Part 2

Will Watson, of the still unanchored art; What random gust, what overwhelming sea Has riven you apart From us, and from the flagship of the free? You whose rich phrase, and vibrant, wont to be Trumpet and drum of onset and attack; Who, when of Abdul's ways you stooped to sing, Would give us just the dire, full-throated thing; Now, when that much-damned man has got the sack, You change your tune, and make to pipe us back From honour, and the task of Liberty! Why argue, though? The plain position is You are mistaken in your premises. You blind your sight with hot, emotional mists, Your way of thought is greatly too morose And moist and lachrymose, For us, a muddled State's last realists. We Irish, to be brief, Are nowise grievers for the sake of grief. I pray you, dry those sympathetic tears, They rust the will; and, Will, your nation's sin Is no dead shame, meet to be covered in, But a live fact that sears. Cancel the past? Soothly when it befalls That ye amend the present, and are just, Go knock your head on Dublin Castle walls: Are they irrelevant, historic dust, Or a hard present-tense? Search through the large print of the Statute Book For your much-valued Lords' benevolence, And swept in vision westward, snatch a look At that dim land, where hunger claims to be The honoured guest in every family; And the slain sun writes, in a scribble of shame, The word of utter Hell, Clanricarde's name. Go South and North; Weep, if you will, along the dismal quays, Watching the unreturning ships go forth To fling our seed of strength and hope and worth In far, untributary ways. And then the soul is something--at least in verse. Ours, poet, is to be a thing of straw, A stained, numb thing, that sits without the law Of yours, great master of the universe? Most nobly planned! But, Watson, there's a text-- Done in stout English in King James's reign-- Which says that souls are not to be annexed, Not for the whole world's gain. Cancel the past! Why, yes! We, too, have thought Of conflict crowned and drowned in olives of peace; But when Cuchullin and Ferdiadh fought There lacked no pride of warrior courtesies, And so must this fight end. Bond, from the toil of hate we may not cease: Free, we are free to be your friend. And when you make your banquet, and we come, Soldier with equal soldier must we sit, Closing a battle, not forgetting it. With not a name to hide, This mate and mother of valiant "rebels" dead Must come with all her history on her head. We keep the past for pride: No deepest peace shall strike our poets dumb: No rawest squad of all Death's volunteers, No rudest man who died To tear your flag down in the bitter years, But shall have praise, and three times thrice again, When at that table men shall drink with men.

ASQUITH IN DUBLIN

(AUGUST, 1912)

You stepped your steps, and the music marched, and the torches tossed As you filled your streets with your comic Pentecost, And the little English went by and the lights grew dim; We, dumb in the shouting crowd, we thought of Him.

Of Him, too great for our souls and ways, Too great for laughter or love, praise or dispraise, Of Him, and the wintry swords, and the closing gloom-- Of Him going forth alone to His lonely doom.

No shouts, my Dublin then! Not a light nor a cry-- You kept them all till now, when the little English go by!

ULSTER

(A REPLY TO RUDYARD KIPLING)

The red, redeeming dawn Kindled in Easter skies, Falls like God's judgment on Lawyers, and lords, and lies. What care these evil things, Though menaced and perplexed, While Kipling's banjo strings Blaspheme a sacred text?

Never did freemen stand, Never were captains met, From Dargai to the Rand, From Parnell to De Wet, Never, on native sod, Weak Justice fared the worst, But Kipling's Cockney "Gawd" Most impotently cursed.

So now, when Lenten years Burgeon, at last, to bless This land of Faith and Tears With fruitful nobleness, The poet, for a coin, Hands to the gabbling rout A bucketful of Boyne To put the sunrise out.

"Ulster" is ours, not yours, Is ours to have and hold, Our hills and lakes and moors Have shaped her in our mould. Derry to Limerick Walls Fused us in battle flame; Limerick to Derry calls One strong-shared Irish name.

We keep the elder faith, Not slain by Cromwell's sword; Nor bribed to subtler death By William's broken word. Free from those chains, and free From hate for hate endured, We share the liberty Our lavish blood assured.

One place, one dream, one doom, One task and toil assigned, Union of plough and loom Have bound us and shall bind. The wounds of labour healed, Life rescued and made fair-- There lies the battlefield Of Ulster's holy war.

TO IRELAND

Men so worthy Suffered for Thee, Men so poor can die; Then come gather All, or rather Those who ask not why.

WAR POEMS

PADDY

(After Mr. Kipling)

I went into the talkin' shop to see about the Bill; The Premier 'e ups and says: "We're waitin' ... waitin' still!" The Tories grinned, and Balfour strung our gamble Haman-high, I outs into the street again, and to meself sez I: O, it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, an' "A cattle-driven crew!" But 'twas "Murphy o' the Munsters!" when the trump of battle blew. When the wind of battle blew, my boys, when the blast of battle blew, It was Burke, and Shea and Kelly when we marched to Waterloo.

I looked into a newspaper to see about the land That bred the man who broke the sin that Bonaparte planned; They'd room for cricket scores, and tips, and trash of every kind, But when I asked of Ireland's cause, it seemed to be behind. For it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, and "Don't annoy us, please!" But it's "Irish Rifles forward--Fast!" when the bullets talk like bees, When the bullets yawn like bees, my boys, when the bullets yawn like bees, It's "Connaught blood is good enough" when they're chanting R.I.P's.

Yes! Sneerin' round at Irishmen, and Irish speech and ways Is cheaper--much--than snatchin' guns from battle's red amaze: And when the damned Death's-Head-Dragoons roll up the ruddy tide The _Times_ won't spare a Smith to tell how Dan O'Connell died. For it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, and "The Fifth'll prate and prance!" But it's "Corks and Inniskillings--Front!" when Hell is loose in France, When Clare and Kerry take the call that crowns the shrapnel dance, O, it's "Find the Dublin Fusiliers!" when Hell is loose in France.

We ain't no saints or scholars much, but fightin' men and clean, We've paid the price, and three times thrice for Wearin' o' the Green. We held our hand out frank and fair, and half forgot Parnell, For Ireland's hope and England's too--and it's yours to save or sell. For it's Paddy this, and Paddy that, "Who'll stop the Uhlan blade?" But Tommy Fitz from Malahide, and Monaghan's McGlade, When the ranks are set for judgment, lads, and the roses droop and fade, It's "Ireland in the firin' line!" when the price of God is paid.

SERGEANT MIKE O'LEARY

It was Sergeant Mike O'Leary who broke the barricade, Who took the chance, and won the Cross that crowns the bayonet trade; 'Twas "M'anam do Dhia," and "How's your heart," and "How could we forget?" But Michael from Inchigeela will fill a ballad yet.

Oh! a fair and pleasant land is Cork for wit and courtesy, Ballyvourney East and Baile Dubh and Kilworth to the sea: And when they light the turf to-night, spit, stamp, swear as of yore, It's the Sergeant Mike O'Leary's ghosts that ward the southern shore.

A NATION'S FREEDOM

Word of the Tsar! and the drowse malign is broken; The stone is rolled from the tomb and Poland free, This is the strong evangel. The guns have spoken; And the scribble of flame of the guns is Liberty.

Have you not met her, my lords, a-walk in the garden, Ranging the dawn, even she, the three times dead? Nay! But in bondage, sundered from light and pardon-- But now the water is wine, and the marriage read.

Word of the Tsar! My lords, I think of another Crowned with dolour, forbidden the sun abased, Bloodied, unbroken, abiding--Ah! Queen, my Mother, I have prayed the feet of the Judgment of God to haste.

Count me the price in blood that we have not squandered, Spendthrifts of blood from our cradle, wastefully true, Name me the sinister fields where the Wild Geese wandered, Lille and Cremona and Landen and Waterloo.

When the white steel-foam swept on the tidal onset, When the last wave lapsed, and the sea turned back to its sleep, We were there in the waste and the wreckage, Queen of the Sunset! Paying the price of the dreams that cannot sleep.

The altar is set; we uplift again the chalice; The priest is in purple; the bell booms to the sacrifice. The trumpets summon to death, and Ireland rallies-- Tool or free? We have paid, and over-paid, the price.

Word of the Tsar! And Russia rises to vision, Poland and Ireland--thus, my lords, was an augured fate. The days draw in, and the ways narrow down to decision-- Will they chaffer, and cheapen, and ruin, or yield to be great?

Written in Belgium, August, 1914

A SONG OF THE IRISH ARMIES

A wind blew out of the Prussian plain; It scourged Liege, and it broke Louvain, And Belgium shook with the tramp of Cain, That a Kaiser might be mad. "Iron is God!"--and they served him well-- "Honour a mark for shot and shell." So they loosed the devils out of Hell From Birr to Allahabad.

THE OLD SOLDIERS SING:

But we took them from Mons to the banks of the Marne, And helped them back on their red return; We can swim the Rhine if the bridges burn, And Mike O'Leary's the lad!

Not for this did our fathers fall; That truth, and pity, and love, and all Should break in dust at a trumpet call, Yea! all things clean and old. Not to this had we sacrificed: To sit at the last where the slayers diced, With blood-hot hands for the robes of Christ, And snatch at the Devil's gold.

THE NEW SOLDIERS SING:

To Odin's challenge we cried Amen! We stayed the plough, and laid by the pen, And we shouldered our guns like gentlemen, That the wiser weak should hold.

Blood on the land, and blood on the sea? So it stands as ordained to be, Stamp, and signet, and guarantee Of the better ways we knew.

Time for the plough when the sword has won; The loom will wait on the crashing gun, And the hands of peace drop benison When the task of death is through.

OLD AND NEW SOLDIERS SING:

Then lift the flag of the Last Crusade! And fill the ranks of the Last Brigade! March on to the fields where the world's re-made, And the Ancient Dreams come true!