| |
1890
(In memory of the Parnell Commission)
HELP for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt, | |
| Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt! | |
| From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, Oh listen to my song, | |
| The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong. | |
| |
| Their noble names were mentioned—Oh the burning black disgrace!— | 5 |
| By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case; | |
| They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it, | |
| And “coruscating innocence” the learned Judges gave it. | |
| |
| Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon’s knife, | |
| The “honourable gentlemen” deplored the loss of life! | 10 |
| Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger, | |
| No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger! | |
| |
| Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies, | |
| Like phœnixes from Phœnix Park (and what lay there) they rise! | |
| Go shout it to the emerald seas—give word to Erin now, | 15 |
| Her honourable gentlemen are cleared—and this is how:— | |
| |
| They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price, | |
| They only helped the murderer with counsel’s best advice, | |
| But—sure it keeps their honour white—the learned Court believes | |
| They never give a piece of plate to murderers and thieves. | 20 |
| |
| They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman’s hide, | |
| They never marked a man for death—what fault of theirs he died?— | |
| They only said “intimidate,” and talked and went away— | |
| By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they! | |
| |
| Their sin it was that fed the fire—small blame to them that heard— | 25 |
| The boys get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at a word— | |
| They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too, | |
| The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew, and well they knew! | |
| |
| They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail, | |
| They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clan-na-Gael. | 30 |
| If black is black or white is white, in black and white it’s down, | |
| They’re only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown. | |
| |
| “Cleared,” honourable gentlemen! Be thankful it’s no more:— | |
| The widow’s curse is on your house, the dead are at your door. | |
| On you the shame of open shame; on you from North to South | 35 |
| The hand of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth. | |
| |
| “Less black than we were painted”?—Faith, no word of black was said; | |
| The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red. | |
| It’s sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff, | |
| And by the Judge’s well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off. | 40 |
| |
| Hold up those hands of innocence—go, scare your sheep together, | |
| The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bellwether; | |
| And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen, | |
| Tell them it’s tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again! | |
| |
| “The charge is old”?—As old as Cain—as fresh as yesterday; | 45 |
| Old as the Ten Commandments—have ye talked those laws away? | |
| If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball, | |
| You spoke the words that sped the shot—the curse be on you all. | |
| |
| “Our friends believe”? Of course they do—as sheltered women may; | |
| But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay? | 50 |
| They!—If their own front door is shut, they’ll swear the whole world’s warm; | |
| What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm? | |
| |
| The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane, | |
| The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane, | |
| The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees, | 55 |
| And shows the boys have heard your talk—what do they know of these? | |
| |
| But you—you know—ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead, | |
| Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred, | |
| The mangled stallion’s scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer’s low. | |
| Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know! | 60 |
| |
| My soul! I’d sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight, | |
| Pure crime I’d done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate | |
| Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered, | |
| While one of those “not provens” proved me cleared as you are cleared. | |
| |
| Cleared—you that “lost” the League accounts—go, guard our honour still, | 65 |
| Go, help to make our country’s laws that broke God’s law at will— | |
| One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal “strike again”; | |
| The other on your dress-shirt-front to show your heart is clane. | |
| |
| If black is black or white is white, in black and white it’s down, | |
| You’re only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown. | 70 |
| If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends:— | |
| We are not ruled by murderers, but only—by their friends. | |
| |
