b5c8 (diff) | |
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+ float: left; + margin-right: 1em } + +.align-right { clear: right; + float: right; + margin-left: 1em } + +.align-center { margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto } + +div.shrinkwrap { display: table; } + +/* SECTIONS */ + +body { margin: 5% 10% 5% 10% } + +/* compact list items containing just one p */ +li p.pfirst { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0 } + +.first { margin-top: 0 !important; + text-indent: 0 !important } +.last { margin-bottom: 0 !important } + +span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } +img.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; max-width: 25% } +span.dropspan { font-variant: small-caps } + +.no-page-break { page-break-before: avoid !important } + +/* PAGINATION */ + +@media screen { + .coverpage, .frontispiece, .titlepage, .verso, .dedication, .plainpage + { margin: 10% 0; } + + div.clearpage, div.cleardoublepage + { margin: 10% 0; border: none; border-top: 1px solid gray; } + + .vfill { margin: 5% 10% } +} + +@media print { + div.clearpage { page-break-before: always; padding-top: 10% } + div.cleardoublepage { page-break-before: right; padding-top: 10% } + + .vfill { margin-top: 20% } + h2.title { margin-top: 20% } +} + +</style> +<title>POEMS AND PARODIES</title> +<meta name="PG.Rights" content="Public Domain" /> +<meta name="PG.Title" content="Poems and Parodies" /> +<meta name="PG.Producer" content="Al Haines" /> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/img-cover.jpg" /> +<meta name="DC.Creator" content="T. M. Kettle" /> +<meta name="DC.Created" content="1916" /> +<meta name="PG.Id" content="38898" /> +<meta name="PG.Released" content="2012-12-06" /> +<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" /> +<meta name="DC.Title" content="Poems and Parodies" /> + +<link href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" rel="schema.DCTERMS" /> +<link href="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators" rel="schema.MARCREL" /> +<meta content="Poems and Parodies" name="DCTERMS.title" /> +<meta content="poems.rst" name="DCTERMS.source" /> +<meta content="en" scheme="DCTERMS.RFC4646" name="DCTERMS.language" /> +<meta content="2012-12-06T18:54:43.325555+00:00" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.modified" /> +<meta content="Project Gutenberg" name="DCTERMS.publisher" /> +<meta content="Public Domain in the USA." name="DCTERMS.rights" /> +<link href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38898" rel="DCTERMS.isFormatOf" /> +<meta content="T. M. Kettle" name="DCTERMS.creator" /> +<meta content="2012-12-06" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.created" /> +<meta content="width=device-width" name="viewport" /> +<meta content="EpubMaker 0.3.20a5 by Marcello Perathoner <webmaster@gutenberg.org>" name="generator" /> +<style type="text/css"> +.pageno { position: absolute; right: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } +.pageno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } +.lineno { position: absolute; left: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } +.lineno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } +.toc-pageref { float: right } +pre { font-family: monospace; font-size: 0.9em; white-space: pre-wrap } +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38898 ***</div> +<div class="document" id="poems-and-parodies"> +<h1 class="center document-title level-1 pfirst title"><span class="x-large">POEMS AND PARODIES</span></h1> + +<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> +</div> +<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-produced-by"><span>Produced by Al Haines.</span></p> +<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> +</div> +<p class="noindent pfirst"><span></span></p> +</div> +<div class="align-None container coverpage"> +<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> +</div> +<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 53%" id="figure-19"> +<img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="Cover" src="images/img-cover.jpg" /> +<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> +<span class="italics">Cover</span></div> +</div> +<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> +</div> +</div> +<div class="align-None container frontispiece"> +<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 55%" id="figure-20"> +<img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="\T. \M. Kettle" src="images/img-front.jpg" /> +<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> +<span class="italics">T. M. Kettle</span></div> +</div> +<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> +</div> +</div> +<div class="align-None container titlepage"> +<p class="center pfirst"><span class="x-large">POEMS & 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"><a class="reference internal" href="#dedication-sonnet-to-my-wife">Dedication Sonnet: To my Wife</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#to-my-daughter-betty-the-gift-of-god">To my daughter Betty, the gift of God</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#on-leaving-ireland">On Leaving Ireland</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#epigram">Epigram</a></p> +<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> +</div> +<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">EARLY POEMS</span></p> +<p class="noindent pnext"><a class="reference internal" href="#to-young-ireland">To Young Ireland</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#sowing">Sowing</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#dreams-and-duty">Dreams and Duty</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#a-song-of-vengeance">A Song of Vengeance</a></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"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-lady-of-life">The Lady of Life</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#when-others-see-us-as-we-see-ourselves">When others see us as we see ourselves</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#ennui">Ennui</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#ballad-autumnal">Ballad Autumnal</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#the-lost-ball">The Lost Ball</a></p> +<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> +</div> +<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">POLITICAL</span></p> +<p class="noindent pnext"><a class="reference internal" href="#parnell">Parnell</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#the-house-of-lords-an-epitaph">The House of Lords: An Epitaph</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#reason-in-rhyme">Reason in Rhyme</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#asquith-in-dublin">Asquith in Dublin</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#ulster">Ulster</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#to-ireland">To Ireland</a></p> +<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> +</div> +<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">WAR POEMS</span></p> +<p class="noindent pnext"><a class="reference internal" href="#paddy">Paddy</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#sergeant-mike-o-leary">Sergeant Mike O'Leary</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#a-nation-s-freedom">A Nation's Freedom</a><span> +<br /></span><a class="reference internal" href="#a-song-of-the-irish-armies">A Song of the Irish Armies</a></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 & +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> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38898 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |