| Padraic Colum (1881–1972). Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922. |
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| 117. Parnell |
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| By Thomas Kettle |
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| TEARS will betray all pride, but when ye mourn him, | |
| Be it in soldier wise; | |
| As for a captain who hath greatly borne him, | |
| And in the midnight dies. | |
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| Fewness of words is best; he was too great | 5 |
| For ours or any phrase. | |
| Love could not guess, nor the slipped hound of hate | |
| Track his soul’s secret ways. | |
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| Signed with a sign, unbroken, unrevealed, | |
| His Calvary he trod; | 10 |
| So let him keep, where all world-wounds are healed | |
| The silences of God. | |
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| Yet is he Ireland’s, too: a flaming coal | |
| Lit at the stars, and sent | |
| To burn the sin of patience from her soul | 15 |
| The scandal of content. | |
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| A name to be a trumpet of attack; | |
| And, in the evil stress, | |
| For England’s iron No! to fling her back | |
| A grim, granatic Yes. | 20 |
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| He taught us more, this best as it was last: | |
| When comrades go apart | |
| They shall go greatly, cancelling the past, | |
| Slaying the kindlier heart. | |
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| Friendship and love, all clean things and unclean, | 25 |
| Shall be as drifted leaves, | |
| Spurned by our Ireland’s feet, that queenliest Queen | |
| Who gives not, but receives. | |
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| So freedom comes, and comes no other wise; | |
| He gave—“The Chief” gave well; | 30 |
| Limned in his blood across your clearing skies | |
| Look up and read: Parnell! | |
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